I am writing to express my personal support for the Maritime Museum’s current proposal for national status.
READ ALSO: Victoria’s Maritime Museum seeks national status in Bastion Square
I am retired and my major hobby is model boating. I write and edit the newsletter for the Victoria Model Shipbuilding Society, so I have a great and continuing interest in all aspects of maritime activity in Victoria. I take delight in continuing to discover the amazing stories that spring from Victoria’s harbour and in trying to let others know about them.
READ ALSO: Maritime Museum takes nominations for top B.C. mariners
I really, really want to see the Maritime Museum get the facilities to make its collection readily available to the general public and to be a significant part of the education of Victoria’s children. It can help them understand how the sea and ships have been shaping this province since the first settlers arrived in North America. It will allow them to see and touch the things that allowed humans to live here and thrive from the sea, trade with each other and to build the civilization we now have.
READ ALSO: Maritime Museum marks 100th anniversary of the ‘Unknown Titanic of the West Coast’
There’s nothing more important to our sense of community than to know and share our story.
As the Maritime Museum is now housed, much of that story is difficult to access. There’s no room for more than a few exhibits that tell only little bits of the story.
If you visit, you get no sense of an overview, the impression is of a small and irrelevant past.
We can’t reasonably hope to put the greater part of the museum’s collection on view, but we need enough that visitors get a real sense of how much more is available. Then, with volunteer help, the staff could produce an electronic record of the archive and open it to the world.
Edward White
Victoria