As published in The Guardian, 12 Feb 2008
Editor:
The IRIS Group's public meetings on heritage offer hope we Islanders may re-invent ourselves when it comes to this mother of all motherhood issues.
Expect these meetings to present a bee-hive of sorts: There'll be a queen bee of heritage, bursting with self-importance; several drones, doing what they do best, namely, drone on and on; and worker bees, who've had too much to do with too little help, the heroes of Island heritage these 30 years.
To me, there already is a Prince Edward Island Museum. The Island's 30 small community museums and Museum and Heritage P.E.I. sites are its chapters, some poorly, some elegantly written, to be sure. The Mi'kmaq Cultural Centre on Lennox Island, the Acadian Museum in Miscouche, Basin Head Fisheries Museum, the Potato Museum in O'Leary, the Irish Moss Interpretive Centre in Miminegash, Green Park Shipbuilding Centre, the shrines to Maud Montgomery, Elmira Railway Museum, the Fox Museum and P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame in Summerside, Orwell Corner Historic Village, present elemental chapters in our unfolding Island story. Meanwhile, hands-on sites such as Wyatt Heritage Properties enable us to experience how our Loyalist, Victorian and Edwardian ancestors worked and played.
No need then to build an over-arching Island museum, costing millions, to duplicate chapters that already exist. Nor do we need another white elephant such as we see pastured at Founders' Hall.
Rather, Islanders should ponder what chapters are lacking in this book of the Island. The greatest omission is a natural history museum, pulsating with the living, breathing creatures who've lived here over the millennia. A site such as this, championed by Dr. Tom Hall, Don Groom and others, would draw thousands every year annually to see, touch and feel what makes us Islanders. Infused with Sea World smarts, it will make money, not squander it.
In short, if we must build more museums, let's build museums that won't bore the socks off my six-year-old. For an Island that's given us wondrous kitchen table inventors from Abraham Gesner and Thomas B. Hall to Lloyd Ellis and Sonny Huestis, this shouldn't pose a problem.
Wayne Wright,
Summerside
Friday, February 15, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
City Councillor says heritage attractions need 'Disney' effect.
Brent Gallant of Summerside urges province to find experts to make product more exciting
by MIKE ARNOLD - as published by THE GUARDIAN - Feb 12, 2008
SUMMERSIDE - A city councillor says it's time to change the way things are done if Island heritage and museum attractions are to appeal to greater numbers of visitors and residents alike.
Coun. Brent Gallant, the city's liaison to the Wyatt Heritage Properties, said the province needs to invest in expertise to create a new and more attractive image for heritage attractions and museums across the Island.
"We have to create a product that has its own gravitational pull," he said. "That bland experience that we've basically had for the past number of years here, it just doesn't work."
Gallant said the major gap in these attractions is the lack of a "Disney" effect.
"What Disney is, is an attraction," he said "It's an epic event. We have a myriad of small unattended displays. This province is full of them."
The councillor said many of these could be packaged, making it a bigger event, making it worthwhile and in turn attracting more people.
"I can do a fox museum and a potato museum and I could do all this cultural stuff in a one-stop shopping event," he said. "It makes it more exciting."
Gallant said there is a group which is keen on the way heritage is presented today.
"That's all well and good but the fact is if nobody else is seeing that then you're defeating the purpose," he said.
"You've got to put a little more Disney in it to make it more exciting to go. If you don't do that and you only rely on what we've always done then you can expect to get the results we've always gotten. We can't be expected to just throw something up here and this happen back then. It's just not enough excitement."
Gallant says he isn't promoting the use of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck but rather using today's technology to enhance the presentation and experience of heritage on P.E.I.
He said he doesn't have the answers to this problem. He wants the province to invest in expertise and then back off from those experts and let them do their job.
"We need to be more exciting and inviting and if that takes away from some of the traditional ways we've done it then so be it," he said.
"It's basically more important to have the numbers come in and see the product and enjoy and experience the product then it is to keep it so pure and pristine that only those, that small little section of society, that lives in that world experiences it."
