Swift Current Legion undertaking major project to digitize historic material
A major project by the Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 56 in Swift Current aims to take the preservation of its large collection of historical items into the digital age.
The branch started the project during the latter half of last year and a museum committee has been set up to oversee the initiative. The committee members are Andy Moon (branch president), Jason Tangen (2nd vice president) and John Griffin (public relations officer).
Griffin, who has been a Legion member since 2018, is spearheading this initiative. He said they began discussing the idea shortly after the branch launched its own website and YouTube page.
“It’s part of our modernization plan, trying to engage with more people, especially younger people,” he mentioned. “A lot of the stuff younger people do nowadays is online and through digital mediums.”
The project will provide a new way to tell the stories of veterans by making digitized information available to a wider audience.
“People who don’t come in here all the time can see what’s going on or maybe they live far away and their grandfather was from here,” he said. “It will really help people who do research, like genealogists, historical researchers and not to mention schools. It’s a way for schools to be able to access what we have here. They can always come down and look, but when they’re
teaching in a classroom, a teacher can pull up records and say every student research one person from Swift Current who served in the First World War or whatever.”
Increased accessibility is one goal of the project, but another equally important purpose of the initiative is to preserve information and material for future generations through digitization.
“A lot of the paper and ephemeral stuff especially are very delicate,” he said. “So it’s something that’s time sensitive almost. You got to have it preserved before it eventually disintegrates.”
The history of the Legion branch in Swift Current stretches back to the First World War, when it was originally formed in 1915 as a branch of the Army and Navy Veter
ans Association. In 1917 it was absorbed into the newly formed Great War Veterans Association (GWVA).
The GWVA and other veterans organizations then formed the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League in February 1926. This long history means the Legion branch in Swift Current has a large collection of documents, photographs, artifacts and militaria.
There is an extensive collection of items related to the 209th Battalion, the local regiment that served during the First World War. Other items in the collection are associated with the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Canadian Hussars), which is also an important part of Swift Current’s military history.
There is a variety of items in the collection related to the history and activities of the Legion branch in Swift Current. Griffin is still learning more about the collection as he works on this digitization project.
“I don’t know exactly how big it is yet,” he said. “We’re still going through. There’s always something squirrelled away somewhere, but the collection is very extensive and it encompasses all sorts of stuff. And not only is it military and stuff related to people’s service, but it’s also a lot of stuff about the Legion. We have photo albums full of old Remembrance Day photos, photos of event, people getting awards, Legion members being awarded lifetime membership and stuff like that.”
Items in the collection vary from original band instruments used by the 209th Battalion band to uniforms, medals and other military memorabilia.
“It’s fairly unique items and it’s items that all have a connection to a certain individual, because a lot of the stuff here has been donated by the individuals themselves or their family members who wanted it to go somewhere where it would be cared for and could be displayed,” he said.
The intention is to make information from the collection available as items are digitized, but the format of such an online site must still be determined. One option under consideration is the Museums Association of Saskatchewan SaskCollections database.
“We’re still trying to find out what we want to do, because doing a website on our own is quite a bit of work,” he said. “If we can partner, it takes a lot of that burden off us and we just have to work on digitizing the stuff itself.”
Several methods are used to digitize items in the collection, depending on its nature and size. A digital scanner is used for documents and photographs, but digital photographs are taken of larger items.
“We just scan documents and smaller items, but we take high resolution pictures with camera of stuff that’s in frames or that would be very hard to take apart,” he explained.
Each and every item in the collection will be digitized, which will be a painstaking process over several years.
“It’s going to take a couple of years, at least, just the sheer amount of stuff and trying to make sure you know the quality is there and going through everything,” he said. “As I’m working through things, digitizing it, I am making a catalogue of all what we have in each different category. That way we know what we have and if people are looking for something specific, we can say we have that and this is where it is.”