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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNorth Huron Visitors' Guide, 1988-06-15, Page 9NORTH HURON VISITORS' GUIDE PAGE 9. Visitors’ Guide ■ Pioneer Museum exhibitions get new home Visitors and residents of Huron alike have the opportunity to see one of the best collections of pioneer rural life artifacts in Canada under one roof. And this year visitors to the Huron County Pioneer Museum will also get the chance to see the collection in its new home, a $2.4 million addition to the original 1851 Central School that was the original home of the museum. It will be like visiting someone in the middle of renovating their house but visitors will be able to see the artifacts and glimpse what the future displays will be like. Construction crews are busy in the new building, building display areas in the military, steam and agricultural galleries and con­ struction crews will be scurrying around the old school house to renovate it as the second phase of the museum building program. The displays people will see this summer will be a small portion of the displays available in a couple of years but the new building itself is worth a visit. Designed by former Blyth archi­ tect Chris Borgal, who is one of Canada’s busiest museum design­ ers, the building provides a variety of visual experiences, soaring two stories here, bringing the outside inside there. It takes visitors through the development of Huron county with displays that could also tell of the development of most of rural Ontario. Visitors to the museum get to see history before they even enter the door with steam tractors, a log cabin and other historic artifacts parked on the lawn. Where before renovations be­ gan visitors entered in the front dooroftheoldschoolhouse, the new entrance is in the new section of the building, down a walk along the south side of the old school­ house. Inside visitors step into a soaring lobby reaching two stories to the roof. To the right is the reception area and souvenir shop. While other communities along Lake Huron sprout marinas lined with millions of dollars worth of sailboats or condominium developments at a hundred thousand per unit, Port Albert harks back to an earlier era. Although there are some spectacular modern cottages down the beach, Port Albert itself seems to have changed little in the last few decades. There are no trendy boutiques, just a general store. The most modern development is probably the fish ladder that helps salmon climb the Nine-Mile or Lucknow River to spawn. Down by the beach the river winds through shifting sand banks into Lake Huron. At times you can still see the old timber pilings that market the entrance to the harbour when Port Albert saw sailing ships come into the harbour to load up with grain. On hot summer days the beach is still a popular spot with swimmers and sunbathers (although swimmers are urged to stay away from the mouth of the river). Port Albert is a popular destination for fishermen from all over southwestern Ontario too. The past of Port Albert is also recalled along highway 21 at the edge of town where if you look closely you can still see the remnants of the old British Commonwealth Air Training Plan base where thousands of flyers from around the world trained during World War II. The base sprung up from fields in a matter of months and disappeared back to fields almost as quickly at war’s end. Port Albert is located off High way 21 north of Goderich about 13 km. Behind the souvenir shop, and not yet ready to use, is the Huron County Archives, a huge collection of information based around a collection accumulated over 20 years by the Huron County Histori­ cal Society. The archives provides a place for people to research family and community history. When the renovations are com­ pleted the first place the visitors will enter after buying a ticket is the theatre that will show a short presentation on the history of the museum itself. The theatre will seat 50-60 people when completed but at present it isn’t in use. Some of the history of the museum is on display in the gallery just inside the door that will eventually become the visiting exhibition gallery. The gallery is a tribute to Joseph Herbert Neill, the Gorrie-area man who was nearly single-handedly responsible for the establishment of the museum. Over the years he saved the farm machinery and household items that other people in the county were throwing out. He used to haul some of his collection around to fall fairs in the county. Finally in 1950 the old Victoria Public School became available and county council agreed to buy it as a home for Mr. Neill’s collection. Mr. Neill went to work in the museum not just to show people the old machinery of the past, but to show how it worked. He created one of the first museums with “hands on’’ exhibits by building models of everything from grind­ ing wheat to salt mining. Visitors could turn a crank and activate the model to demonstrate how people of a past era got things done. Some of those models are on display in the gallery dedicated to his pioneering work. Eventually when the old school house is renovated a special gallery will be set aside for his contributions and it will be the first gallery visited by those taking the tour. With the old school out of bounds some of the exhibitions that will eventually make up the full tour are not Available. In the old school when it is finished will be a gallery to show the kind of conditions in Europe in the early 1800’s that led people to make the dangerous sea voyage to the hard life of pioneer Canada. Another gallery willbe dedicated to the Canada they found looking back to prehistoric times, throughlndiantimestothe vast wooded tract of land the pioneers found when they bought land from the Canada Company. Also in the old school house will be galleries dedicated to the importance of water, road and rail transportation; the development of institutions such as local govern­ ment, schools and churches; the growth of urban areas and finally the early industries of the county. At that point the visitors will enter the second floor of the new addition, the part of the museum that shows most signs of what will finally greet visitors. The military gallery now under construction, begins with the more recent military history of the county, looking back from the closing of the Centralia and Clinton air force bases with unification of the armed forces in the 1960’s. It will go back through the years when the Commonwealth Air Training Plan saw four different air force bases located in the county during the World War II. One of the innovations of the museum comes next as visitors come to a window that faces down on the north lawn of the museum The entrance to the new $2.4 million addition to the Huron Pioneer Museum opens off a court yard at the southern side of the historic school house that was the original home of the museum. Although renovations to the old school and construction of museum displays is not complete, the museum already has some breathtaking displays. where a giant Sherman tank sits. Inside the museum a Howitzer, a large field gun, allows people to get close to the weapons of destruc­ tion. Down the hall is another stunn­ ing exhibition as the gallery opens on a two-storey window against which a collection of old farm windmills is displayed. 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