Crys White is a self-described “foul weather archivist.” She says she can be found at the Tumbler Ridge archives—located in the back of the Tumbler Ridge Museum—a couple days a week, unless the weather is nice, then she’ll be out spending time with her husband and/or her donkey.
But considering that before White stepped in as volunteer archivist, nobody was doing much of anything with the town’s records, that’s a big step up from before 2014. That was the year that, as a board member of the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation, she heard from Charles Helm that nobody was doing anything with the archives.
“I’d do that,” she told Helm, and thus her career as the town archivist began.
White was recently one of a handful of museum professionals and volunteers celebrated during BC Museums Week, May 14-20.
After volunteering to look after the archives, she took a one week archiving course in Calgary—at her own expense—to learn the ins and outs of the job. She admits that most of the information presented was over her head, but she learned enough to dig in to the material properly—how to handle, catalogue and preserve documents and items.
Returning to Tumbler, she found papers, photographs and various and sundry items, stored in garbage bags and shoe boxes. “It had been at the library,” she says. “Then it went out to the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery when it was where the Home Hardware now is. Then it went to the District.”
That’s where she found much of the material, randomly piled up in the basement of town hall. So she began working through the material, sorting it, compiling it and labeling it, often with the help of other volunteers like Irene Lekei, who, unlike White, has been here since the beginning of the town and was able to identify many of the people in the images.
White typically spends a couple days at the archives, working through material. She says her favourite things are about the creation of the town and what was here before the town was built. “I would love to know more about Aunt Kate (Edwards),” she says. “I’m sure there’s more information about her out there.”
And, while she has a lot of material on the early days of the mines, there are gaps in the archive for more recent events. “I have nothing about Conuma,” she says. “I have nothing about the Arts Council….”
White freely admits that she’s not a professional archivist, and suggests maybe it would be good to have a professional archivist hired to make sure everything is documented correctly, but in the meantime she is happy to have things as organized possible, calling it an “archive collection” more than a true archive. She says her biggest weakness as an archivist is simply identifying what is worth keeping and what is not. So for now, she’s keeping most of the material that has been donated.
Over the years White has applied for grants for the museum and received enough funding for a computer and archiving software to store the information, archival materials such as boxes, shelves and a map cabinet, and carpet to cover the old floor. “When I started, I was just using my own computer,” she admits.
There are two rooms used for archives, the front room where the work is done and the back room where material is stored.
There are about 20 fonds, or body or records, in the museum’s archives. A huge amount of information relates to Bullmoose and Quintette, including about 10,000 photographs. She has some information on the area before the town was built, but is always looking for more. When the Hospital Foundation shut its doors, they donated their records to the archives, and a couple years ago, she got a call from the curling club, saying they had found a bunch of old files in a closet in the rec centre.
And while there is information on many of the various other clubs in town such as the saddle club, figure skating club, minor hockey association, Grizzly Valley Days and Grizfest music festival, she says the thing she has the most information on is the Wolverine Nordic and Mountain Society. No surprise, considering that much of the material she has came from Charles Helm.
White says is always looking for people interested in looking at old pictures and identifying people in them, as well as people who might have old items (photos, etc) to donate. “I’m actually starting to run out of material,” she admits.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
