• 23 Feb 2022 3:34 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    A printable version of this document can be found here.

    Message from the Chair

    I am pleased to announce two new board members to the AMA, Katrín Níelsdóttir and Corser du Pont.  We continue to hold productive and informative board meetings and will continue to aim for responsive and productive services for the community.  I hope that everyone is keeping warm!

    -Andrew Morrison, Chair of the Association for Manitoba Archives

    Committee Reports

    Digital Initiatives: The Committee is working to maintain the website, blog, and to provide training on MAIN.  Planning is also underway for the annual MAIN training session.  More details to come!

    Education and Advisory Services: The Committee is promoting several professional development opportunities as well as planning additional workshops and discussing the future role of Advisory Services.

    Finance and Grants: The AMA would like to welcome Katrín Níelsdóttir, who recently began her position as Chair of the Finance and Grants Committee!  Katrín is the Special Collections and Rare Books Librarian at the University of Manitoba.

    Indigenous Relations: The committee is continuing to plan an online discussion that examines the MMIWG2S Calls to Justice. Our collaborators for this discussion, to date, are 1JustCity, SEED Winnipeg, Polonia Inclusive, and Winnipeg Police Cause Harm. Note that we have a new email address: indigenousrelations@mbarchives.ca

    Information and Outreach: The AMA would also like to welcome Corser du Pont as the new Chair of the Information and Outreach Committee!  Corser is currently the Acting University Archivist & Digital Curator at the University of Winnipeg.

    Membership Committee: The Committee is reviewing accreditation and investigating the possibility of including multi-year memberships as well as early registration prizes.  More details to come!

    Special Initiatives Member-at-Large: Brian Hubner and Terry Reilly have created the nomination forms for the 2022 Manitoba Day Awards.  The deadline for submission is March 14, 2022 and the form can be downloaded from this webpage: https://mbarchives.ca/mbdayaward.

    Student Member-at-Large: The Committee is working towards rebuilding the ACA Student Council.

    Special Announcements

    AMA Land Acknowledgement and David Suzuki Foundation Videos

    The AMA is working on creating a meaningful land acknowledgment for our organization. At our AMA board meetings, we are discussing the videos of the David Suzuki Foundation’s three-part series on the Land Back Movement as a way to deepen our understanding of our colonial history and our colonial present. We encourage you to view the Land Back videos at https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/what-is-land-back/

    AMA By-Law Revisions

    The AMA Board held a special meeting on January 27 to discuss the by-law revisions.  The Board is working to ensure that the by-laws reflect the current needs of the AMA and Manitoba’s archival community.  Stay tuned for future updates.

    AMA Photo of the Month

    The AMA has launched a new initiative to promote the diverse and rich archival heritage in Manitoba by asking the community to submit a photograph from their collection to be featured in the AMA’s next newsletter.  If interested, please submit a photograph along with a sentence or two describing the records, to webmaster@mbarchives.ca.  We would love to showcase the collections from local institutions!

    Call for Volunteers

    We are always looking for members to join our committees. Volunteering with the AMA is an excellent way to network with archivists, build skills, and shape the future of archives in Manitoba. If you are interested, please contact the Chair, or a Committee chair, at one of the email addresses listed on this page https://mbarchives.ca/contact

     

  • 31 Jan 2022 3:54 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Manitoba has a variety of museums and archives housing diverse collections.  In this blog post Katie Lynch wrote the following describing her time working at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.

    The Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada has recently taken ownership of their newly built museum located on Wellington Avenue. The museum is set to open to the public in early 2022, and a lot of prep work is taking place now. While the museum was being constructed, the archives were put into temporary storage in Magellan Aerospace and have recently been moved into the museums off-site storage. Currently, inventory is being conducted by archival studies student, Katie Lynch.

    Most recently, inventory of the Randolph Fields fonds has been completed. This fonds garnered much attention from the volunteer restoration team at the museum.

    Randolph Fields was born in 1927 and worked as a mechanic for Canadian Pacific Air from 1940 until 1962. During his career Fields took many photographs of bush planes used throughout Manitoba and documented his travels and work with Canadian Pacific Air. Photos of the CF-AWR Bellanca Air cruiser came to aid museum’s aircraft restoration team in the restoration of the aircraft which will be on display at the museum.

