These days, it is the Corner Brook Museum and Archives using the local connection to the British explorer to move into uncharted territory.
The history of Cook creates an instant affinity between Newfoundland and Whitby, England — the home of the Capt. Cook Memorial Museum. Kathy Elliott, volunteer curator at the Corner Brook Museum and Archives, has visited the site and established a direct link. That relationship has blossomed into the reproduction of the Capt. Cook Memorial Exhibit, for which the local museum has received $8,780 from the provincial government to create.
Elliott said the exhibit, which is targetted to be the drawing card for the museum’s grand re-opening in the spring, will feature 14 visual panels and between six and eight replica navigational tools. Perhaps, the biggest part of the exhibit will be a replica of Cook’s ship The Endeavour.
“It is an international exhibit and we will be the first ones in North America to have it,” Elliott said. “That is tremendous, considering we are just a local community museum, volunteer driven, and not having a wonderful big budget to operate. So, it is quite the coup for us.”
The exhibit is being created at the Corner Brook Museum and Archives under the direction of Elliott, with the help of George French, archivist, and Kelly Sceviour, territorial assistant.
The curator hopes, if the budget allows, to also create a travel version of the exhibit which can be toured and offered to museums throughout the province and country. It would be the first time the city’s museum created such an exhibit.
“We have never had anything of the quality to travel outside the province,” she said. “It is huge.”
She said they will also develop school programming around it and will be looking to utilize some of the navigational tools within workshops for school children.
“Besides a little lecture and seeing the exhibit, it will be a small hands-on activity for them,” she said.
The panels will include images of Cook’s ventures throughout Canada, including those of the Louisbourg, N.S. attack, several throughout Quebec, charts of voyages to British Columbia, as well as untitled charts of the Bay of Islands. There will also be images of artifacts Cook brought back to England with him.
“I think what is interesting for us local people is, we know so much about him and when he charted the coastline of Newfoundland, but we don’t know much outside of that,” Elliott said. “He was also in B.C., when he was in Louisbourg, and on the St. Lawrence.
“I think it will be quite a learning exhibit, not just for what we already know, but what we don’t know about his northwest coast exhibits and his travels.”
She said it will also be a recognition of his contributions and voyages to this part of the world.
“It has never really been acknowledged about his exploits in Canada,” she said. “All we ever heard and learned in school is of his South Pacific voyages. So, that should make this an interesting one for us.”
