Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Oh, you're just asking me questions
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Morning, everybody. How are you doing today? My name is Elliot Pierre. This is the Mac city morning show. And I just want to start it off the same way. Always do. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time, so it warms my heart that you've decided to spend with us. Now on that note, Tanner hit him with the intro.
Speaker 2 00:00:28 Welcome to the Mac city morning show.
Speaker 1 00:00:35 All right. So as you guys are probably getting to know there's a bit of a format to this. Uh, I don't practice my questions or even write anything down prior to, but I always started off by saying thank you. And then I toss it over to our guests because they can do a better job at introducing themselves than I ever can. So for everybody at home, can you please introduce yourself, tell them who you are and what you're about.
Speaker 0 00:00:57 All right. So I'm Tammy Plowman. I work for the Fort McMurray heritage society or did ship yard and heritage village.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 Cool. Right on. So I love heritage park and it's funny. I always get this wrong. Cause you said heritage society. So growing up here, it was just the one park. So it was heritage park, but you guys have expanded and there's a reason why you're called the society. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 0 00:01:22 Sure. So, um, we now have two, a museum location. So we have heritage shipyard in heritage village when we flooded in 2013 at heritage village, which was then heritage park. Um, we decided to rebrand. So we rebranded and went from the historical society to the heritage society and tying in heritage shipyard in heritage village. Right.
Speaker 1 00:01:46 Okay. Now I've got a question cause I just haven't gone down there yet. So you're talking about the flood, that impacted heritage village. Now we've had another flood recently that I have to assume has impacted heritage shipyard. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 0 00:02:01 Oh, for sure. So it actually impacted both sites. Um, heritage shipyard was probably the first thing hit in all of the city. Uh, so pretty, pretty significant damage there. Um, which of course is devastating. But as the time progressed, we quickly realized that heritage village was going to be in trouble as well because the waters were actually coming from the hanging stone and the Clearwater and from all angles. So yeah, we called on the community, which was amazing in the middle of a pandemic and they, we saved the village. Otherwise we would have flooded again at the village. That's awesome. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 00:02:43 Yeah. The pictures were phenomenal. That's why I kind of didn't even bring that up in regards to like, I, I was aware that it wasn't touched, but yeah, that was because of the community rallying and throwing down some sandbags,
Speaker 0 00:02:55 Not just sandbags. We actually built a berm around the, and uh, we had all kinds of companies come out and bill, and it was the berm that essentially saved the village. The sandbags were to save the historical building, should the water get in, but the, uh, the berm itself was what saved the village. So the water was about a foot from the top of the berm on the composite high school side. So I guess that's the North side.
Speaker 1 00:03:24 Yeah. Your guess is as good as mine. Okay. So is that berm still there? How are you going to like keep it there for future potential or is just, that was temporary temporary fix?
Speaker 0 00:03:36 Um, it was, well, one day emergency, temporary fix. We would love to see something, stay there, however we are on leased land. So, um, we're not sure what will happen. I, I assume that it will be taken down because once they do the permanent flood mitigation for the entire city, we should then be protected. Right. Um, but that's still in the mix.
Speaker 1 00:04:03 Okay. Now, in regards to the shipyard, obviously first thing hit, you'd think their boats, so they float, but they're not operational. So, um, is that, are you, um, redoing that refurbishing it? Is it open? What, what, what's the, what is the future for the ship yard look like?
Speaker 0 00:04:22 Okay, well, um, the ships were grounded and dry docked to be the museum, so people could go on them. Um, so they did take on water. Um, our main building had a foot and a half of water. So that whole main building exhibit is toast. Um, so we are rebuilding the main building and we are doing some restoration work on all the shifts as well. The train, which is from 1899, um, was saved. We're still looking into making sure that, um, just the, the walls of the train were actually made out of plywood. So I would, we know that's up water, so, uh, that's still just being looked after and restored, but we think the train is okay. So, uh, yeah, we're in, we're into a lot of work.
Speaker 1 00:05:13 Yeah, no doubt. So it definitely is not open right now, but future plans are for you to reopen that.
Speaker 0 00:05:19 Um, absolutely. So the shipyard is, is a seasonal site to begin with. So we're usually open me to, uh, October. So, um, we are closed during the winter anyway, but we didn't open obviously this season. So we've been working since the flood. Um, hopefully we will open this may long weekend. Right? That is our goal. Yes. That's our goal.
Speaker 1 00:05:41 Awesome. Yeah. Well, you're going to come back on this show and we're going to promote not a lot coming up to that weekend. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:05:48 It'll be a day to celebrate for sure. Fantastic.
