It’s impossible to describe how profoundly moving it is to walk through Trail history in the city’s new museum.
You’ll just have to go see, hear, and watch it for yourself. And more than once at that.
Because now that archived treasures are out for everyone to view, there will be a jog – many jogs – down memory lane for the Trail community, as well as lessons to learn from the city’s rich past.
Sarah Benson-Lord, Trail Museum and Archives Manager, took the Trail Times on a preview tour before the Riverfront Centre officially opened on Monday. The deal was to keep everything under wraps until the ribbon-cutting, which is understandable, because there’s so much history – and “wow” – to take in from the very thoughtful collective, that one story cannot do it justice.
So we asked her how it felt to finally have a space dedicated to Trail history, which includes a special archives room with its own HVAC and humidity control on the second floor as well as a new microfilm reader and research desk.
“(The collection) was tucked away, and we’ve always been thankful to the city for giving us space, but it wasn’t ideal,” she began, referring to the old archives nestled in a far corner of city hall. “This space is ideal from the access and location perspective, but also, we are given the opportunity to make this content relevant. Even if all of it isn’t relevant to everybody, a little bit will touch you in some way.”
A grand staircase embellished with graphics is the first visual punch guests will spot when they enter the Riverfront Centre doors.
“We have such a tremendous collection of panoramic photos, this was the best place to utilize that, with the skylight above,” Benson-Lord said. “We worked with Teck to develop this visual, and we didn’t want to focus solely on industry, we wanted to focus on community.”
The city’s flagship collection, the sports gallery, is off to the right of the staircase on the first floor.
“People that come in here will want to see the flash, the bright colours, and see it busy,” Benson-Lord said. “So with this gallery we were really lucky because the artifacts speak for themselves.”
Upstairs, a soft color palette casts a calm, more reflective, mood.
“We were able to utilize our massive photograph collection,” she continued. “We’ve got over 13,000 photographs in our collection, so especially upstairs – where we don’t have the artifact or a tangible item to represent a story – we certainly have the imagery, and that’s what has been so great.”
From the Trail Daily Times