Gallant said it's going to take a wholesale change from what has been done for the past 50-plus years to increase numbers to these attractions.
summerside@theguardian.pe.ca
by MIKE ARNOLD - as published by THE GUARDIAN - Feb 12, 2008
SUMMERSIDE - A city councillor says it's time to change the way things are done if Island heritage and museum attractions are to appeal to greater numbers of visitors and residents alike.
Coun. Brent Gallant, the city's liaison to the Wyatt Heritage Properties, said the province needs to invest in expertise to create a new and more attractive image for heritage attractions and museums across the Island.
"We have to create a product that has its own gravitational pull," he said. "That bland experience that we've basically had for the past number of years here, it just doesn't work."
Gallant said the major gap in these attractions is the lack of a "Disney" effect.
"What Disney is, is an attraction," he said "It's an epic event. We have a myriad of small unattended displays. This province is full of them."
The councillor said many of these could be packaged, making it a bigger event, making it worthwhile and in turn attracting more people.
"I can do a fox museum and a potato museum and I could do all this cultural stuff in a one-stop shopping event," he said. "It makes it more exciting."
Gallant said there is a group which is keen on the way heritage is presented today.
"That's all well and good but the fact is if nobody else is seeing that then you're defeating the purpose," he said.
"You've got to put a little more Disney in it to make it more exciting to go. If you don't do that and you only rely on what we've always done then you can expect to get the results we've always gotten. We can't be expected to just throw something up here and this happen back then. It's just not enough excitement."
Gallant says he isn't promoting the use of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck but rather using today's technology to enhance the presentation and experience of heritage on P.E.I.
He said he doesn't have the answers to this problem. He wants the province to invest in expertise and then back off from those experts and let them do their job.
"We need to be more exciting and inviting and if that takes away from some of the traditional ways we've done it then so be it," he said.
"It's basically more important to have the numbers come in and see the product and enjoy and experience the product then it is to keep it so pure and pristine that only those, that small little section of society, that lives in that world experiences it."
Gallant said it's going to take a wholesale change from what has been done for the past 50-plus years to increase numbers to these attractions.
summerside@theguardian.pe.ca
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Future of Our Past
as published in The Guardian (Charlottetown) Opinion, Monday, February 11, 2008, p. A7
This is the first in a series of three articles meant to encourage and inform public participation in the Island Heritage Study commissioned by the provincial government. As part of the study, public meetings conducted by The IRIS Group are currently underway.
By Monica MacDonald
What is heritage and why is it important enough for the government of Prince Edward Island to commission a comprehensive study of it?
First, heritage is not history. History can be defined both as the sum of all past events, as well as the written accounts about those events by historians. Heritage, as the provincial government has defined it, is the tangible and intangible remains of our natural and cultural past, like fossils, artifacts and folksongs. Activities of the provincial government in heritage include the preservation and protection of these remains, as well as their interpretation to wider audiences than scholarly history is usually able to reach.
The best of heritage practice does not aim to be celebratory or nostalgic but is analytical and educative, informing the present and even helping us make decisions about the world around us. An exhibition on natural history can illuminate aspects of our ancient past, but can also make us aware of the environmental problems of our own day, and compel us to act. A presentation on the origins of certain cultural or religious rites can reveal that there is often much more behind what is taken for mere custom or tradition. Public spaces where these displays and discussions take place area vital part of a dynamic heritage environment.
Heritage has been important to people as a component of identity. Access to common stories and objects of the past helps to create social cohesion, a connectedness to a group defined in national, provincial, ethnic, or other terms. This can have a dark side if used as a means of exclusion, but it can also empower those whose pasts were hitherto neglected. Until the 20thcentury, for example, with some exceptions, the written and other cultural records of women, Aboriginal peoples, people of non-European descent and the working classes were not deemed as worthy of retention as those of upper-class, white males. Greater attention to this fact in more recent ears allows our archives, museums and libraries to facilitate a wider knowledge of the past and present realities of these groups.