Speaker 1 00:05:51 Okay. That's great to hear, like, I wasn't sure what you were going to say. So because I go out of my way for everybody at home, I go out of my way, not to talk to the guests. You guys show up a half an hour before the show starts, you hang out with Tanner and I stay up in my room and I do whatever I need to do. So like I don't ask you questions that are basically not on film. So yeah. So I didn't know what you're going to say. So that's phenomenal news. I love to hear that.
Speaker 0 00:06:15 Yeah, we're really, um, early excited. I mean, it's been a tough go with, with COVID and the flood. So, um, you know, museums got hit pretty bad prior to even with the economic downturn end funding for museums was cut in the last three years. So it's been a bumpy bumpy road, but, um, we're ready to open heritage village. We've got our COVID barriers in place and because you can't disinfect artifacts, a lot of people don't think about that, but you know, if somebody touches an artifact, should they have COVID um, you know, we have to, right. We have to be careful of that. Right. And protect people. So we've got our barriers in place and now we're just waiting to get the go-ahead to open, which I believe is phase four.
Speaker 1 00:07:00 Okay. So when it comes to reopening, um, prior to that, cause like you said, stage four, um, how can people get involved to like help, um, help the heritage society in regards to donations, volunteers? Obviously it costs money to keep an establishment like that moving. So if you're not having people come in that doesn't change the fact that you're on lease land, the light bills still need to be paid. How can people get in contact to support or just support in general?
Speaker 0 00:07:27 Uh, I love the question. Um, well we have our gift shop open so that our gift shop is, uh, definitely one of our main revenue streams. So shop local, um, we had a wonderful Christmas season. We're restocking both parts of the store. Still be sure to shop, shop local. The Christmas store is open still. We keep it open all year now. Um, of course donations, we would love and appreciate any donations that keeps us going. Um, volunteers are a bit, uh, difficult right now with COVID and with the restoration work at the shipyard. It's just so very specific artifacts that it's difficult to accept too many volunteers, which you never want to turn down a volunteer, but it's just very specific work. And we have a restoration company in there right now doing the work. Um, but you know, there's always things to do around the village maintenance wise
Speaker 1 00:08:27 In regards to the donations. Like obviously you can swing by, like you said, in the gift shops open so I can give you cold, hard cash. Um, but if I'm at home and I don't want to make the trip down there, is there a way for me to actually, uh, give money outside of physically dropping it off?
Speaker 0 00:08:44 For sure. You can always donate through our website. There's a little donate button on there are pops up in the mail or give us a call. I mean, we're, we'll take anything at this point. Maybe not Bitcoin, but we'll take it to vote to anything.
Speaker 1 00:08:57 Good to know. Well, that's the big thing and that's, I'm going to ask you that again at the end of the show, in regards to somebody missed what you just said, hopefully they can catch it at the end as well. Um, cause yeah, you guys have an amazing place. Like, uh, I grew up here, so I remember going down, um, for school excursions, um, we would go down to heritage park and run around and play. Um, and a few years ago when you and I first actually met, you gave me a proper tour of what you did after the flood and wholly, was it impressive to say the least?
Speaker 0 00:09:27 Yeah, we, um, we took that opportunity a lot of opportunity, um, to just update the park at the time. Um, and so yeah, we're a little more technical, got some audio visual and um, we got our, we improved our exhibits and uh, really focused on what the buildings were originally. Um, and so yeah, the exhibits are fantastic. It's actually so sad that we haven't had anybody in since what March a year now almost. And, uh, our educational programs have been put on hold. We are, I should talk about this because I'm very excited about it. Let's talk about it. Yeah. We made, um, artifact kits and so we teachers can rent the artifact kit and it's got a four to five day curriculum outline for them. Teachers basically pick it up and, and everything is divided up and they can check it out. So they get some interpretive artifacts.
Speaker 0 00:10:25 Um, we've got a little segment on beavers and otters and um, some indigenous artifacts. So it's a great kid and that's one way that we can stay connected with the schools. So we're really, um, you know, it kind of hurts our heart a little bit, not, not to be able to interact with our students and the teachers. And so this gives us a little bit of interaction with them and we've been doing some virtual tours, so that's been really fun and technically challenging, no doubt, uh, just the movement in the buildings and things like that. But it's been, um, it's at least one way to connect. So we're really excited about that spring. We're T we're talking about doing some more virtual tours, so it seems to be the way that things are going and the only way to stay relevant within the community. And that's of course the mandate of the society is to educate about the history of our region. So one way that we can do that.
Speaker 1 00:11:22 Very cool. So these kits, if I want to get one of these from my little guy, how is it something that only the schools can get? And should I be talking to his teacher about picking it up or is this something that like, anybody can get their hands on?
