Behind the Scenes: Collections Intern Spotlight with Amynte Eygun
During my time as the collections intern, I was lucky enough to learn many new skills and work on projects that have allowed me to learn in a hands-on way. While my time was mostly split between four major projects, I was given endless learning opportunities with smaller projects in and out of the collections department.
- Amynte
The Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre would like to thank the Government of Canada and the Canadian Museums Association Young Canada Works program for contributing to this paid internship opportunity.
Major Projects
Winter Carnival Exhibit : Frozen Frontier / Frontière Glacée
Mounting the Frozen Frontier / Frontière Glacée exhibit , January 2024.
My biggest project at the Museum during my internship was writing, planning, and putting together this year’s Winter Carnival outreach exhibit. This project allowed me to see my work progress from start to finish, which is rare in the museum world where projects seem to never end! I was given free reign on this exhibit, as long as it referenced the Winter Carnival, and this really let me use my imagination. I decided on the theme of the impact of French Canadians on snowshoeing and the Winter Carnival after noticing French names popping up over and over again in my general Winter Carnival research. I utilized the Museum’s archives (newspapers, photographs) to supplement my research, and dove into the collections to find cool artifacts like 100-year-old snowshoes to show the public. Because I was writing the exhibit on Rossland’s first French Canadians, I wanted to make sure the exhibit was accessible to both Francophones and Anglophones, so I decided to write it in both languages. This paid off because through this project I was able to learn about the vibrant Francophone community in Rossland, and even connect with them myself! Because of the bilingual nature of the exhibit, we were able to welcome a grade 6/7 class from École des Sept Sommets for a French tour of the exhibit and to learn all about the behind-the-scenes at the Museum.
Ski storage at RMDC , February 2024.
Ski Re-housing Project
It is no surprise that a museum in such close proximity to Red Mountain has a TON of skis! One of the first projects I was tasked with when I arrived at the museum was to re-house our entire ski collection. This meant moving over 60 pairs of skis from the old ski wing to the collections room, where brand-new padded shelves patiently awaited their arrival. This project taught me many things from maneuvering large and sometimes heavy artifacts, to conserving skis, to managing the organization and documentation of 9 full shelves of objects.
My favourite FIC object that I’ve worked with so far is an invalid cup from the early-20th century!
Found in Collection
One of my favourite projects I've been working on during my time at the museum is sorting through our Found In Collection (FIC), objects and treasures that were found in the museum without any donor information or provenance. Researching the FIC is like uncovering mysteries every day. Figuring out the stories of forgotten objects and their relevance to Rossland’s history and the thrill of figuring out an object’s origins after searching high and low is simply unmatched!
Cataloguing & New Accessions
Similar to researching FIC items, sorting through new accessions is the ideal way to learn about Rossland’s history and the characters that have helped develop the town. This task involved researching objects that were donated to the museum, and unlike the FIC, these usually had provenance and donor information attached!
One of my favourite objects to catalogue has been this teeny-tiny salesmen model Stetson hat!
Sorting through new accessions allowed me to learn about the collection, what we already have, and some possible gaps. Many of the objects in the new accessions were related to Rossland businesses and societies, so I was able to learn about the people and the businesses that built Rossland into the golden city we know today!
Box for the Stetson hat model
This project required me to describe each object in depth, photograph the objects, and upload all the information into our collections database, eventually contributing to our Community Portal. While this project was a lengthy process, it was through these steps that I was able to familiarize myself with the collection, the database, and general Rossland history.
Smaller projects
Other than the four big projects outlined above, I worked on and participated in multiple smaller projects. I worked on many french translation / comparative-editing projects for the Museum and external projects; I helped with comparative editing for our Digital Museums of Canada Ski Racing Exhibit - Gold Mining to Gold Medals: A Century of Ski Racing in Rossland, assuring a seamless transition between the English and the French text on the website. I also edited the French version of our summer tour guide manual, as well as a few small translation projects within the collections department.
Senior’s workshop, basic object repair, November 2023.
Along with the archives department, I also helped with the development of the Museum’s new Senior Memories Discovery Kits, a project that allows for at-home exploration of different historical Rossland themes.
Finally, I was able to work on presentation and public speaking skills by leading a portion of our November 2023 seniors’ workshop on object repair.
Skills learned
Basic document repair, November 2023.
Through my internship, I was able to refine the skills I had learned in school and also develop new skills that I will be able to use throughout my future career in museums. One of the big skills I learned here was how to properly care for textiles. Coming from only working with archeological collections, I had not yet learned how to care for and display different kinds of textiles. The museum has a large textile collection, especially Victorian and Edwardian-era pieces, which can be very fragile! Similar to conserving textiles, I had also not had much experience in document repair. Through a workshop with my fellow interns, I was able to learn how to care for documents and books, conserve them, and repair small imperfections.
The list of skills that I have learned at RMDC could go on for pages, so I'll keep the rest short; artifact photography, designing and mounting exhibit panels, proper cleaning of artifacts of various sizes and materials, working with small museum budgets, and exhibit take down and clean up, just to name a few.
