GRAMPA'S HUNTING TRIPS AND PERSONAL COLLECTIONS

Collections Corner | Carly Hall

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Do you consider yourself to be a collector? When I’ve asked this to people who tend to accumulate a specific kind or genre of object, most of the time their answer is no.

As students of Museum Studies, we know the importance of collections: they safeguard our cultural heritage and human experiences for future generations. This is obvious in museums and galleries, but can this also be applied to the personal collections of seemingly everyday objects? From my own experience, I argue that it certainly can.

My first memories of collecting come from my grandfather, though during the early years of my childhood I had no concept of collecting. Every year in the spring, Grampa would pack up his truck and head up-north to hunt. When he returned in the fall, his truck had transformed into a trove of natural materials. Most memorable were the deer antlers and hooves, rocks, bark, and rabbit’s feet. He would go through each object with me, encouraging me to hold and touch everything he brought back. He’d tell me the story behind his favourite objects, explain the importance of hunting in certain communities, and sometimes show me photographs of his home-away-from-home. While he was away hunting, I would gather leaves, sticks, bits of egg-shells fallen from trees, and rocks so I could share my own stories when he came back.

Unwittingly, I was learning how to collect things and display them in such a way that articulates their importance. With each passing year, I accumulated more and more natural materials, and had to decide which things were worth keeping.

Recently found objects in Mississauga, Ontario. Courtesy of Carly Hall.

I credit my fascination and impulse to collect natural materials to my grandfather. To this day, I continue to add things to my childhood collection—everything carefully selected and organized to establish a connection to the man who returned every fall with stories and treasures.

Personal collections, no matter what they contain, are a way to educate ourselves and others on personal and shared histories. They facilitate story-telling and foster intergenerational relationships. The most obvious example of this function of collections are the volumes of photo-albums families keep and digitize so that their memories are better preserved. Personally, I love when people break out their old photographs and recount the history of their family through first-hand knowledge, or knowledge inherited from previous generations.

Family photographs taken between 1949 - 1956. Courtesy of Wanda Hart.

One of the wonderful aspects of the human species is that we do collect things, either consciously or unconsciously. We assemble objects that outwardly reflect our interests, we keep things that connect us to our ancestral past or certain memories, and we shape our world view via knowledges amassed over our life-time. In this sense, every person is a walking museum, and there’s something pretty fantastic about that.