Speaker 0 00:11:34 Uh, that's a great question. Uh, right now it's just for teachers, hadn't actually even thought about doing it for any, you know, publicly or anything, but, um, yeah, a teacher will rent it for her class and then work through it for the week. Oh, very good. Comes back to us and we quarantine it for a week, clean it, like I said before, we can't disinfect artifacts, so they have to be left for a week or two. Okay. Just COVID wise. Yeah. Um, yeah, so that's okay. So any teachers watching this show? Yes. They should get in contact with you to pick that up. That's a really interesting way about going about it. Yeah. I'm really excited about it. We've got videos that go with each of them, not Elliott level, Tammy Elliott or Tammy on low quality. Well, these are lowered balls, but I mean, it gets the point across in it.
Speaker 0 00:12:26 It's a little bit of an extra resource and a change for, for teachers. You know, these kids are sitting and, uh, they can't go on any field trips. Right. So, uh, the response thus far as this is awesome, cause it's something different that we can do in the classroom. So great. Pretty, pretty excited about it. Very cool. Yeah. All right. Well, we're at the part of the show where Tanner's going to ask you some questions. Okay. The segment is called the Mac city minute. So Tom is going to hit you with some five quick random questions that he's prepared. So just answer them as honestly as you can. Okay. All right. Tanner hit her with the Mac CD minute.
Speaker 0 00:13:07 Ooh, we've got so many cool artifacts. Um, well one, I have a couple, I don't know if I can say one. Let's see, let's hear your top three then. Okay. So we have a fish. So it was a Lake trout Cod and like, um, at the Baska it's 68 pound Lake trout. It was damaged in the Shapiro flood. So it's getting, getting, uh, repaired as we speak, but it's pretty cool. Um, Oh man, we have so many really cool artifacts. Probably we have a printing press. That's really cool. And we have, Oh, I don't know. There's so many. We have a gramophone. Our Gramaphones for equal to, okay, there we go.
Speaker 0 00:13:57 Oh gosh. Um, I hope people know this, but we were a major, uh, for trading post and the river transportation was huge. It was the only way that, um, freight and people could get further North being local. Uh, you know, I've been here almost 18 years and it's a great city. My kids grew up here. Um, they worked here, you know, at Fort McMurray has done as well. And I think just supporting our community, I'll tell you, April 27th has, is local, is they're supportive, resilient. They came out in the middle of a pandemic to save a village like Fort McMurry is like no community I've ever known
Speaker 3 00:14:50 You today. What is one thing in forming Marie? That is unique to the city?
Speaker 1 00:14:59 I have to say that. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:15:07 You know what? I hated history in school,
Speaker 1 00:15:12 Which is
Speaker 0 00:15:13 Interesting. But, um, I just think the history here is so amazing, like the fair trade, uh, indigenous people that it's just all very interesting. And maybe as a kid, you just didn't care about those things. But as an adult, it's, uh, it's really
Speaker 3 00:15:30 Interesting.
Speaker 1 00:15:34 Tanner hit with a hard one right off the get go. That's like asking who's your favorite kid? Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Jeez. I like it. Hey 10. A good way to put them on the spot, man. There you go. Yeah. So yeah, I know you guys do some amazing things down there. Like I, I thoroughly enjoy visiting. It blows my mind. Every time I go down there, like from the church to the bank, to the drug store, that's down there just historically. There's so much you can learn about Fort McMurray when you there it's nuts. My favorite thing, I'll say it is the bank. I love going into the bank and looking at that safe and how heavy that is. It's a beast. It really is. So yeah, every time I go in there, I'm in awe just how far society for has come in regards to, like you said, you accept everything, but Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is coming up and then you guys have this safe. And so it just it's, it's it's historical. Right. Cool. Right on. Okay. Well unfortunately, uh, we're done that's that's your 20 minutes. I know it flies everybody's nervous, but yeah, that was nothing. It goes by pretty quick. So before I cut you loose today, though, uh, please one more time, shameless plug about the society. Please tell people who you guys are, what you're about and how they can help and support you guys.
Speaker 0 00:16:53 All right. So we are heritage village, heritage ship yard. Um, the ship yard is obviously on the river and the village is, uh, just run toll and drive there. And we have our local gift shop, which is a huge part of our revenue generating. So please shop local at heritage village. We do carry Canadian and local artists as well. So support us, support them. Um, we are all about educating the community on our history. And once we open, please come and check out the museums again, and you can always donate. We have a little, uh, section on our website that you can donate at. You can pop by, call us. We'll take anything.
Speaker 1 00:17:36 There you go. Perfect. Okay. Well, everybody at home, definitely a it's a really cool spot if you haven't been to it before, try to do it virtually when things get open again and you can check it out, please do that. And definitely go to the website and hit that button. And, uh, it's part of our history. So definitely try your best to support in any way you can. Other than that, my name's Elliot, Pierre, this has been the Mac city morning show. Thank you so much for tuning in. It means the world to me. It really does. Um, so thank you. And we'll see you then.
