A new year is bringing a long-awaited exhibit to the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre.
In 2020, the museum downtown Timmins is opening a new permanent exhibit. It's a feature they haven't had since the South Porcupine location.
Timmins Museum curator Karen Bachmann said the research and consultation has been ongoing for at least 1.5 years.
They've met with special interest groups, stakeholders, schools, and more.
“You name it, we’ve been talking to people because we’re looking at developing an exhibition that talks not necessarily about the immediate history of the community, but a longterm portion of it,” she said.
Bachmann said it will include pieces from their collection that go back 5,000 years, as well as contemporary items, and interactive components.
There are also areas for the business community, entertainment, sports, and the social aspect of the community.
"Some of the stories are not necessarily all pristine and clean, so we’re looking at some of the...underside of the community. We’re going to look at bootlegging and some of the ladies of the night in our community from the early times of the Porcupine Goldrush. We’re looking at legitimate business too, and all those good things. It’s an attempt to tell a bit of our story and a lot of the things that maybe people are not aware of and not necessarily just the run-of-the-mill here we are, this is what we did,” she said.
For people familiar with the exhibit at the old site in South Porcupine, she said it will be similar in that it's based on themes, not a timeline.
In that sense, she said there are the same topics like transportation or prospectors, for example.
"But what we’ve added on to it is a more in-depth discussion about the Indigenous component within our community,” she said, adding there's a fun component to do with learning the languages.
“There’s a lot of different components that are going to give us a wider view of who lives here and what we’ve been doing here,” she said.
Staff has been having a lot of fun putting it all together.
“I like the component where we’re talking about the illegitimate businesses in the community cause I think that’s kind of a fun thing. And people should understand how those kinds of components were here at the beginning and were part of the development of the community. There’s lots of speculation about different things, lots of business women who had an opportunity to make some money and they did so. There’s an interesting story around all of that that we’re also going to be telling, so that’s kind of one of my favourites,” she said.
In the prospector's tent, she said kids will be able to pick up the packs and see how heavy they were.
“And then there’s a super big surprise component that I’m not allowed to talk about, which is going to be a really different thing. We’re only the third museum in Ontario to be doing that, so that’s going to be a really big component for us,” she said.
The museum has been at its Second Avenue location since 2011.
Bachmann said a 2017 renovation allowed them to expand.
“Because we have that space now and we could work with our collection, the next logical step was the resurrection of our permanent gallery and our local history collection and exhibition,” she said.
The goal is to celebrate the opening of the exhibit with the community in February.
