Flin Flon Station Museum wants to know the story behind its artifacts

With renovations progressing at the Flin Flon Station Museum, organizers want to tap into local knowledge to create a narrative that will help bring museum displays to life.

“We have a fair collection of artifacts that reflect the history of Flin Flon from its start into the 1960s and ’70s,” said Thomas Heine, vice-chairman of the museum committee. “We have organized these artifacts into a reasonably logical order so that the Flin Flon story is told to both residents and visitors to our community.”

Heine said the reorganization of artifacts was the easy part.

“Now we need the stories behind the artifacts. We need stories that only long-term residents can provide.”

As an example, there is a wood-stave water pipe on exhibit behind the museum. Norm Leclerc provided a two-page story that the museum can use to describe the artifact to visitors.

The stories will help make the museum a living facility, tied to the life and history of Flin Flon and area, “not just a collection of stuff that could have been purchased on eBay or at a garage sale,” said Heine.

In describing the kind of information museum staff are looking for, Heine refers to the 5 Ws: who, what, where, when and why.

“We can usually answer the what and why questions easily, but who used them, where the artifact was used and when is usually more difficult to determine,” he said. “We need the Flin Flon context behind the artifacts in our collection.”

Heine is asking people with information or stories to share to contact him by sending an email to [email protected], or to send information by mail to the Flin Flon Station Museum, P.O. Box 100, Flin Flon, MB R8A 1M6.

“In a way, this is a community call to arms,” he said.