Contemporary homesteaders, the Nipissing Township Museum wants to hear your stories of life on the land. It’s part of a project curators are working on, which aims to compare homesteader practices of today with those of days long past.
It was about 150 years ago that the “Old Nipissing Road” from Rousseau to Nipissing Village was completed, a road that did much to open Nipissing Township. Before this, the families of John Beatty, Edward Floyd, Thomas Thomas, and James Chapman called the area home, having settled between 1863 and 1868.
The museum has a lot of artifacts from those days, and many were originally owned by those families, as well as from those who arrived soon after. Homesteading history and practices are well-preserved within the Nipissing Township Museum, and all of that homesteading lore got them thinking about how people are homesteading today.
So, for those of you out there who have returned to the land and are trying to be self-sufficient with your own resources, museum staff would like to hear from you to see how things are going. What are some of your challenges? What type of tools and equipment do you find yourself using most?
What about securing food and preparing meals? Do you can, smoke, pickle? How’s the land been treating you these past years? Are the bugs getting your lettuce? There are so many challenges to living off the land, and there are great rewards, too.
The museum would like to hear all the ups and downs of homesteader life. And you don’t have to be from Nipissing Township, but nearby is recommended. If you’re homesteading in East Ferris, Bonfield, or around Calvin, the earth is pretty much the same out there than it is in Nipissing Township, so don’t be shy to reach out with some stories and advice.
Museum Manger Gillian Bernas is excited to see what stories come through, and “depending on what kind of information we get back from everybody, we might put together a little exhibit of some sort, perhaps something like the challenges of modern homesteading, or something along those lines.”
There you go modern homesteader; you can become immortalized in your very own exhibit.
Send those tales by email to [email protected] or call the museum at 705-724-2938. Better yet, stop by at 4363 on Highway 654 (about 20 minutes West of Callander). It’s open on summer weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sit a spell and spin a yarn about life on the homestead. They’ll be happy you did.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
