2019 will be a big year for the North Hastings Heritage Museum.
For the first time in the Museum’s history, it will be open for all 12 months of the year. That’s because a furnace was installed in 2018. Chair of the Museum Board Mary Kavanagh says that gives them the opportunity to make 2019 a “banner year” for the Museum.
She says they want to continue to build on the New Horizons for Seniors grant they got that helped them write the cookbook “Honouring the Women of North Hastings – their stories and recipes.” Kavanagh said that in 2019 the Museum will look to write a second edition of that cookbook. She added that a book on the childhood stories from the elders of the area is in the works as well.
Kavanagh mentioned that funding from the grant allowed them to write 200 copies of the cookbook, which sold out. She says the Museum made an additional 100 copies with their own funds. She says over 30 of those copies have been sold.
It was announced late in 2018 that the Museum will begin writing curriculum for all the schools in the area. That is thanks to funding from the Trillium grant that was secured by the Museum. The curriculum will give students the opportunity to learn about Bancroft and North Hastings’ history. Kavanagh says work on that has already begun.
Among the other things Kavanagh would like to have done at the Museum this year is bringing in a chainsaw sculptor. “Lumbering has been an integral part of this community for well over 100 years,” she said. “We’re hoping to invite storytellers and carvers and artisans and really have the young students in the area engaged in those aspects of the history of Bancroft,” she added about what she hopes to offer to the community.
The North Hastings Heritage Museum is open Monday to Friday from 10 AM until 4 PM.