PRESERVING THE POWER OF THE PAST
Watrous and Manitou Beach have a unique and storied history, and it was a love of that history that inspired members of the community to preserve and showcase it at the nascent Watrous-manitou Beach Heritage Centre.
“Some things were going to be lost if we didn’t,” says Kathy Bergen, chairperson of the centre’s board of directors. The committee members were aware that there were already many excellent pioneer museums that explored the western experience in general, but they wanted stories and artifacts that were specific to the Watrous-manitou area to endure.
The committee was formed in 2011, and its first mandate was finding a location to house the centre and its collection. The search was difficult, and the committee considered constructing a new facility, but ultimately secured a building at 403 Main Street. The building used to belong to Sask Water. The committee started a capital campaign and raised enough money to purchase the building.
For the foreseeable future, it is the upper floor of the building that will house and display the collection. “That’s what we’re doing now: renovating that,” says Bergen, though the first floor will remain in use by the existing lease-holders. “In future, if a lease is let go, then we’ll just move into the main floor gradually, so it’s kind of a multi-stage project … 2019 is the 100th anniversary birthday of the community of Manitou Beach, so we’re hoping to have it fully open and ready for the public by then.”
In order to help visitors to envision the communities as they used to be, the centre will display Orin Mcintosh’s scale models of historical buildings. Smaller, but no less noteworthy, artifacts have been rescued from many of their former homes, including a stained-glass window that was brought to Watrous from England in the early 1900s. The intent, however, is for family stories and histories to take precedence.
“We’d like to be a repository for family photographs and documents, like an archive,” says Bergen. “We’ve focused on that, already collecting oral histories from people. That’s sort of ongoing. It’s people who’ve had a part, whether they worked at CBK or whether they previously owned the Chalet pool at Manitou Beach.”
Those narratives will be available to visitors so that they can listen to tales of the area’s past as told by the people who experienced it. “You listen to some of these oral histories and some of the amazing things that people experienced, or started up or whatever,” says Bergen. “You’re going to see video representations of a lot of the people and them talking, telling their stories.”
In creating the centre, its supporters hope not only to give voice to the past, but also to protect their community’s future. “The Heritage Centre, we’re hoping, will help revitalize our Main Street,” Bergen says. Although there are already many attractions in the area, she adds, “Just to have an added reason for tourists to come, and that will also help our local economy.”