    CF-AWR was used in the 1930s by Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd., to fly radium from Northern Canada 4,000 miles away to the refinery in Port Hope, Ontario by the Mackenzie Air Service. Only 23 Bellanca air cruisers were ever built, CF-AWR being one of them. The Bellanca was selected by Eldorado Gold Mines because it could land on both water and ice with either wheels or pontoons and could therefore be used all year. It also had an air-cooled engine, and could carry 4,000 lbs at a speed of up to 155 mph. The Bellanca can be easily identified the iconic shape of its wings in a “W” appearance, created by triangular struts from the bottom of the fuselage up to a point outboard on the main wing.

    The plane crashed many times, and the Fields fonds has a few photos of the crashes and subsequent repairs. One such photo shows the CF-AWR with its nose under the ice on Windermere Lake on Christmas Day, 1939. Another photo from January 24, 1947, shows the CF-AWR crashed in the bush after it force landed 4 miles northeast of Upturnedroot Lake, Ontario.  Several photos show CF-AWR parked in a hangar for repairs in Edmonton. The CF-AWR’s last crash was in 1947 when it ran out of fuel while carrying uranium concentrate in Northern Ontario but was so severely damaged it was abandoned. The wreck was retrieved by the museum in 1973 with the help of a helicopter from the Canadian Forces.

    The restoration team has worked to repair CF-AWR, but missing pieces of the landing gear have troubled the team in deciding how to most accurately restore the aircraft. No other resources existed for the restoration of the inner workings of the landing gear but the photos from the Randolph Fields fonds solved the teams’ problem. They used the photos of the landing gear to create blueprints, sent them out for production of the landing gear from an outsourced aircraft engineering company, and will soon be put on the aircraft.

    CF-AWR is now in the museum and can be viewed by the public soon.

    The CF-AWR with its nose under the ice on Windermere Lake on Christmas Day, 1939.

    The CF-AWR with its nose under the ice on Windermere Lake on Christmas Day, 1939.

    The CF-AWR crashed in the bush after it force landed 4 miles northeast of Upturnedroot Lake, Ontario. January 24, 1947

    The CF-AWR in for repairs in Edmonton. This was the photo used to make the blueprints. Note the landing gear is exposed.

    The CF-AWR during operations. Note the landing gear.


  • 27 Jan 2022 7:46 AM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    A printable version of this document can be found here.

    Message from the Chair

    Like most of the world, the AMA and it's members are continuing to face many challenges this January.  However, I am pleased to say that the AMA is beginning this year in a strong position.  This year the board plans on refreshing many of the organization's programs and procedures and I am excited to announce these changes in the coming months.  I also look forward to engaging with the AMA's continued response to the Truth and Reconciliation process.  Finally, I would like to thank the current and former board members who have helped me take on this position.

    Andrew Morrison, Chair of the Association for Manitoba Archives

    Committee Reports

    Digital Initiatives: This committee is working to maintain the website, blog, and to provide training on MAIN.  If your organization would like advice on how to use MAIN or would like to submit a blog post, please contact the committee at webmaster@mbarchives.ca. 

    Education and Advisory Services: Members of this committee wrote a blog post about their experience organizing the “Records Management for the Rest of Us” workshop.  You can read more about it here: http://mbarchives.ca/Blog/12203525.  The Committee is planning additional workshops and discussions about the future role of Advisory Services are continuing.

    Finance and Grants: This committee needs a Chair and new members. Maureen Dolyniuk is stepping down as Finance chair in January 2022 and the AMA is grateful for her thoughtful work.

    Indigenous Relations: The committee is planning an online discussion in March that examines the MMIWG2S Calls to Justice.  All are welcome to join. Please stay tuned for further information.

    Information and Outreach: The committee hosted a successful online Trivia Night on Thursday, January 20th.  Thank you to everyone who joined and contributed! The City of Winnipeg Archives advocacy sub-committee will be meeting with Mayor Bowman on January 25th. Remember to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! On Sundays, we post resources specifically about reconciliation.

