Simone Keiran

The Grand Forks Art Gallery and Boundary Museum Saga

The City of Grand Forks got a shiny new art gallery, the Boundary Museum acquired a fine pair of historical sites, and after the Furies finished running amok, everyone settled down to mend fences and ponder the true purpose of community museums and galleries.

By Simone Keiran

The New Grand Forks Art Gallery

Grand Forks is the largest urban center in the Boundary region of British Columbia’s south-central interior. As such, a showcase building for its heritage and visual arts community seemed in order. Unfortunately, few transitions could have been as fraught with difficulty as when the Old Courthouse on Central Avenue, an attractive brick Palladian-style landmark built in 1911, was transformed into a civic cultural centrepiece. Collections were seized, wrecking crews were called in, the City was taken to court, and it was mischief for everybody involved.

Scroll back to 2007, when the City of Grand Forks faced an epic economic meltdown after the twin closures of major regional industries, Canpar and Pope & Talbot. Forced to stretch drastically reduced revenues—as shops and small businesses crumbled around them, and hundreds of local people were thrown onto the unemployment rolls—the City informed its cultural services that funding was drying up. The City wanted them to bring in revenue, not consume it.

Grand Forks Art Gallery is one of the three major public art venues in the West Kootenay-East Boundary region. It received acclaim over the 25 years of its operations by providing a public venue to showcase regional artists, hosting visual art tours from outside the area, and promoting the enjoyment and understanding of visual art. At that time, the Grand Forks Art Gallery Society was its own distinct entity located in the basement of the public library behind Gyro Park.

There were problems. The gallery’s location and signage made the place difficult to find. A low ceiling made the space inside feel squat. Air smelled stuffy and stale. Basements are basements no matter how nicely they’re tricked out.

The old location had a lot more exhibition space than the new facility, but Ted Fogg, the Gallery Director, addressed this issue. “Sure, we lost square footage during the move. Presently, we have about 1,400 feet. But there were other benefits, other trade-offs. The ceilings here [at the new gallery] are much higher and the building is brighter, more open, more inviting. The basement at the old site had a side entrance that was very hard to find. Now we are in a great building, with lots of exposure and wheelchair accessibility. We’re right on the main thoroughfare through the city. The improved visibility and facilities have paid off with an increase in traffic. We have a lot more visitors. We deal with space limitations by using what space we have more creatively.”

Performance and Festival Space

The old Boundary Museum was a folksy place, a traditional Canadian community museum. It held mainly permanent displays of artifacts based on themes which reflected the region’s roots, culture and industry—First Nations, pioneer settlement, cultural groups like the Doukhabors, local flora and agricultural equipment, a roll of soldiers during various wars, maps, geological samples, and mining, hunting and fishing implements. Its collections included some handmade artifacts and craft projects, but its focus was on the area’s heritage, not its art.

Most of the artifacts exhibited from the Boundary Museum’s collections weren’t especially old, rare or valuable by standards set by official heritage organization like the Canadian Cultural Export Review Board which evaluates worth based on national importance, or a professional organization like the Canadian Antique Dealers Association which sets the minimum age for antiques at a century. Grand Forks itself isn’t that old, and the area’s mainstay industry has always been small-scale agriculture—not a big money-maker. The age, monetary worth, rarity and artistic merit of the collections were never at the heart of the museum’s existence. With community museums, they seldom are. The collections were mostly built, as community museum collections usually are, by donations from local residents of items which they deemed to be significant to the area’s history.

It was time for the Museum to move into a new building, however. In this case, the problem wasn’t visibility, for the old site stood prominently at the city’s centre. It had other limitations. It was a cinderblock box: dark, cramped, and laid out like a warren. It had been built at a time when builders, as a matter of common practice, didn’t consider the needs of the elderly and disabled. Temperature controls were consistently inconsistent. The cinderblocks purportedly had under-layers of lead paint which were seen to pose a potential health hazard, and the bathrooms contained asbestos. The exterior appearance was distinctly utilitarian, a little like a public swimming pool change room, surrounded by sheltered old farm implements that had been caged in with wire to prevent people from climbing onto them.

“There was no question that changes were in order,” explained Wendy Butterfield, administrator at the new Grand Forks Art Gallery, about the old museum. “There were a variety of problems and the end result was that many people weren’t tempted to come back. It was stagnant. It was not being used to its best advantage as a community resource.”

