With the hard work of the board, our summer student, and many volunteers, 2007 was another exciting year for the Cortes Island Museum and Archives Society (CIMAS).

Postal historian and author Peter Smith of Quadra Island created a display of the Post Offices of Cortes Island which also included Chamadaska on Marina Island and Refuge Cove. Bonnie MacDonald added some artifacts from the Refuge Cove Post Office, Joan Goring loaned a few items from her collection at the Whaletown Post Office and Jill Milton loaned her collection of miniature buildings made by Doreen Thompson that included a Whaletown Post Office bird house with a nest on top! It all proved to be a most interesting exhibit to many visitors.

The Public Education Program offered the schools a unique project designed to tie in with our postal history display. School outreach coordinator, Bonnie MacDonald, began by giving a talk to both the primary and intermediate classes at Cortes School concerning the importance of letters, mail and local post offices to the daily life of Islanders in the pre-road, pre-telephone era.

Permanent Display panels were begun with exhibits on the walls and a panel about the history of Lakeview Ranch/Linnaea Farm which was well received in our display at Linnaea’s Farm Fest. A section on some history of the Klahoose Band was researched by Larry Hansen and the late Inar Pielle. Artifacts created by author Hillary Stewart along with Laurel Bohart’s button blanket, the Museum’s basket collection and some Jordan family artifacts completed the First Nations display.
Mary Weiler’s watercolour collage became the focal point for a small logging display and Bruce Ellingsen kindly added the “piece de resistance” by loaning an Ellingsen Jack designed & created by his grandfather Sigurd Ellingsen to ease the burden loggers had to carry into the bush.


For the full annual report, click on the following link.