    Membership Committee: This committee will be reviewing accreditation and accreditation procedures.

    Special Initiatives Member-at-Large: Brian Hubner and Terry Reilly are preparing for the annual Manitoba Day Awards. Look for the nomination form in early 2022. The event will be held in May.

    Special Announcements

    David Suzuki Foundation Videos and AMA Land Acknowledgement

    The AMA is working on creating a meaningful land acknowledgment for our organization. At the January 13th AMA board meeting, we reviewed the first video of the David Suzuki Foundation’s three-part series on the Land Back Movement.  The Board discussed the implications of the video’s message for our understanding of Canada’s history, for our shared future, and also for how we operate archival institutions.  The Board will continue to review the other videos in the series. We encourage you to view the Land Back videos at https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/what-is-land-back/

    AMA By-Law Revisions

    The AMA is drafting new and updated by-laws that the Board will present to the membership at the next annual general meeting.  Please stay tuned!

    Call for Volunteers

    We are always looking for members to join our committees. Volunteering with the AMA is an excellent way to network with archivists, build skills, and shape the future of archives in Manitoba. If you are interested, please contact the Chair, or a Committee chair, at one of the email addresses listed on this page https://mbarchives.ca/contact

  • 25 Jan 2022 3:45 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Rural museums and archives are often the sole preservers local heritage.  In the following blog post, Al Thorleifson describes the ongoing project between the Pembina Manitou Archive and the Boundary Trail National Heritage Region Board to build archival awareness within the Southern Manitoba museum community.

    Over the past two years, the Pembina Manitou Archive has partnered with the Boundary Trail National Heritage Region Board to build awareness of archives and to encourage archival preservation in our Southern Manitoba museum and archive community.

    There are over twenty small community museums in the BTNHR, some focused on architectural heritage and some focused on settlement period agriculture. In every case, these small museums have been the recipients of documents, photographs, letters and other archival material which, to a large extent, have been sitting in a back room gathering dust. Why is this? Usually, it is because a document does not work with the average museum’s display of artifacts. As well, most visitors do not visit a museum to sit and read a document for an hour – the average museum visitor spends an hour touring the entire museum and then is off to other sites on their tour of the district.

    The PMA/BTNHR Partnerships with Museums Projects have four major purposes:

    • To create reports which are shared with participating museums. Each report focuses on the collection of a specific museum, highlighting some aspect of their collection. The purpose is to encourage museums to be aware of the collections of other regional museums and to encourage information sharing to promote each others’ collections.
    • To encourage local museums to continue the process of accessing and preserving their archival collections.
    • To encourage each museum to consider whether there are archival documents in their collection which would provide background information in support of their museum displays. Once these documents are identified by the museum, the Pembina Manitou Archive undertakes the digitization and the documents are uploaded to the PMA web site. The reports thus contain lists of documents from each partner community which have been added to the Pembina Manitou Archive’s web site.
    • The final goal is to encourage those interested in heritage and history to make use of the digital archive, especially in this COVID time when we are unable to access archives in person. As well, our most fervent supporters are those whose ancestors lived in the communities of Southern Manitoba. No matter where they currently live, they have access to primary documents about their ancestral communities from the comfort of their own homes anywhere in the world.

    Anyone interested in reviewing these monograph reports may do so by searching ‘Partnerships with Museums’ on the Pembina Manitou Archive web site at https://pembinamanitouarchive.ca .

    The Pembina Manitou archive is an open access web site which originally started as an online source of information for school students to provide them with access to primary archival documents concerning their community for use in school research projects. The archive has grown over the past decade to include over 53,000 documents.

  • 30 Dec 2021 10:23 AM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Preservation is a challenging issue for archives, especially when the records are in proprietary formats that require specific outdated technology.  In the following blog post, the City of Winnipeg Archives faced these challenges with the records of the Board of Commissioners.

    The City of Winnipeg Archives has recently digitized the proprietary microfiche records of the Board of Commissioners.