The City of Grand Forks, led by former Mayor, Neil Krog, and several councillors, decided to group the three venues into one golden basket, the Old Courthouse. The space required considerable renovation to be brought up to museum-quality environmental standards, but the expense was to be rendered bearable when shared by the two societies.

According to a blog, now either permanently removed or temporarily disabled, which was posted by the Boundary Museum Society’s former technician, Les Johnson, the space available to the new museum was considerably less than the space in the old museum building, and the layout was awkward. Passage to the Tourist Information Center and offices cut directly through their exhibition space, which defeated the purpose of charging entrance fees. There were concerns about how door receipts and annual memberships were to be handled.

The City of Grand Forks disagreed. It accused the Society of obstructionism and dragging its heels. It criticized them for failing to apply to other sources for grants. The Board of Directors were said not to adequately represent the local community. Out-of-region residences contributed to the slow pace at which actions were proceeding.

When the City closed the museum in October of 2007 pending the building’s destruction, the Society moved in to collect its artifacts. The City responded by locking them out.

The artifacts were moved out of the old museum, and two independent professionally accredited curators were brought into Grand Forks to catalogue the collections to Heritage Canada specifications. Butterfield mentioned that, during the Society’s tenure, the artifacts had never been properly catalogued. It isn’t sure what would become of the collections after this process was completed, but at least a part of them was to become the mainstay of the new heritage museum facility.

That wasn’t all.

The City also attempted to seize control by proclaiming ipso facto that the old Boundary Museum Board’s elected officials were to be replaced by the City’s own appointed representatives, and by using the name “Boundary Museum” for the space in their newly renovated facility. It cut off its funding support to the old Society.

“By locking the doors at Boundary Museum, the City of Grand Forks has declared its intention to confiscate artifacts, discard an independent board of volunteer directors elected by our members and impose a new hand picked board they can control,” wrote Laura Savinkoff, then Vice-President of the Society (and now current President), in a public statement dated 27 October, 2007, published in the local paper, the Grand Forks Gazette and temporarily posted on the Society’s website.

Savinkoff responded to the city’s accusations. The Society had been engaged in discussions with the architect and the other agencies with regards to its issues over the move. Because the problems with the new facility had not yet been worked out, the Society could not put together a cogent business proposal for grants in any case. None of the agencies which were to move into the new facility could. At that time, none of them had. Furthermore, the Boundary Museum Society is strictly governed under The Society Registration Act of Canada and, as such, is a separate entity from the City. The seizure of the Society’s prerogatives and property was not only arbitrary, it was illegal.

The Society set up a legal action fund and launched a court challenge against the City of Grand Forks. For lack of funding, it had to let go of employees, Greg Anderson and Les Johnson.

The City of Grand Forks knocked the old museum building down.

Museums: Curio Cabinets? Or Experiential-Based Learning Centers?

“Personally I would like to see the artifacts displayed that have meaning to the pioneers of the district as I feel they are the true “professionals” when it comes to the history of the Boundary.”

Canadian museums and historical sites have had to change how they run for decades. They are forced to compete with other media and programs for attention and funding. In many cases, they have lost and closed their doors forever.

Where museums have been successful, it is largely because they have moved away from sole reliance upon permanent exhibitions to attract community support. Because the history of a community is comprised of certain unalterable facts which are best illustrated through this style of storytelling with visual props, there is always some room for a permanent display, but serious consideration has to be given to how much space it occupies. For once a visitor has combed through it, each subsequent visit is, essentially, a re-run.

“Boundary Museum Society has held our collection of historical treasures in the public trust for over fifty years and takes its stewardship role seriously,” Savinkoff wrote in her letter.

Like most community museums and galleries, the place mostly ran on volunteer labour. All its board members were elected to their positions, and in the case of its administrative, maintenance and support staff, two employees. These employees were neither paid at union rates like city workers, nor protected by union contracts. The City did not want that expense. Instead they were hired by the Society and accountable to its Board of Directors, who in turn were bound by strict laws which govern charitable societies in Canada.

The museum also appears to have been resourceful in how it kept maintenance and construction costs low. Johnson wrote that private citizens with woodworking or machinist shops would donate equipment and space. The City did not contract this work from area residents. Nor did the City provide stipends, sabbaticals, and bursaries so that the Museum’s employees could upgrade their professional credentials and undertake the cataloguing process on their own initiative.

