INVENTORYING, EXHIBITION BUILDING, AND STAYING WARM IN COLLECTIONS

Internship Check-In | Joanna Wreakes

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Welcome back to another edition of Internship Check-In! Today’s column takes us across the country from Saskatchewan to Ontario with 4 interviews. Keep reading to see what MMSt students have been up to this summer!

Sam Richardson: The Ontario Regiment (RCAC) Museum, Oshawa, ON

Julie Suh: Heritage Services, City of Richmond Hill, ON

Matthew Dominico: Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto, ON

Ally Forand: Western Development Museum (WDM), Saskatoon, SK

Doorway details at the Hockey Hall of Fame, where one of our interns is spending their summer. Source.

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your internship role. 

Sam: My name is Sam Richardson, and for my summer internship I am working as an assistant curator at the Ontario Regiment (RCAC) Museum in Oshawa, Ontario. My responsibilities are typical of an assistant curator, like making exhibits, giving tours, and helping people with research, but those “other duties as assigned” come up a lot too.

Julie: Hi, I am Julie! I am currently working at the City of Richmond Hill’s Heritage Services as a Curatorial Attendant. I am on the Collections team within the Heritage Services. I mostly manage the City’s Heritage, Sports Hall of Fame, Public Art, and Archaeological collections. Besides the collections management, I also assist with exhibition planning and installations.

Matthew: Hey guys, my name is Matthew Dominico and I am completing my internship at the Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto. I work in the exhibitions department as a researcher and writer for upcoming exhibits. The department is small but it is directly responsible for everything that goes on display within the museum from full size exhibits to individual artifacts.

Ally: I’m Ally, and I am working as a collections assistant at the Western Development Museum (WDM) in Saskatoon, SK.

Julie at work with the City of Richmond Hill's Heritage Service. Photo courtesy of Julie Suh.

 What is a typical day like at your institution? 

Sam: There is no such thing as a “typical day” at this museum, and that is exactly what I like about it. My day can range from exciting to mundane and back again. In the morning, I could be helping the head curator install a new exhibit on the War in Afghanistan. After lunch, I could be suiting up in waterproof gear to hose down a Soviet Cold War tank for a movie shoot. On the odd occasion, I may even drive something. And after that, I could be helping someone find out what Grandpa did in the Second World War.

Julie: Since there are two other Curatorial Attendants whom I work with, we all take turns in our rotating job stations. So, my duties vary every day. But mostly, I start my day by logging onto a computer, open PastPerfect and database artifacts (many artifacts!). Then in the afternoon, I would sometimes catalogue or take professional photographs of artifacts or plan/install exhibitions.

Matthew: I begin my day at the Hall by checking the museum floor. I take a walk around every case and display making sure that all of the lights are on, the artifacts are still in place, and the captions are straight and properly secured. If I find anything out of place in the case, I simply open it up and fix it. I then begin work on whatever project I happen to be working on. We have a number of exhibits currently planned that I am in the process of researching and writing for so it just depends on which one I feel like working on right away. I continue to work on that during the day, switching exhibits from time to time. I also complete any small tasks that my boss asks me to do. Around 4pm I pack up my stuff and head home.

Ally: Most days I am inventorying artifacts, which includes photographing, describing and reporting on their description. Since the WDM is so collaborative every day is a little different. For instance, I worked with the curatorial and marketing department to write an article about my work! Also, this past week I have worked with the exhibition team to install “The Saskatchewan Doukhobor Living Book Project” exhibit.

Matthew with arguably the most well-known artifact at the Hockey Hall of Fame. Photo courtesy of Matthew Dominico.

Is there anything that’s surprised you about your internship?

Sam: With how unpredictable each day can be, I have learned to let nothing surprise me about this
job. I take everything in stride as it happens, go with the flow, and see where the excitement takes me.

Julie: The fact that my supervisor, the Collections Supervisor, is a part-time staff who only works 22 hours a week when myself and two other Curatorial Attendants work full time surprised me the most. This was not only surprising but also worrisome as it indicates fewer stable (full-time) cultural heritage jobs in municipalities.

Matthew: Being that this is my second time working with this department, not too much has surprised me. I guess the sheer amount of work that goes into building an exhibit from the ground up is something that always surprises me. Even when it is simply switching out teams in a particular showcase, the effort to really make the exhibit memorable is something that I relish doing because the impact is immediate when you see a fan taking it all in.

Ally: I was surprise by the degree of teamwork at the WDM! Since the institution is on the smaller size you know what people are working on and they are more than willing to share their knowledge with you.

Was Ally transported to the 1910's?! Nope! She is strolling down the Boom Town exhibit at the WDM. Photo courtesy of Ally Forand. 

What are you excited about accomplishing throughout your internship? 

Sam: I am excited to finally finish up an exhibit on military badges that I have had to put off for over a year because of constant delays. There are 219 badges to go in that exhibit and finishing it will be immensely satisfying.

Julie: Digitizing artifacts on PastPerfect was something that I have not had a chance to learn in school. Learning how to use PastPerfect makes me feel like a real “emerging museum professional.” I am also excited to plan and install an exhibition from the ground up for a community centre in Richmond Hill at the end of the summer.