    From 1972 to 1997, the Winnipeg Board of Commissioners provided leadership to civic departments and advice on key issues facing the City. Despite this important role, it was discovered in 2004 that the Board did not maintain its physical records, but rather, made microfiche copies of its paper files, destroying the originals. A proprietary type of Microx fiche was used, making the roughly 850,000 images on 24,000 fiche the only copies available for reference. Not only is this type of fiche sensitive to handling and the environment, but its proprietary nature means that it requires specialized, expensive, and difficult to acquire technology to access, and cannot be viewed using most microform readers.

    In 2012, the fiche was transferred to the Archives, which sought to have it digitized to make it accessible. However, the cost was prohibitive – estimated at over $70,000 – and there were few vendors capable of dealing with this uncommon type of fiche. As such, digitization was not pursued at that time. But the Archives did not give up. After consulting with imaging specialists, the Archives applied for an innovation grant to pursue the project, which it obtained in 2019.

    Data Repro Com Ltd. was awarded the contract and the fiche was shipped to them with encrypted hard drives, where they were digitized and indexed according to a file key. Despite having the proper technology, the volatile and proprietary nature of the fiche made them difficult to scan. The vast majority of scans turned out well, but some scans are difficult to read and several cannot be read at all. This exemplifies the pitfalls of destroying original records for the sake of convenience. Whether it’s microfiche or digitized records, destroying originals often costs more money and causes more problems in the long run. This also speaks to problems with using proprietary formats that are dependent on rare technology and are not widely used. This is especially applicable to digital records, the formats of which can become obsolete very quickly and may be dependent on technology owned by a private company to access.

    The digitized fiche will be ingested into the Archives’ open-source digital preservation system, Archivematica. The preservation system ensures the Archives’ digital records will be safe and accessible long into the future by constantly monitoring for data corruption, regularly migrating files into new, open, and widely used formats to keep pace with changing technology, and logging every preservation action taken in a machine-readable manner.

    This story is featured in the City of Winnipeg Records Committee’s 2020 annual report: https://winnipeg.ca/clerks/pdfs/2020RecordsReport.pdf

    Image tag: Two of approximately 24,000 proprietary Microx fiche.

  • 22 Dec 2021 1:31 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Happy Holidays from the AMA!

    A printable PDF version of this newsletter can be found here.

    As the Holiday Season approaches, it is time for us to extend best wishes to family and friends.  When we look back on the year, we see all that we have accomplished despite COVID.  In this inaugural issue of the AMA’s newsletter, we would like to take the time to congratulate the hard work of volunteers in making our programming a reality.  It is through their work that that AMA can continue supporting Manitoba archives.

    Meet the new Board of Directors

    Chair of the Board/Chair of Management Committee: Andrew Morrison

    Chair of Finance & Grants Committee/Secretary-Treasurer: unfilled *

    Membership Committee co-chairs: Carmen Miedema and Heather Bidzinski

    Information and Outreach chair: Mary Horodyski

    Education and Advisory Services chair: Al Thorleifson

    Digital Initiatives chair: Chris Zaste

    Indigenous Relations co-chairs: Carmen Miedema and Mary Horodyski

    Special Initiatives Member-at-Large: Brian Hubner and Terry Reilly

    Student Member-at-Large: Carly Roberts

    * Maureen Dolyniuk is stepping down as Finance chair in January 2022.

    The AMA thanks our outgoing Chair, David Cuthbert, for his outstanding service.

    Committee Reports

    Digital Initiatives: This committee is seeking new blog posts for the website. View the published blog posts here https://mbarchives.ca/Blog and the call for blog posts here https://mbarchives.ca/Blog/10623164

    Education and Advisory Services: The November workshop “Records Management for the Rest of Us” by Carole Pelchat was very successful. Future plans for workshops on “How to Archive Email” and “Trauma-Informed Archival Practices” are underway. Discussions about the future role of Advisory Services are continuing.

    Finance and Grants: This committee needs a Chair and new members. Maureen Dolyniuk is stepping down as Finance chair in January 2022 and the AMA is grateful for her thoughtful work.

    Indigenous Relations: We have posted a list of resources on our website: https://mbarchives.ca/indigenous_resource_list  Plans are in development for a webinar examining the MMIWG2S Calls for Justice and for a discussion of the Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce https://archives2026.com/response-to-the-report-of-the-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-taskforce/

    Information and Outreach: We are hosting an online Trivia Night on Thursday, January 20th. There will be prizes! The event is free, but registration is required. Please register here: https://mbarchives.ca/event-4608495  Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter! Instagram is coming soon.

