Latest News
Online Lecture: “Lest We Forget”
“Lest We Forget” is a unique scrapbook created in the 1970’s by Ruth Masters, to commemorate the men from the Comox Valley who died in the First and Second World Wars. Ruth spent years researching each individual and created pages of photographs and clippings pertaining to their lives. It is a massive book: 21 inches high, 13 inches wide and 8 inches thick. Although the book has held up remarkably well, it is a heavily accessed item and there has been accumulated damage over the years. A major problem was that the adhesive had liquified causing pages, and items, to stick together. This presentation discusses the challenges of conserving the original book and the process of creating a facsimile copy for future use.
Online Lecture: Travel Journal 101 – Proof of Life
Join artist and travel journaler, Wayne Wilson, for a primer on how you can get going on keeping your very own travel journal for each of your epic travel adventures. Whether it’s a wine tour, cycling tour, a vacation in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, or a camp out with your family, you will learn lots of tips and tricks on how to start a travel journal that will keep your memories rich and fresh for years to come.
Live Lecture: Adventures with A Juvenile Elasmosaur
The summer of 2020 was a time of discovery for the Courtenay and District Museum. The bones of a juvenile elasmosaur were discovered in the bank of the Trent River. Thanks to museum staff and community volunteers, this 85 million year old fossil was safely delivered from a 12 m high cliff to the Courtenay Museum. Rescued from certain loss due to erosion, this important specimen took two months to excavate and several months of careful cleaning and preparation.
April 2022 Gift Shop News
New items are arriving in the gift shop. The latest Dinosaur Alphabet Posters and Growth Charts we have received are by Dera Design and made in Canada. If you know any children who love dinosaurs, these are the perfect addition for their room. There are a variety of options including two sizes of posters and a growth chart. Each print is made of high quality canvas and fitted with brass grommets for hanging. The dinosaurs are featured in a beautiful watercolour style, and the lettering is large and pleasing to read. Large poster - 24” X 32” - $56.75 Small poster - [...]
It’s All There in Black and White: 1960 Easter Bonnet Contest
To commemorate the holiday, the Senior NCO Wives’ Club threw an Easter bonnet contest featuring some imaginative designs as seen in this April 20, 1960 Comox District Free Press article.With legacy support from the Bickle Family and the Comox Valley Echo.
April 2022: Sowing Seeds Near Oyster River
See more historical images and stories like this in the museum’s 2020 book Stepping Into Wilderness published with Harbour Publishing. Photo credit: In the early 1930s, brothers Guy and Darrell Smith began developing a show garden and seed farm in the Oyster River area. The Oyster River Seed Farm, as it became known, would eventually cultivate lobelia, Canterbury bells and Iceland poppies as well as twenty acres of pansies, whose seed was shipped across Canada and to California. The Smiths sold their property, located just north of Oyster River to Barret Montford in 1949. For decades, the property was the location of the UBC Oyster [...]
Taking Eggs to Forbidden Plateau: June 1929
A horse team loaded with supplies and boxes of trout eggs, 1930. Photo: 2004.42.28 In the late 1920s, as Forbidden Plateau became a more popular destination, Clinton Wood, who would later become the president of the tourist trade development Bureau, contacted Major J.A. Motherwell, Dominion chief supervisor of fisheries, and suggested stocking some of the lakes. The fisheries department approved the suggestion, and in June 1929, one hundred thousand Kamloops trout eggs arrived on the E&N Railway from the Cowichan Lake hatchery. Local fisheries officer Captain Harry Beadnell supervised the transporting of the eggs up to Forbidden Plateau by pack horse in [...]
Precious Pysanky
Pysanky, also known as Ukrainian Easter eggs, are an ancient art tradition. Pysanky is the plural form of “pysanka” which stems from the Ukrainian verb “pvsatv” meaning “to write”. Artists use a stylus to create wax-resist designs that began thousands of years ago with pagan tribute to seasonal elements and the cycle of life. In later centuries, Christian symbolism melded into the designs. Courtenay residents, Willie and Moreen Haras met in 1983 and ran a business creating and selling pysanky. In 1995, they generously donated these beautiful eggs to the museum. Here is a YouTube video suggested by the Comox Valley Ukrainian Cultural [...]
March 2022 Gift Shop News
Easter and spring are just around the corner and the gift shop has items for perfect presents. There are adorable stuffed toys like lop eared bunnies, lambs, hares, chicks, and squirrels. If you are looking for eggs, we’ve got plenty that are dinosaur related! Everything from hatching to slime to coloured eggs that fizz in water to reveal the dinosaur inside. And don’t forget our mug and card selections which feature sweet Easter creatures.
It’s All There in Black and White: 1947 Fire at the Tarling Home
This fire caused quite a stir locally with “hundreds of spectators and the road ...lined with automobiles”. Something out of the ordinary to see on a Wednesday afternoon as described in this Comox District Free Press article from March 20, 1947. With legacy support from the Bickle Family and the Comox Valley Echo.
March 2022 Stepping into Wilderness
Here now is an image from the museum’s newest award-winning book Step into Wilderness – A Pictorial History of Outdoor Exploration in and around the Comox Valley. Photo credit: A stylishly dressed group gathered at the Comox wharf, 1910s-1920s. Note the elaborate fur accessories sported by three of the women. Jennie Lockhart is second from right. Photo: CDM Childs collection. Page 186.
Collection Selections March 2022
To celebrate our ongoing organization of the Courtenay and District Museum collection, please join us for the first in a Collection Selections series of re-discovered items, including those that became a vital part of life and business in the 20th century and went on to shape the future. CDM 972.152.1 This is the Oliver No. 5, a peculiar typewriter manufactured by The Oliver Typewriter Co. in 1913. Thomas Oliver, a Methodist minister from Woodstock, Ontario, founded his typewriter company in 1895 while on a business trip to Chicago, Illinois. The batwing-like typing bars are the most striking feature of this machine, but this [...]
The Optimists of the Comox Valley
To mark UN International Happiness Day on March 20, we present a photo flashback of “The Optimists” from 1941. Local historian Isabelle Stubbs described The Optimists as "...a Pierrot Troupe organized in 1941 by Mrs. B. Harvey, sponsored by the Kinsmen, [who] travelled to military camps on the Island to entertain troops and to raise funds for the war effort. They presented a variety program, bright, fast-paced, tuneful." Back row, left to right: Sid Williams, Rod Glen, Bill Stubbs, Mrs. Barnett [Edith] Harvey, Jack Reynolds, Reg Kelly, Add Clement. Front row, left to right: Grace Edwards, Pamela Harvey, Rose Hartwig, Margaret Smith, Doris [...]