Our new Forestry Museum display
by Andrew Bryant, 30 May 2019.
Some “events” just fall into your lap. Others take hard work and persistence. This one had elements of both.
In May of 2018 we were approached by Nikita Johnston of the Powell River Historical Museum and Archives. It appears that our existing “display” had “seen better days”. Nikita kindly wondered whether we wished to “update” it.
Things happened fast. The Club Executive quickly approved a $400 budget and a “design-team” was duly formalized. Nikita generously offered a “booth” instead of a “wall”.
So Nancy, Lois and I spent the better part of a year designing stuff, building stuff, arguing about stuff, and kicking ideas around to the point where we needed to design stuff all over again. More than once.
Personally my favorite moment was having to chop the legs off a carefully-crafted display cabinet…because, well, nobody’s perfect. Stealing a crab from the “contorted-pod-evening-primrose” field-trip comes in at a close 2nd..and watching Lois’s face when she dropped that sea-urchin and it shattered? Oh. The horror.
In the end it all came together (including the sea urchin). And we came in under-budget.
I’m struck by how much Powell Riverites like to “give back”.
- Thanks to Rona (once again), who seem to like us and are never shy of donating $50 worth of lumber or hardware to a worthy cause.
- Thanks to Western Forest Products, who color-printed the satellite images at large size (to do this commercially would have been hugely expensive).
- Thanks to PR Glass, who special-ordered a piece of lexan, taught me how to drill it, and made a $65 contribution on a $110 sale.
Ooh ya. I love the nature of our small town.