That legacy of the Boundary Society’s care for its artifacts is indisputable, but the collections were in need of a good professional curatorial overview. The primary exhibitions were pastiches of genuine curiosities, kitsch and ‘kitchen sink’. They needed a fresh shot of imagination and form of presentation.

Consider, for example, one of the pieces which was displayed prominently within the old museum: a collection of vintage international costume dolls—the type purchased by tourists at souvenir shops in foreign countries—entailed by the estate of a local woman. This display of dolls was arranged en masse in a case without so much as visual props, a story plaque, or even a docent nearby to describe their significance to the history and culture of Grand Forks. The collector had not sewn the costumes herself. They were colourful and whimsical, perhaps, but mostly mass produced. Since the period when the dolls were collected, international trade and travel have made the rest of the world accessible. A person can conceivably go anywhere within 48 hours to be in the presence of a real person wearing the real costume. It begs the question of why the dolls were placed there, and what criteria were used in the selection of this display.

Contrast this to the Poitras Collection of Miniatures at the Bonnyville Museum near the central Alberta-Saskatchewan border, handcrafted in its entirety from the 1920s to 1950s by Clementine Poitras, a milliner who lived all her life in that town. Each diorama depicts scenes of typical French Canadian life in Northern Alberta during that period or earlier, although it also contains magic realist elements and scenes from fairytales and folklore—of the sort told in that area during that time. Poitras crafted each piece by hand from items commonly found in the homes of that period: paper maché, scraps of fabric and leather, feathers, paints, wires, bits of tin, and twigs. The significance of this piece to the history of Bonnyville and the region is indisputable.

This isn’t to say that the Boundary Museum’s dolls shouldn’t have been shown, or that they weren’t culturally significant, just that this importance wasn’t conveyed. A professional curator researches artifacts properly, even in cooperation with the late collector’s family or friends if primary source material is inadequate. Then they design the exhibit so that the artifacts’ significance and context is unmistakable, and museum-goers—especially those from outside the community, or from younger generations—understand why they are there.

Other problems with the presentation of artifacts were based in designs and sensibilities which were considered innovative during Canada’s 1970s and 1980s, and have long been outstripped. Artifacts were grouped in categories like “The Mining Industry” or “The Second World War” which gave them context, but often without further explanation of their purpose. The displays were exclusively visually oriented, with no concessions for the sight impaired, and the information was imparted almost exclusively through written media, not too helpful for tourists or children whose English or reading skills might be lacking.

At museums and heritage sites across Canada, spectators will now find:

• Working demonstrations of crafts like blacksmithing, bread baking, weaving and gardening which invite audiences to participate so they are immersed in the experience, and understand methodology through that immersion. “Curio cabinet set-ups” have been redesigned into playgrounds, studios, recording venues, laboratories, mock archeological or palæontological digs.

• Kinetic, interactive displays that engage all the senses.

• Theatrical and musical presentations where trained actors and storytellers present historical events as a famous person might have seen it, like, say, suffragette Nelly McClung, or Galileo. These sometimes include re-enactments of pivotal debates in parliament or sensational trials by historical appreciation groups.

• Multimedia presentations which impart information aurally, for those who cannot read.

To keep Canada’s museums relevant and engaged with their communities, accredited museum studies courses, curatorial residency programs and guest curatorial programs have developed around the country. Interpretation has become a specialized field. Professional curators consult and work directly with people in a specific region to best tell their stories and convey their life experiences with whatever resources are at hand, even when funding is scarce. In fact, it is when the dollars are tight that curators really shine. They draw upon the innovations, experiences, creativity and data of a legion other museums and similar situations around the world, which they’ve studied extensively. They have had a key role in saving museums, revitalizing collections, and preserving regional history across Canada. The Boundary Museum was sensitive to the issue of “outsiders” and “professionals” coming in to evaluate their artifacts.

The difficulty with dramatic changes, of course, is not only funding, space, and set-up, but also how to re-imagine the use of artifacts, many of which have been donated by people in the community with the expectation that they would be displayed. While a community museum cannot run without its artifacts, museums are not based on artifacts alone. The relationship between a museum and its donors is its life-blood. It isn’t as simple as using available space more creatively or exercising greater control over the size of displays.

Any significant changes which affect a community’s museum also have to take into account the feelings of the people in the community itself.

