Cupids vies for place in national history museum
Many know of Cupids’ role in the early history of Newfoundland and Labrador — a spotlight shone brightly on the Conception Bay North community in 2010 during celebrations to honour its 400th anniversary as Canada’s oldest English settlement.
But according to Peter Laracy, general manager of the Cupids Legacy Centre, the community also wants to help inform the public about its intangible cultural heritage.
“Sometimes people say, ‘ Why do you deal with faeries,’” said Laracy. “We’ve got lots of archaeological evidence about the fact people lived in Cupids a long time (ago) ... but one of the things we really wanted to capture was our intangible culture heritage and all our rich oral traditions.”
During the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of St. John’s Northwest, Laracy took time to discuss the place of faeries in Cupids.
“For us, we deal with things that are beyond living memory, but we also deal with things within living memory,” he said.
The centre is also campaigning for Cupid’s inclusion in the soon-to-be Canadian Museum of History in Hull, Que. An online vote is taking place at the museum’s website under the title ‘Who has shaped our country.’
John Guy, the Englishman who originally colonized Cupids, is among almost 60 names Canadians can choose from for inclusion in the museum. Guy was ranked 10th as of Tuesday.
People can also vote for the founding of Cupids in the category “What is the Canadian story.” It was ranked 58th as of Tuesday.
The museum is currently known as the Canadian Museum of Civilization, but is undergoing a transformation that’s set to conclude in 2017.
The centre has faeries displayed on its rooftop garden that were crafted by Morgan MacDonald, and Laracy said it soon hopes to have replicas of those structures for sale at the museum gift shop.
“Sometimes people come to Cupids and they look at the faeries (on the rooftop) and they kind of screw up their face and say, ‘Well faeries don’t really look like that.’ And my question to them is, ‘ How many faeries have you seen?’”
Laracy said the centre hopes to have a contest this year that will eventually lead to an art exhibit featuring works created by youth depicting fairies.