Matthew: The project I am most excited about finishing is the Stanley Cup Vault renovation project. The Hockey Hall of Fame is partially housed inside the old Bank of Montreal building at Yonge and Front. The historic bank holds the honoured members plaques and the NHL’s individual trophies. It also holds hockey’s holy grail, the original Stanley Cup bowl. The bowl is kept in the old bank vault which was last renovated in 1993, the year the Hall opened downtown. This summer I will be working on the revitalization of that vault and I am very excited to get started.

Ally: The accomplishment I am most proud of during my internship is gaining technical skills to accompany the academic knowledge I am learning from the MMSt program. I think these skills are acquired with time, but I cannot imagine a better place to learn them or better role models to shadow.

Sam at his internship labelling military badges for installation in a future exhibition. Photo courtesy of Sam Richardson.

Do you have any words of wisdom for someone entering a similar position?


Sam: Be prepared to “mount up and move out” for anything on the job and see where it takes you.

Julie: It is such a cliche but don’t be afraid! Just explore, try, and ask everything and anything you would like to learn. Another word of wisdom: bring your thickest winter cardigan. Artifact storage is SUPER cold and gets colder as summer weather heats up. I mean a colder storage room is better for artifacts and we all want to create the ultimate environmental conditions for artifacts, right?

Matthew: I would have to say to anyone coming into a similar position as me, to be open to doing everything. Making yourself invaluable is the best thing you can do in this kind of work because it shows that you are willing to do whatever is required of you and more. You just never know where these jobs will take you.

Ally: I recommend taking chances, which is scary because you are an emerging professional, but now is the time to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and grow. You’ll be a better person and professional for it.

The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

FINDERS KEEPERS?: WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU FIND AN ARTIFACT BY CHANCE

Breaking the Glass Case | Alexandra Forand 

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Imagine, you are outside walking on a beautiful sun-shining day and you catch a glint of light in your peripheral vision. You take a closer look and you see it’s a quartz arrowhead! You pick it up, it is blue grey in color and about the size of your palm. The tip is chipped off. Perhaps the hunter who knapped this arrow head did this accidently and discarded it. Your first thought is probably, “this should be in a museum!” But… is that the right instinct? This exact scenario happened to my friend Kirsten, who works in and around different lakes in Saskatchewan. While on the job, Kirsten regularly finds amazing treasures, such as fossils, bones, and cultural heritage items. This is no surprise since lakes and rivers have been the heart of social interactions for Prairie peoples. Kirsten has built herself a collection made up of artifacts and pictures of specimens she has left behind.

The arrowhead that started it all. Photo curtesy of Kirsten Sepos. 

This scenario is actually quite common in rural areas, like the Prairie provinces. Chances of finding heritage items (arrow heads, medicines wheels, spear points, stone axes, hammerstones and tipi rings) are quiet high. This is because the Prairie provinces were (and still are) significant places for Indigenous communities to live, hunt, trade, and celebrate for nearly 400 generations! So it is no surprise that Indigenous material culture is densely deposited across the land.

Today, farmers, fishers, conservation officers, gardeners, and people enjoying nature find these remnants of ancient (and sometimes modern) Indigenous communities. So the question remains: what do you do when you find these objects?

Bodies of water, such as Lake Diefenbaker, were and are significant meeting areas in Saskatchewan (source.)

The province of Alberta is taking steps to answer this question. One of the first things they recommend is reporting the spot you found the artifact on the Alberta culture website. Here, they ask you to include a digital photograph, a location, your personal information (phone number, email, address, etc), and a description and circumstance of how you came across the artifact. After you submit this information, an Archeological Information Coordinator will confirm this is a new archeological site, which will be entered into the Archeological Site Inventory database.


While I was writing this piece, I came across an instance where construction of a road was being halted because of the uncovered Indigenous objects. Jim Gilroy, the farmer whose land the construction was taking place on, contacted the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) and together they signed a memorandum of understand which signified the groups commitment to protecting the land. Both parties hope the land will be designated as a heritage site and see this partnership as an act of reconciliation.

It is not uncommon for farmers to have an extensive collection of artifacts which have been collected over the years (source.)

But that does not answer the question at hand. Let us return to Kirsten, her arrow head, and what she should do. In Saskatchewan the protocol is much less clear. If you want to donate your artifact to a museum, there is a good possibility they will not accept the object. Some of the larger museums in Saskatchewan such as the Western Development Museum, focuses on collecting artifacts from the 20thcentury. The Royal Saskatchewan Museum, does collect artifacts from all time periods, but they too may say no. Artifacts such as arrowheads, hammerstones, and spear points tend to be extremely common in Prairie museums and often have little, or no known history associated with the artifact.



So for now Kirsten curates her small collection and when she comes across an artifact in the bush, she reflects on the fact that she might be the first person in one thousand years to touch this object.

Have you ever found anything on your adventures? I want to know! Contact me at allyforand@gmail.com or if Twitter and Instagram are more your speed my handle on both is @Ally_but_online.