[BCMA] Retirement of Colin MacGregor Stevens as Manager, New Westminster Museum and Archives

Fri Sep 30 11:03:10 PDT 2011

Congratulations and good luck, Colin! Forty years is a long time. Hope it was a good time.

Ken Favrholdt
Executive Director/Curator
Osoyoos & District Museum and Archives

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv. 
  To: bcma at lists.vvv.com 
  Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 2:30 PM
  Subject: [BCMA] Retirement of Colin MacGregor Stevens as Manager,New Westminster Museum and Archives

  After 40-years in the museum field, I have decided to retire. I am retiring effective 2011 Dec. 31, but with vacation time (who has time for vacations in this business?), my last working day at NWMA will be Oct. 27. 

  I have lived all across Canada, in London England and Rome Italy. While living in Ottawa I found fossils across the street and in Rome I dug up ancient Roman pottery fragments just down the street. Paleontology was my first interest, then archaeology and eventually, history and museums.

  I came to New Westminster 6-1/2 years ago as the Museum Manager in May 2005 after having served for 18 years as the Curator at Burnaby Village Museum. My previous museum experience included working as a Tour Guide right and on up to Executive Director. Before graduating from UBC, including the Museum Studies under Audrey Hawthorne before the present MOA building was built, I had already worked at the Dartmouth Heritage Museum (NS), Vancouver City Archives, Vancouver Centennial Museum (three institutional name versions ago), Vancouver Maritime Museum and St. Roch National Historic Site (BC). After graduation, I worked at Battleford National Historic Park (SK), Batoche National Historic Site (SK), Cumberland Museum (BC) and the Estevan National Exhibition Centre (SK). During that time I also served in the Reserves, attained the rank of Captain, and was awarded the Canadian Forces Decoration (CD). I started the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada Museum and Archives (BC) in 1972 and spent 15-years there on three "tours of duty" as the voluntary Curator and Archivist.

  Career highlights included giving tours to Princess Margaret, the late sister of Queen Elizabeth II and to Colonel Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon. A lowlight was giving a tour to Prime Minister Trudeau's spoiled kids on the St. Roch as they refused to follow my safety instructions. My favorite discovery in the collections: In Dartmouth, Nova Scotia they have a cannon from the 1917 Halifax Explosion when the SS Mont Blanc blew up into a million or so pieces The cannon barrel was thrown about a mile inland and landed on the shoreline of Albro Lake as I recall. The barrel is bent and it is missing a triangular chunk from the muzzle. In the museum storage I found a triangular chunk of metal with rifling on one side. It had fallen through the roof of a house in Dartmouth at the time of the Halifax Explosion. I asked Bob Frame, the Director, if I could see if it was from the cannon. I seem to recall the staff not believing that it could possibly fit . but it did. Corporate memory is sometimes short. I saw the cannon last year and it has been moved. The piece likely languishes in the collection and probably without this story. The story was a bit personal as my history teacher there had lived through that explosion. 

  New Westminster has definitely been a highlight in terms of the interesting history (the city is 151 years old - not as old as Rome of course, but pretty old for this area) and its wonderful collection consisting of EXACTLY 35,035 artifacts including many colonial period artifacts plus lots of archival material. There have been many challenges, but it is gratifying to see the museum and archives evolving and now on the verge of a major expansion into the new Multi-use Civic Facility. 

  My wife Jeanette is already retired as a teacher and we plan to spend much more time together, travel a bit, and we are looking forward to the birth of our third grandchild. I have published one book and plan to do a lot more writing. I have many hobbies such as genealogy, military history and photography to keep me busy. 

  The NWMA is undergoing a major expansion into a new facility downtown which will be substantially completed at the end of 2013. 

  ·         The 1865 Irving House will remain where it is and will be operated as a satellite operation. 

  ·         New Westminster's city museum, established in 1950 will move to the new facility and expand from about 1,750 sq ft of display space to about 6,000 sq ft.

  ·         New Westminster's city archives will also move to the new facility and roughly double in size. 

  ·         Two years ago the NWMA was tasked by City Council with the maintenance of the Samson V Maritime Museum (a 1937 wooden hulled paddlewheel ship) and this month we were formally. tasked with the programming on board the ship as well. That collection was accessioned, starting with the ship itself. 

  ·         The New Westminster Police Museum is also preparing to hand over its c. 5,000 piece collection (which we accessioned 5 years ago for them) to the NWMA for proper care. 

  I still plan to remain involved with the museum field especially in my favourite areas of expertise i.e. collections management and military history. 

  Not that I would reveal any embarrassing secrets gleaned over the past 40 years . but did you know the UBC Museum of Anthropology was designed to have a permanent pool of water on the roof of its main galleries? Arthur "Leaky" Erikson felt that the office staff could look out over this pool on the roof which would visually merge with the pool of water in front of the museum by the First People's village and that in turn would visually merge with the ocean. Don't you just love architects when they work with museums?

  Let the jousting begin for my successor, or should I say successors, as one sometimes sees a single person replaced by two . but don't count on it!

  Colin MacGregor Stevens,

  Manager,

  New Westminster Museum and Archives,

  302 Royal Avenue,

  New Westminster, BC,

  V3L 1H7, Canada

  Phone Office:    604-527-4639

  Work Cellular :  604-830-6965

  Fax:                    604-527-4641

  E-mail: cstevens at newwestcity.ca 

  Web Site: www.newwestminster.ca 

  Normal work week: Sun-Thurs 9-5, OFF Fri-Sat.

  The New Westminster Museum and Archives (NWMA) consists of:

     * City's Museum (est. 1950)

     * City's Archives

     * Irving House (built 1865)

     * Samson V Maritime Museum (paddlewheel ship built 1937; museum since 1984) 

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