The Winkler Heritage Society is moving forward again now with a new space to use in the Winkler Arts and Culture building.
A brief ceremony last Tuesday celebrated the opening while also looking ahead to its plans to have more space down the road for an actual museum space again.
“This is a good start for us,” said treasurer Brian Dyck, who welcomed the thought of the long term plans for having a new home. “We have about 6,000 artifacts right now, and we’ve got numerous more documents than that … so it’s nice that we are able to at least preserve it.”
“This space will at least be a good storage space for the materials. We are temperature and humidity controlled, so that protects the materials here,” said Ed Falk, who serves not only as chairperson but also as an archivist.
“We also have more than 2,000 pictures of individuals and families and collections of pictures,” he noted. “We even have some files of material like cloth materials that should be in a museum and should be shown, but we can’t yet because of space and time, but at least we are able to store them here temporarily.
“It’s available though to anybody who wants to study their personal history or community history,” he noted. “We are ready to help you do your research.”
He emphasized the importance of doing everything possible to protect many of their sensitive documents and materials.
“We have some documents which we can’t even touch physically anymore because they are that fragile … but we protect them all.
“When the next part of the project is able to happen, we’ll be able to move offices over there (to their new space), and it will leave us a little more space over here. We’re happy to have this because we spent a whole year in storage.”
Dyck offered an observation about what strikes him as being most important about the documents and materials they have compiled to this point.
“It’s all about the people who have lived here,” he said, citing the many personal and family stories represented and people who were a driving force in the community.
“That’s what we’re hoping to capture with the museum,” he said.
“It’s interesting where you may have come from and how all these cultures have affected where you are now,” he continued. “We want to tell people who we are … we’re kind of known for the things that we stand against, but what do we stand for? Those are the stories that we want to tell.
“I think it can build community spirit. It can make people feel better about who they are,” he concluded.