Heritage has an impact on our contemporary lives in other ways. Historians of the Atlantic provinces have long recognized that a common perception of the region as unprogressive, conservative and quaint, is at least partly due to both national and local depictions of our past. Historian Margaret Conrad, for one, believes this has a negative impact on federal public policy concerning the region. As the province with the first female elected premier and the first provincial premier of non-European ancestry in Canada,Prince Edward Island hardly fits this stereotype. But what about our past is nationally known besides the Charlottetown Conference that led to Confederation and the story of the little girl with red braids? Worthy subjects, both, but as students of P.E.I. history well know, there is much more to it than that. In order for the rest of Canada to be aware of this fact, however, we have to be aware of it ourselves.
Heritage is deemed an important part of the tourism industry and indeed, one can speak of heritage itself as an industry. As a way to draw visitors to the Island and a way to create jobs, it is considered part of our economic engine. Entrance or user fees like those charged at historic sites are used to help offset costs in site maintenance, as well as costs associated with efforts in interpretation and education. But we must be vigilant about maintaining commercial activities at a sustainable level and ensure that heritage, as defined in the above terms as far as government is concerned,is supported for its own sake; that it remains a public service and accessible to all as part of our cultural rights.In professional history we have come a long way from the days when our knowledge of the Island’s past was connected primarily to national events at the expense of the regional or provincial, where cultural diversity was unacknowledged and where the “great men, great events” version of history reigned supreme. Governments cannot create policy for history, but they can create policy for heritage. The opportunity now exists for Islanders to help make government responsibility in this area a key aspect of our provincial public policy, and to support it as a vehicle for education about our past,present and future.
Dr. Monica MacDonald is an adjunct professor in Canadian Studies at UPEI and an associate of The IRIS Group, an Island company specializing in public policy research.
More information on the Island Heritage Study and the public meetings is available at http://islandheritagestudy.wordpress.com
The second article in this series on Monday, Feb. 18 will examine the role of museums.
© 2008 The Guardian (Charlottetown). All rights reserved.
This is the first in a series of three articles meant to encourage and inform public participation in the Island Heritage Study commissioned by the provincial government. As part of the study, public meetings conducted by The IRIS Group are currently underway.
By Monica MacDonald
What is heritage and why is it important enough for the government of Prince Edward Island to commission a comprehensive study of it?
First, heritage is not history. History can be defined both as the sum of all past events, as well as the written accounts about those events by historians. Heritage, as the provincial government has defined it, is the tangible and intangible remains of our natural and cultural past, like fossils, artifacts and folksongs. Activities of the provincial government in heritage include the preservation and protection of these remains, as well as their interpretation to wider audiences than scholarly history is usually able to reach.
The best of heritage practice does not aim to be celebratory or nostalgic but is analytical and educative, informing the present and even helping us make decisions about the world around us. An exhibition on natural history can illuminate aspects of our ancient past, but can also make us aware of the environmental problems of our own day, and compel us to act. A presentation on the origins of certain cultural or religious rites can reveal that there is often much more behind what is taken for mere custom or tradition. Public spaces where these displays and discussions take place area vital part of a dynamic heritage environment.
Heritage has been important to people as a component of identity. Access to common stories and objects of the past helps to create social cohesion, a connectedness to a group defined in national, provincial, ethnic, or other terms. This can have a dark side if used as a means of exclusion, but it can also empower those whose pasts were hitherto neglected. Until the 20thcentury, for example, with some exceptions, the written and other cultural records of women, Aboriginal peoples, people of non-European descent and the working classes were not deemed as worthy of retention as those of upper-class, white males. Greater attention to this fact in more recent ears allows our archives, museums and libraries to facilitate a wider knowledge of the past and present realities of these groups.
Heritage has an impact on our contemporary lives in other ways. Historians of the Atlantic provinces have long recognized that a common perception of the region as unprogressive, conservative and quaint, is at least partly due to both national and local depictions of our past. Historian Margaret Conrad, for one, believes this has a negative impact on federal public policy concerning the region. As the province with the first female elected premier and the first provincial premier of non-European ancestry in Canada,Prince Edward Island hardly fits this stereotype. But what about our past is nationally known besides the Charlottetown Conference that led to Confederation and the story of the little girl with red braids? Worthy subjects, both, but as students of P.E.I. history well know, there is much more to it than that. In order for the rest of Canada to be aware of this fact, however, we have to be aware of it ourselves.