Restoration and Renewal

Fructova School Heritage Site, Home of the New Boundary Museum

In November of 2008, the Grand Forks Art Gallery moved into the Old Courthouse, which enabled the City of Grand Forks to consolidate three services under one roof, the art gallery, a heritage museum and tourist information centre. Currently, all three are under the auspices of the Grand Forks Art Gallery, although the heritage museum is not the old Boundary Museum, the one which once stood across the street from the Old Courthouse.

The recent election brought in a new slate of representatives, and the process shifted into one of repair and restoration. Voters gave a new mayor, Brian Taylor; city councillors, Christine Thompson, Cher Wyers, and Joy Davies; and area representatives, Grace MacGregor and Irene Perepolkin, a different mandate—one endorsed by the Boundary Museum Society.

The Land Conservancy of BC stepped up with an offer of two historic sites for the use of the Boundary Museum Society, which provided them with an alternate location for their displays.

“The City has abandoned its application to trade mark the name “Boundary Museum” as its own. It has reimbursed BMS [Boundary Museum Society] $3500 paid in 2008 for the City’s share of court costs and undertaken to dissolve the society contrived to replace BMS in the Old Courthouse. The Art Gallery will become overseer of a “museum” exhibit hall in the Old Courthouse with the direct support and sharing of collection information from BMS,” wrote Rick Docksteader, former director of the Boundary Museum Society, in the latest version of the Boundary Museum Newsletter.

This is the situation as it presently stands:

The Boundary Museum Society—which has always owned, administered and maintained the collections—has partnered with The Land Conservancy of BC, and its artifacts are being housed at the restored historic Fructova School and Hardy Mountain Doukhabor Village Museum far off in the northwest corner of the valley. They have set up displays at the new location and are working on a circle tour of the valley’s heritage sites for visitors, a tour that, presumably, includes the new heritage museum facility at the Grand Forks Art Gallery. At present, it appears as though the City of Grand Forks will continue to provide a baseline operating grant which the Society can top up with funding from the BC Arts Council.

Hardy Mountain Doukhabor Village Site, Home of the New Boundary Museum

The Visitor Information Centre is fine doing what it always did, advising tourists, dispensing pamphlets, and booking spots at the local civic campsite from its office at the back of the Old Courthouse.

The heritage museum on the main floor of the Old Courthouse is not the Boundary Museum, but the Boundary Museum Society lends the Grand Forks Art Gallery selections of items from its collections to set up special shows in the exhibition space that is designated for heritage displays.

The Grand Forks Art Gallery, and by extension, the City of Grand Forks, according to Ted Fogg, Director of the new Grand Forks Art Gallery, “is strictly an exhibition venue. The Grand Forks Art Gallery does not own collections.”

Grand Forks Art Gallery now features two galleries devoted to visual arts displays, two galleries for historical and heritage-themed exhibitions, the Tourist Information Centre, and a large hall for events and festivals.

At this new location, a recent exhibition which celebrated traditional Doukhabor needle arts—along with artefacts relating to fabric production, and demonstrations by the Boundary Weavers and Spinners Society—exemplified the ethos of adaptation and reconciliation.

“We designed it in conjunction with festivities to honour 2009, the International Year of Fibre,” explained Sue Adrian, who was appointed by the City to resolve outstanding issues between the new Grand Forks Art Gallery’s heritage museum and the Boundary Museum Society. “The women who created the display in the east gallery were Doukhabor, many of them in their 80s, grandmothers and great-mothers, members of the community for generations. They brought us their handiwork and explained how they made it. They all knew and admired each other’s work, so there was a real sense of connection and respect.

Boundary Weavers and Spinners, Weaving a Welcome Rug for the Grand Forks Art Gallery as part of the International Year of Textiles

“We are determined to put the conflict behind us,” Sue Adrian emphasized. “And the Boundary Museum has shown its willingness to work toward that purpose.”

In June of 2009, the Grand Forks Art Gallery celebrates its 25th Anniversary to coincide with a Grand Opening at its new facilities.

Ted Fogg elaborated, “The official opening will commence at 1 pm, presided over by former mayor, Neil Krog, and the former councilors who made this lovely new building available for us.”

Festivities include an Art Walk through downtown Grand Forks, an Artist and Artisans’ Fair on the gallery grounds, a presentation of song and dance, followed by a beer garden and barbeque. Two new exhibitions will open: Lou Lynn’s sculptures in Retro-Active, and Pat Service’s painted landscapes and cityscapes in In My View, opening reception from 1 – 3 pm on June 13th.

“We still have to get out of the habit of calling it The Old Courthouse,” laughed Fogg.

-30-