    Membership Committee: This committee will be reviewing accreditation and accreditation procedures.

    Special Initiatives Member-at-Large: Brian Hubner and Terry Reilly are preparing for the annual Manitoba Day Awards. Look for the nomination form in early 2022. The event will be held in May.

    Student Member-at-Large: Carly Roberts organized another successful webinar in October on working as a records professional.

    Special Announcements

    Endowment Fund

    The Association for Manitoba Archives Fund with Endow Manitoba/The Winnipeg Foundation will provide the AMA with a reliable, meaningful source of operating income today and in future years if we can continue to build capital through ongoing contributions. We are pleased to report the current market value of the fund has reached $301,335, this a $91,562 increase over last year at this time! The AMA is grateful for the financial contributions made by The Winnipeg Foundation, the province of Manitoba and from individual AMA members. To learn more about this fund, and the opportunity to donate to it, please click this link:  https://www.mycharitytools.com/gift/wpgfdn/donate?fund=894

    Call for Volunteers

    We are always looking for members to join our committees. Volunteering with the AMA is an excellent way to network with archivists, build skills, and shape the future of archives in Manitoba. If you are interested, please contact the Chair, or a Committee chair, at one of the email addresses listed on this page https://mbarchives.ca/contact

     

  • 19 Dec 2021 10:30 AM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    The Association for Manitoba Archives (AMA) offers educational programming on a variety of topics.  Digital Archivist & Oral Historian Sarah Story, with contributions from Carole Pelchat (Archivist, Information Security Officer & Privacy Office Coordinator) and Al Thorleifson (Archivist at Pembina Manitou Archives), wrote the following blog post on the records management workshop organized by the AMA’s Education and Advisory Committee.

    The central role of the Association for Manitoba Archives (AMA) Education and Advisory Committee is to provide workshops and webinar training to its members. In November, the AMA hosted a 4-part webinar series on records management. 28 people attended these zoom teachings, doubling the AMA’s usual workshop enrollment for a workshop.

    The webinar series was instructed by Carole Pelchat and organized by Sarah Story with logistical support provided by Kathy Kushpel and Chris Zaste. The time and resources for Carole to create and deliver the webinar series were contributed (free of charge) to the AMA by l’Université de Saint-Boniface (USB). This enabled the AMA to offer a very affordable and accessible records management series. We are grateful to Carole Pelchat and the USB for this generous contribution to our members and the wider community!

    Why a Records Management Workshop for Archivists?

    In working with small archives, community organizations and non-archives that create, store and care for the business and historical records of their organization, Sarah Story has come to learn that one of the primary challenges across organizations of all types and sizes is often ineffective or absent official record keeping or records management.

    This results in the loss of significant organizational records, the piling up of unimportant documents in closets, desk drawers and servers, and elevated frustration among staff who experience difficulty finding records in a timely manner. Without effective systems in place, staff end up making their own decisions about what gets kept and destroyed. This results in inconsistency, loss of records of enduring value (archives!), overkeeping, and it even gets some organizations into legal hot water.

    Records Management (RM) ensures that an organization’s records of historical, legal, and fiscal value are identified, classified and preserved for as long as they are required. It also ensures that non-essential records are disposed of securely. Having an approved “retention and disposition schedule” with policies and procedures for departments and staff to guide them on what to keep, how long to keep it, and how to keep, transfer or dispose of it, can be a boon for any organization.

    Increasingly, archivists and other staff without formal training in records management find the responsibility for recordkeeping falling on their shoulders. However, training in RM can be cost-prohibitive and similar to archives, there is professional jargon that can be intimidating to even well-trained archivists. We wanted to make this available to this crowd of Manitoban’s working with archives and experiencing firsthand the impacts of poor recordkeeping in their organization on their work and archives, so we planned a “records management for the rest of us” approach to offering this series.

