Over the past few years more of our lives moved online as the days of casually going places as our means and inclination enabled us was curtailed drastically. Family historians were well placed to take advantage of this move to the virtual. The large databases we consult like Ancestry, Find My Past and Family Search already had a huge online presence. If we needed to find out more about a topic, webinars were available. Family history societies, having watched their attendance numbers dwindle in recent years, pivoted so their meetings were online. They saw the numbers attending their meetings grow.
Museums were not so well placed, at least not small museums like the one in Port Coquitlam, BC. It's run by PoCo Heritage which I volunteer for. In February 2020 we held the launch part for the F Words exhibit, the story of Port Coquitlam's early disastrous years told through exhibits and graphic novel style posters. Health orders closed our museum space to the public in March, less than a month after the exhibit opened to the public. The challenge then and now was how to get our exhibit seen. We needed to go beyond moving display items closer to the street front windows to catch the eye of people passing by.
The posters were turned into a comic book but that reach was limited. We were unable to sell the comic as we obtained a grant to pay for its development. What more could we do to get our exhibit seen? A search for grants turned up the Digital Museums Canada. A perusal of their website at https://www.digitalmuseums.ca showed stories from across Canada. Museums had gone virtual! Did we have a story they would accept for their virtual museum? We put in our application and waited. The news was that they had received many more applications than normal. Of course they did. Everybody was trying to go digital in any way that they could. How else could they get their stories seen if the physical doors to exhibit places were closed?
PoCo Heritage's F Words story was accepted! The story was adapted once again. Check it out at pocoheritage.org/fwords It's the tale of a city's disastrous founding years and the spirit that got them through. It's a story we can take strength from now.
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