Heritage is deemed an important part of the tourism industry and indeed, one can speak of heritage itself as an industry. As a way to draw visitors to the Island and a way to create jobs, it is considered part of our economic engine. Entrance or user fees like those charged at historic sites are used to help offset costs in site maintenance, as well as costs associated with efforts in interpretation and education. But we must be vigilant about maintaining commercial activities at a sustainable level and ensure that heritage, as defined in the above terms as far as government is concerned,is supported for its own sake; that it remains a public service and accessible to all as part of our cultural rights.In professional history we have come a long way from the days when our knowledge of the Island’s past was connected primarily to national events at the expense of the regional or provincial, where cultural diversity was unacknowledged and where the “great men, great events” version of history reigned supreme. Governments cannot create policy for history, but they can create policy for heritage. The opportunity now exists for Islanders to help make government responsibility in this area a key aspect of our provincial public policy, and to support it as a vehicle for education about our past,present and future.
Dr. Monica MacDonald is an adjunct professor in Canadian Studies at UPEI and an associate of The IRIS Group, an Island company specializing in public policy research.
More information on the Island Heritage Study and the public meetings is available at http://islandheritagestudy.wordpress.com
The second article in this series on Monday, Feb. 18 will examine the role of museums.
© 2008 The Guardian (Charlottetown). All rights reserved.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Island Heritage Study - Submitting a Written Response
From the Island Heritage Study Blog
If you wish to provide your feedback on in writing, please send your comments, along with your name, the name of the organization you represent if applicable, and your contact information to:
Island Heritage Study, c/o The IRIS Group
P.O. Box 21150,
Charlottetown, PE
C1A 9H6
or by e-mail to yvette@theIRISgroup.ca
Key Questions/Issues: Heritage Study
From the Island Heritage Study Blog
The key questions related to the public consultations across the province have been posted on their blog by The Iris Group.
The consultant firm was recently hired to undertake a heritage study for the Province of PEI.
The key questions related to the public consultations across the province have been posted on their blog by The Iris Group.
The consultant firm was recently hired to undertake a heritage study for the Province of PEI.
Key Questions/Issues:
1) Is heritage important to PEI? Why or why not?
2) What do you consider to be the main strengths and assets of the Island’s heritage resources, institutions, organizations and programs?
3) What do you consider to be the major gaps or weaknesses in the Island’s heritage resources institutions, organizations and programs?
4) What should PEI be doing to build on its heritage assets and address any existing weaknesses/gaps?
5) What is your vision for a healthy and dynamic future for the heritage in PEI?
6) What role do you think the Government of PEI should play in helping to achieve this vision?
Dates of Public Meetings Announced - Heritage Study
From the Island Heritage Study Blog
The dates of the public consultations across the province were recently announced by The Iris Group, consultants hired to undertake a Heritage Study for the Province of PEI.
Making a Presentation in Person
The dates of the public consultations across the province were recently announced by The Iris Group, consultants hired to undertake a Heritage Study for the Province of PEI.
Making a Presentation in Person
Those wishing to share their thoughts on the key questions/issues in person are invited to attend one of the public meetings listed on the attached schedule.
SCHEDULE OF PUBLIC MEETINGS
Meetings run from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Feb. 4th– O’Leary, Future Tech West, Main St. (storm date Feb. 6th)
Feb. 5th – Souris, Access PEI (storm date Feb. 6th)
Feb. 11th – Hunter River, Lion’s Club, Rennie’s Rd. (storm date Feb. 13th)
Feb. 13th – Miscouche (in French), Le Musee Acadien (storm date Feb. 14th)
Feb. 19th – Summerside, Eptek Centre (storm date Feb. 25th)
Feb. 20th – Montague, Church of Christ Hall, Main St. (storm date Feb. 25th)
Feb. 21st – Charlottetown, Charlottetown Hotel (storm date Feb. 25th)
The Iris Group launches new blog
The Iris Group has launched a new blog related to their study on PEI heritage issues. The blog will help Islanders participate in the study, and give detail on upcoming public sessions across the province.
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