    Carole’s Experience and Approach

    We were delighted that Carole Pelchat accepted our committee’s invitation to create and deliver this series. In her own words she explains her personal RM experience:

    “I have been an archivist for over 25 years and in my experience, records management has always helped me better explain the need to preserve records. I started taking courses to familiarize myself with the concepts and theories in RM. The first few workshops and classes were quite overwhelming, and I would go home saying, “I will never be able to use this stuff!” However, the more I learned about records management, the more I liked it. The idea that we can manage records from its creation was quite a new concept and gave me a different perspective.”

    Carole also highlights the importance of archivists sharing their firsthand knowledge with others in the field and encourages further learning,

    “I have given records management workshops in the past for the francophone community and when the AMA asked me to do the workshop, I was more than happy to share my knowledge. I figure the best way to learn is from one’s peers. I hope participants were able to see the difference between the world of records management and the world of archives. I hope the participants will not give up and continue learning about records management. I myself learn new things every time I participate in workshops!”

    Pembina Manitou Archives

    Al Thorleifson of the Pembina Manitoba Archives really appreciated Carole’s attention to detail. He plans to take her advice and RM protocols and put them into action, Al says:

    “Carole’s presentation overall put the role of archives in the context of records management. This was especially interesting given the tendency of local businessmen to just dump off boxes while saying they do not know what is good to keep and what is not. Although I have developed a protocol to help them to sort the personal from the archival, Carole’s guidelines will encourage me to be more precise and to ask them to do more before they bring in the boxes.

    Also, Carole dealt with one problem which I have struggled with. As an archive which has over the past five years received thousands of documents, our naming of files has been less ordered than it should have been. Carole’s suggestions for ensuring predictable, consistent naming of files in fonds was very helpful. It will mean I WILL HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO to sort out the files named imprecisely; I am glad to do it because I know it will make it easier for our users to search the records in upcoming years. Thank you, Carole, for a job well done.”

    Offering Workshops That Matter

    The AMA is a volunteer-run organization so our offerings are based on our volunteer’s capacity to serve our community. Our goal is to learn from our members what classes would be of most value, especially for those archivists working in smaller archives and community-based or project-based settings.

    We want to highlight that AMA webinars and workshops do not need to be taught by “experts” or those working in large archives within post-secondary and governmental  institutions – your firsthand experience or knowledge from your rural, lone arranger or small archives setting matters. It is worth sharing your strategies with others working in similar settings, often on a very small to non-existent budgets.

    If you have an idea for a workshop or webinar, archival knowledge and experience that you want to share, or want to help us create educational opportunities for members by volunteering, please reach out to us at: advisoryservices@mbarchives.ca.

    We would love to hear from you!

    As always, thank you for your time, participation and support,

    Sincerely,

    Sarah Story
    On behalf of the AMA Education & Advisory Services Committee


  • 20 Aug 2021 1:11 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Manitoba has several regional heritage organizations that work tirelessly to preserve and promote the history of local communities.  Below is an update provided by Al Thorleifson of the Pembina Manitou Archive on the work of the Partnership With Museums Project.

    The Boundary Trails National Heritage Region Board in partnership with the Manitoba Heritage Grants Program have allocated funding to develop a regional approach emphasizing the relationship between museums, their related archival heritage, and their community.  The goal of this current Partnerships With Museums Project is to find mutual, workable processes that enable our regional museums, archives and the BTNHR to share resources, ideas, and initiatives on an ongoing basis and provide support to museum volunteers by making available digital archival records which will support the work of each museum in the region.

    Al Thorleifson has been hired to meet with regional museum staff, to set priorities for digital media, and to develop monographs which will be shared with regional museums which will support their own staff education and will promote public awareness of their mandate and resources.

    The process includes each of the following steps:

    • Tour of each museum/archive under strict COVID guidelines
    • Review, with Museum/Archive Board and Staff members, each museum’s/archive’s highlights and discuss what makes each unique
    • Review of concerns and challenges each Museum/Archive is facing
    • Identification of BTNHR, Pembina Manitou Archive, and Manitoba Historical Society resources which would be available and valuable to each museum
    • Identification of each Museum’s available resources which could be publicized, enhanced, protected, and used to promote their regional presence.
    • Collaboratively outline the process for sharing these resources regionally using a digital web-based platform.
    • Promotion of these resources, both digitally and as individual Museums, for use by students and researchers in the region and across the globe.
    • Production of a report for consideration by the BTNTR board to select initiatives and consider actions recommended in the report.
    • Production of a Comprehensive General Report/Monograph for distribution to each participating Museum and for inclusion on web-based platforms.

