A new project in Hay River is looking for your old photos of life in the town.
The town’s museum society is hoping to create a giant wall display showing a map of the original town site, as it was in the 1950s, alongside photographs of the people who lived there at the time.
“If anyone has a photo of their family, or something depicting family life here on the island, we’d be really happy to receive it and plot their location on the community map,” museum society vice-chair Beatrice Lepine told Moose FM.
“It’s amazing what people have showing life here in the old town during the fifties.”
The project follows the Memorial Wall of the past two years, which has already helped to uncover hundreds of photos from the past.
“That was an incredible, long fence line, filled with photographs of people who had lived here and who had passed on,” Lepine said of the Memorial Wall.
“There must have been up to four or five hundred photographs on that Memorial Wall, and now there is an intent to find a permanent display for it.”
Lepine told us the map, when complete, will be a tribute to the connection residents feel with Hay River, even after they have left.
“Many, many people still stay connected to Hay River through the museum Facebook page, for example,” she said.
“People feel strongly about their connection here – people who have gone away and, when we post a picture of the lake, or some activity, you get so many comments from people missing the place and life in this community.
“We wanted to honour that.”
To contribute your photos, get in touch with Brad Mapes at Wesclean Northern Sales.
