Latest News
New Reptile in Town
Valley’s most famous dinosaur welcomes a juvenile elasmosaur just in time for birthday The team of workers hang the fleshed-out juvenile elasmosaur at the museum. Almost a quarter-century has passed since Mike Trask and his daughter Heather discovered the fossilized remains of an 80-million-year-old elasmosaur on the banks of the Puntledge River near Courtenay. But at last he has come face-to-face with what the fearsome creature would have looked like when it was alive. Trask was at Courtenay and District Museum to witness the arrival of its latest exhibit - a scientifically-accurate fleshed out version of the species from the Age of [...]
Christmas Open House
11 am to 4 pm, Saturday, December 1, 2012 Mark your calendars for our Christmas Open House celebration. The museum will be decked out for Christmas. Enjoy a beverage and sweet treats. There will be crafts for children to make. View all the fabulous new exhibits and enjoy a lively, interactive discussion of the history of Christmas Traditions. Enter to win door prizes. We also have a special deal for our members: for this one day only we are offering museum members 25% off in the gift shop on non-consignment and non-sale items. Museum entry to the Open House will be free to any [...]
Christmas Craft Saturdays
10 am to 2 pm, December 8 and 15 Looking for activities for the kids? Join us on Saturday, December 8 and 15 for Christmas crafts. Kids will have a chance to make some old fashioned crafts such as Christmas stars, spice balls or painted pinecones that they may want to use to decorate the museum Christmas tree. This is a great chance to explore a number of hands-on activities to celebrate the season. Admission is by donation.
It’s All There in Black and White: Comox Kingpin
Who arrived in the Valley in the year 1909 and was considered a Comox King Pin by 1935? Find the answer in this article from the November 14, 1935 edition of the Comox District Free Press. Click for Larger Image Click for Larger Image
Before Television: Seals and Wax
CDM 997.530.2 What Happens When We Turn off the Remote Before computers, television or even telephones we used to write letters. Lots of letters. And if one of your letters called for an extra decorative flourish you might close the envelope with some wax and a seal like the one pictured above. This seal dates from approximately 1900 and bears the initials SEM that stand for Sylvia Edith Markle. Sylvia married W.A.W. Hames and the family moved to the Comox Valley in 1914. Historically, the use of seals goes back to the earliest civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. And, apparently, [...]
Capes Escape: Women’s History Month
Image from The Land of Plenty October is Women's History month in Canada and this year's theme is Strong Girls, Strong Canada: Leader's From the Start. Here's an interesting related story about the Capes sisters - two young women who were way ahead of their time. Katherine and Phyllis Capes sure made the front page headlines in the Toronto Daily Star newspaper back in August of 1933. With $8 between them and 30 pound packs on their backs, they hitch hiked their way across the country. In total, they had 28 traveling days. They slept most nights in their sleeping bags in [...]
Before Television: Halloween Decorations
CDM 991.74.59 As this image from the mid-1920s shows, people went hog wild with party decorations before television! The scan is from a glass plate negative in the museum's collection and it certainly highlights the decorators' creativity in using items that were probably both store bought and homemade. Exact location of the get-together is unknown - only that it was somewhere on south-central Vancouver Island. According to the Comox Argus of 1925, the Comox Valley was partying for Halloween around that time, too. The Union Bay CGIT (Canadian Girls in Training) hosted a party at the school hall whose "costumes and decorations [...]
Envisioning the World at Royal BC Museum
Royal BC Museum hosts the world’s earliest printed maps Hartman D. Schedel, German, 1440-1514Untitled Map of the worldNuremberg, Germany, 1493 Victoria, BC – The new Royal BC Museum season opened October 4th with Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps, 1472-1700 an exhibition of thirty rare world maps drawn from the Wendt collection, complemented by a 1696 double-hemisphere map from the BC Archives collection. The exhibition includes the first world map ever printed, a simple woodprint, which illustrates the cumulative history of many of these maps. First drawn around 150 A.D. the map was re-discovered in 6th century Alexandria, Egypt. Then Isidore [...]
It’s All There in Black and White: Lest We Forget
This November 7th, 1980 Comox District Free Press article speaks to us of the sacrifices made by the young men from our community and the woman who was not willing to let us forget. Though the Courtenay and District Museum has moved from the Native Sons Hall to the former Post Office, Ruth Masters book "Lest We Forget" is still on display to honour these men. Click for Larger Image Click for Larger Image
Upcoming Lecture: The Fort at Yorke Island, 1937-1945
During World War II, one of Canada’s least known military fortresses was built on Yorke Island, BC, just six kilometers northeast of Kelsey Bay. The fort was armed with guns, searchlights, examination vessels, and upwards of 500 men. From 1937-1945 this was Canada’s key western defence against Japanese attack. Life for the soldiers on Yorke Island had to be self-sufficient, but there was plenty of interaction with the local population. The locals never forgot these soldiers, who sometimes took shots at them, but who were also grateful for their hospitality when so far from home. Click here for Details
Upcoming Lecture: Looking and Seeing – Visual Design in Photography
Most images we make in photography seem to end their short lives with the overly worn “Delete” button on the backs of our cameras. Why? This entertaining 1.5 hr lecture and slide presentation explores the thought process and mechanics behind visual design and compositional techniques – why they work and why they sometimes fail. Facilitator Boomer Jerritt will use his compelling images to provide thought provoking information for the beginning and advanced photographer alike. Click here for Details
Before Television: Blue Heron
Blue Heron, CDM 998.236.1 "Before Television" is a newsletter feature that shares the Courtenay and District Museum collection with readers and highlights the ingenuity and creativity of people as they added beauty and personal style to items from their home and work life. This painting of a blue heron is from an instruction booklet created by Rose Baikie (later Rose McKenzie) when she was a teacher in the Comox Valley. Rose carefully painted images of a dozen local birds and gathered facts about their habits to share with her students. Rose (b. 1906 – d. 1979) spent her first years of teaching at the [...]
New Kid on the Block
Gillian Miller started her position running the visitor services at the museum in June. She enjoys the daily variety of work that the position offers. Never before has she sewn eyes on a dinosaur outfit or fed live worms to an African Lung Fish! Gillian’s hometown is Brighton, England. She has been fortunate enough to have lived and worked in London, Vancouver, Washington DC, and Cape Cod. Gillian moved permanently to Vancouver in 1986 where she married and worked in credit card services for a major credit card company. Gillian has worked at numerous other occupations, everything from being a nanny, Montessori teacher, manager [...]