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Page 9 West Vancouver Historical Society January 2004 Museum and Archives News Over the past few months the West Vancouver Museum and Archives has seen a lot of activity and staff changes. Kiriko Watanabe has joined the WVMA family as Assistant Curator while Barbara Milacek Welters is on maternity leave. Kiriko comes to us from UBC where she completed her Masters degree in critical curatorial studies. Carolyn Petrie, Jeremy Berto and Jackie Picard have joined the staff on a contract basis to work on a special project called the Destinations Time Walk. As one of the recipients of an Industry Canada grant that focu.ses on Canada’s digital collections, a special project began in late October called the Destinations Time Walk Project. It is being managed by District Archivist Lois Enns and will see the creation of four virtual historic walks through the West Vancouver communities of Ambleside, Hollyburn, Dundarave and Caulfeild. Printable maps will also be available from the WVMA website. The walks focus on important historic buildings, trees, and areas of interest. Launch of the site will be on February 20, 2004 during North Shore Heritage Week festivities. This project would not have happened if it weren’t for the generous contribution made by the Historical Society to assist the WVMA in upgrading its collections management software. InMagic has been the too! that the museum and archives has been using for the past five years and it was in dire need of upgrading. Funds were also used to purchase a web component for In Magic called Web Publisher. This software allows members of the general public to search the museum and archives database of objects and images from any computer, view them, research, and provide feedback to us about each piece. A special website is currently being developed to handle this new task and will be launched in the New Year. A great deal of work was accomplished on another project this fall - the West Vancouver Museum and Archives Map collections. Linda Nobrega, project archivist, along with several volunteers identified, described and conserved over 250 maps. Historical Society members Hugh Johnston, Ian Macdonald and Hugh Hamilton put in over 50 hours of volunteer time and provided invaluable knowledge on the origins of the maps, who donated them and their context. Contents of the collection include: site maps for the Great Northern Cannery, North Shore ferry routes, PGA station maps, fire insurance maps from the I930’s and a collection of Lions Gate Bridge blueprints. This project was made possible by financial assistance from the federal government through the National Archives of Canada and the Canadian Council of Archives. As we move into 2004 our focus at the WVMA will be on the completion of the Destinations Time Walk project and a publicly searchable WVMA collections database. One other special project that we are getting ready for is the 10“' Anniversary of the Museum and Archives. If anyone is interested in assisting with the development of our anniversary year celebrations, please contact Darrin Martens, Curator at 604.925.7296. January 28th General Meeting (1 his is a Wednesday) We are lucky to have as our speaker Tenney-Sean Homma, the granddaugh- ter of Tomekichi Homma, who for a time lived at Sherman. A number of his children attended school in West Van, among them Keay, Tenney’s dad, who attended Hollyburn and Inglewood schools. Assisting Tenney will be Andrea Geiger-Adams, an academic who is thoroughly versed in the Homma family story. At one time Tomekichi was a watch- man at the Great Northern Cannery. One of the employees there was Don Cox (later a member of the R.C.E.), son of Alexander Cox, proprietor of the Red and White Store adjacent to Skunk Cove. Don nearly lost his life by drowning, having tripped from one of the floats at the cannery. Torney dived into the water and saved Don’s life. Years later, when Tomekichi turned 65 and was eligible for his pension, he ini- tially refused to accept it. He didn’t think it was the honorable thing to do. Don Cox changed Mr. Homma’s mind. Of course, from the spring of 1942 on- ward, both generations of the Homma family were sent to internment in the interior of B.C. The more important story of Tomekichi Homma will be told by his granddaugh- ter on the 28th. PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATION The next meeting of the Parent-Teacher Association will take place in Pauline Johnson vSchool on Tuesday evening, September 20 [1932]. The evening is to be “Teachers’ Evening”, and parents are invited. Mr. A. Arkwright of Point Gray Junior High School, will speak on the Kidd Report from the point of view of the teacher. Miss Josie Leyland, the High School student who made the highest aggregate marks in the recent Junior Matriculation examination, will be presented with the ten dollar gold piece which the P.-T. A. donates each year. At an executive meeting held last Monday a resolution of H. Davison was passed to the effect that, the West Vancouver municipality being financially strong, the P.-TA. executive were opposed to the action of the School Board in making a $5.00 monthly charge for High School pupils over 17 years of age. In fVbniary 1941 an offer of $250 was made lor the Ambleside wharf. 7'liis was just one ol several received hy West Vancouver’s t ra n s po rt a I i o n co r n m i 11 ce.