    This work was undertaken starting the summer of 2020. Six monographs were published as a result of the 2020 season’s work – these reports are available online in the Pembina Manitou Archive web site’s Museum file. Hard copies of these reports are available by contacting pembinamanitouarchive@gmail.com Work continues during 2021/22 in partnership with other archives in the BTNHR Region.

  • 16 Jul 2021 1:54 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Music has always been a favourite pastime throughout human history.  From lute players to modern pop artists, musicians of all backgrounds and styles entertained crowds of listeners.  What may not be known to some is that local archives contain historical records about past musicians.  In the below blog post, staff from the Daly House Museum highlight Roy Brown Collection, which documents an interesting period in Canadian music history.

    Ninety years ago a new musical sound took North America by storm.  It became known as the Big Band or Swing era. The period between 1935 to 1945 was the only time in North American music history that the popularity of this form of jazz eclipsed all other forms of music. The popularity of the sound was due in part to the emergence of radios in private households allowing listeners the ability to enjoy music for free during the Great Depression.  Eventually the sound of these big bands with their trumpets and trombones became a way to lift morale of the public during World War II.  Roy Brown and His Orchestra was one of those bands. During the Big Band era it became one of the most popular bands on the Prairies and helped start the career of many young local musicians.

    Formed in 1939, the Brown Orchestra made its first appearance at Clear Lake’s Danceland and was quickly rated as “the best 10-piece band in Canada.”.  The band consisted of the five Brown brothers - Roy, Joe, Frank, Percy and Tom Brown. Other band members included Sig Johnson, Vic Gellert, Harry Boone, Bob McCullough, and Jay Hannay.    The group played regularly at Danceland and at Brandon’s Imperial Dance Garden until 1946. After seven years of entertaining thousands of Canadian soldiers the Brown Orchestra disbanded as the Big Band era ended along with the end of World War II.

    The last performance of Roy Brown and His Band at Danceland, Clear Lake, Manitoba in 1946. Roy Brown is pictured on the far left. Roy Brown Collection, Daly House Museum

    Image info: The last performance of Roy Brown and His Band at Danceland, Clear Lake, Manitoba in 1946. Roy Brown is pictured on the far left.  Roy Brown Collection, Daly House Museum

    Band leader Roy Brown went on to have a diverse career as a musician, businessman, historian, and inventor that spanned 50 years.  He owned a dance hall on 10th Street in Brandon named the Esquire and in the 1950s, the Roy Brown Show was one of the earliest programs on CKX-TV.  In the 70s & 80s, original compositions by Roy such as “We’re Proud of Brandon”, “Manitoba Has the Best of Ev’rything”, “When You Come to Grand Valley”, and the “Garden of Peace” were performed by the Wheat City Chorus and the Training Command Band from Canadian Forces Base, Winnipeg for Manitoba’s and Brandon Centennial Events.

    The Roy Brown Variety Show first aired on CKX-TV, May 5, 1955. Roy Brown Collection, Daly House Museum

    Image info: The Roy Brown Variety Show first aired on CKX-TV, May 5, 1955. Roy Brown Collection, Daly House Museum

    As an inventor, He created a successful piece of furniture called the Rokorol that could be converted from baby furniture into every day furniture such as a portable coffee table or end table.  The City of Brandon sent the product to Princess Elizabeth as a present in celebration of the birth of Prince Charles in 1948. 

    Rokorol Corp Display at the Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, California, September 1948. Actress Joan was the model in the product photographs on display. Roy Brown Collection, Daly House Museum

    Image info: Rokorol Corp Display at the Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, California, September 1948.  Actress Joan was the model in the product photographs on display. Roy Brown Collection, Daly House Museum  

    As a historian, Roy researched and wrote history books such as the “Steamboats on the Assiniboine” which covered the history of the steamboats that plied the Assiniboine and Red Rivers between 1870 to the 1890s.  Roy received the Manitoba Gold Boy Award for his active role in preserving Manitoba’s history in 1970.  Today, you can obtain a copy of his book through Daly House Museum’s gift shop.

