VMLS via Podcast – Stones and Symbols at Victoria Lawn Cemetery

Today’s lecture features special guest Dr. Adam Montgomery, one of the most recognized historians on cemetery history today. Dr. Montgomery shared the history of Victoria Lawn Cemetery in a lecture titled ‘Stones and Symbols of Victoria Lawn Cemetery’. This lecture was originally presented on September 15, 2020. Enjoy the lecture.

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Museum Classroom: Hold on to Your Hats – Community in St. Catharines (Jr.)

The things we put on our heads can tell an awful lot of stories. To celebrate National Hat Day, enjoy this Museum Classroom post examining the history of hats in the Museum’s collection.

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VMLS via Podcast – Lost and Historic Architecture of St. Catharines

This next lecture will wrap up our VMLS podcast for 2021 just as the lecture itself wrapped up our first lecture series in the spring of 2020. ‘Lost and Historic Architectures’ was presented by yours truly on June 23, 2020. After this, we’ll be taking a little break but we’ll back with more lectures in January 2022, so stay tuned, and as always, enjoy the lecture.

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VMLS via Podcast – Racetracks and Runaway Carriages

Another guest joins us for the lecture today. Dr. Keri Cronin is a historian of visual culture and faculty at Brock University with a special focus on the history of animals. Her lecture titled ‘Racetracks and Runaway Carriages’ Dr. Cronin looks at the history of horses in St. Catharines. This lecture was originally presented on Jun 17, 2020. Enjoy the lecture.

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History from Here: The Lake Street Armoury

On this episode of History from Here, Sara takes you to the Lake Street Armoury. Not only does this conspicuous landmark help us understand our local military history, but was also once a social hub for the community.

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Reminiscences of 10 years of Guided Spirit Walks

There’s nothing quite like a guided tour through a cemetery. There are a lot of versions of this type of event. A spooky walk in the dark, a theatrical ‘spirit walk’ featuring actors portraying folks buried in the cemetery, or even an afternoon historian-led walking tour. Everyone has their favourite experience but it’s the theatrical spirit walk that advances important and personal historical narratives with a high return on interpretive value. The spirit walks also have the unique ability to allow us to lift the primary sources found in the Museum’s collection off the pages of the archives and bring them to life. In most cases, there may not be another opportunity to present those archival sources to the public.

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History from Here: The Royal Canadian Henley Rowing Course

Home of the St. Catharines Rowing Club, Brock University Rowing, the Ridley Rowing Club, and the Ridley Graduate Boat Club; a training site for numerous school rowing teams, and a venue for rowing competitions of all levels, including the highly reputable Henley Regatta – the Royal Canadian Henley Course has welcomed and cultivated world-class rowers and coaches on its waters, since 1903.

On this episode of History from Here, Sara takes you to Rennie Park, across from the Henley Grandstand, to learn about the Royal Canadian Henley Rowing Course in St. Catharines, Ontario.

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STC StoryLab Presents: Scott Street Church

Day-to-day our lives may seem ordinary, but everyone’s unique experiences are what make our stories special. These stories tap into feelings of nostalgia, happiness, sadness, and more. These are the stories that help to make St. Catharines what it is today. At the St. Catharines Museum, our goal is to collect these stories and share them for generations to come.

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Remembering the Welland House

From what we’ve seen online and in the news over the last few weeks, it is clear that the loss of the Welland House Hotel has hit the St. Catharines community hard. It is no different here at the St. Catharines Museum. Within all the varied work of a museum, the history of the Welland House would come up at least once a week among staff, volunteers, researchers, and visitors in some way. It’s tangible loss is stark.

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Welcome Back to the Museum!

The St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canal Centre is very pleased to again welcome visitors safely to our facility as of Friday, July 16 at 9:00am. Read here to familiarize yourself with our updated operations to ensure all visitors have the best and safe experience at our facility.

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History from Here: Lakeside Park at Port Dalhousie

Once widely touted as the “Playground of Ontario”, Lakeside Park has been a destination for summertime fun for more than a century. What started as a boisterous port town grew to be a hub of entertainment, leisure, and play that drew thousands of locals and tourists each summer.

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Words for the Future, From our Visitor Book

This year, Museum Week ends with the theme #WordsForTheFutureMW. The words for the future we choose to share today come from our 2019 Visitor Book, where visitors from around the world left their mark and shared their comments about their experience at the St. Catharines Museum. As we enter the summer months of 2021, I was curious to learn what our visitors were saying about the Museum back in Summer 2019. It turns out, there’s a few lessons for the future we can gather from our visitors.

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aMUSE 5 – The Fifth and Final Series

The series was created in response to the idea that the Museum is viewed by many in the community as important but not a part of their daily lives. Many believe we are an important institution in the community but can’t identify what we do or what kinds of objects we have in the collection. We think its vitally important to get our collection out and seen by the people for whom we steward those very objects.

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History InSite 2017

If you’re a history keener (like us) and are interested in taking a guided walking tour, you can meet Museum historians at the Festival Hub/Interactive Village on James Street on the hour between 11 am and 4 pm on Saturday and Sunday, April 29 and 30, 2017

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Museum Chat Live! E104

On this special episode of the Museum Chat Live! podcast we’ll be focusing once again on our very cool book club: Books & Brews. As a part of the book club series, we are delivering three podcast episodes that accompany our discussion.

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