    Daly House Museum also holds the Roy Brown Collection consisting of photographs, and audio recordings of Roy Brown and His Orchestra as well as photographs and prototypes of Brown’s inventions.  Recently, Daly House Museum received funding from the Brandon Area Community Foundation courtesy of the foundation’s fund holders Gord & Diane Peters to digitize the collection. The recordings (14 tape reels, 1 eight-track recording, 13 cassette tapes, and 9 LP records) were sent to Richard L. Hess Tape Restoration Resources for digitization and restoration. 

    The Roy Brown audio collection that was digitized by Richard L. Hess Tape Restoration Resources thanks to funding from the Brandon Area Community Foundation in 2021.

    Image info: The Roy Brown audio collection that was digitized by Richard L. Hess Tape Restoration Resources thanks to funding from the Brandon Area Community Foundation in 2021.

    The conversion of the collection to a digital format has brought to light unknown recordings. For instance, there is a recording made at a 1979 Brown Band reunion at Clear Lake where Roy recounts what dances at Danceland were like in the 1940s.

    “… this place was packed with people in uniform. It wasn’t uncommon to see two hundred to three hundred young men here waiting to pounce on the first gal that come in that door.  There were no wall flowers believe me.  They were hectic years and I can recall leaving the dances and we’d go home and listen to the radio to find out the number of planes shot down in the Battle of Britian…

     – Roy Brown, Recorded at Danceland, Clear Lake, Manitoba 1979.

    Roy Brown lived an exceptional life and his legacy to Manitoba’s history is not forgotten; he and his orchestra live on through their music which is now available to help future generations understand local life during one of the most difficult times in world history.  

    For more information about the Roy Brown Collection contact Daly House Museum at dalymuseum@wcgwave.ca

  • 30 Jun 2021 2:57 PM | Digital Initiatives, AMA (Administrator)

    Comic book characters are all the rage these days with popular films such as The Avengers and others.  What many people may not know, is that local archives contain varied and diverse examples of these types of characters.  Oseredok contains one such example, as they explain in the following blog post.


    Did you know that one of the earliest comic books published in Canada was published by a Ukrainian here in Winnipeg? The multi-talented artist behind the book, Jacob Maydanyk, donated his collection to Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and educational Centre, and our most recent archival project includes the cataloguing, digitization, and creation of finding aids for his materials.

    Born in Syvdovi, Ukraine, in 1891, Jacob Maydanyk was a multi-talented artist and a contributor to the Ukrainian-Canadian community. After receiving his degree from the Krakow Textile-Ornamenting Academy, he immigrated to rural Manitoba in 1911. He spent the next decade of his life teaching in rural schools which exposed him to prairie farming communities, a theme he would return to in many of his future artistic creations. In 1920 Maydanyk moved to Winnipeg where he opened the Providence Church Goods Store, a business which he continued to operate until 1979.

    A talented artist and cartoonist, Maydanyk created “Vykjo Shteef Tabachniuk” (Uncle Steve Tobacco), a satirical figure who appeared in the 1920s in the Canadian Farmer and other newspapers. His characteristic style which combined sharp humor and satire was tremendously popular and resonated deeply with Ukrainian prairie immigrants, so much so, that his first comic book, published in 1930, sold thousands of copies. Reprinted in 1974, this comic book is one of the oldest published in Canada.

    Maydanyk was also a talented iconographer and his icons can still be found in many Ukrainian parishes in Manitoba. He collaborated with Theodore Baran and Leo Mol on some of his sacred art projects. Maydanyk’s other artistic pursuits included the creation of a number of plays and books of poetry.

    Additionally, Maydanyk was active in the socio-political life of Ukrainian émigrés in Manitoba and was an active member of the Ukrainian-Canadian community. An exhibition of Maydanyk’s work was held at Oseredok, Winnipeg, MB, in 1977.

    Oseredok houses many treasure like those in the Maydanyk collection and we invite you to visit us in-person, our website, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to learn more!

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