Precious Cargo - Stories of the World in Yorkshire

This week we are beginning to pack artefacts currently on display in the Cook and Scoresby wing of the museum.  This in in preparation for the repainting of the room later in January.  Although it seems like a huge number of cases to empty all at the same time it will give us a good opportunity to assess the condition of some of the objects, clean and conserve where necessary before the new displays are installed in February.

This is just one of the cases we need to empty, just so you get some idea of how much work we will be doing over the coming weeks.  I am really looking forward to the challenge although I have some reservations - like how to get those canoes safely down and into temporary storage prior to cleaning?

Bringing the World to Whitby: Jurassic fantastic puppet show

Bringing the World to Whitby: Jurassic fantastic puppet show: "There are still tickets left for the two performances of this fabulous puppet show on Saturday"

Jurassic fantastic puppet show

There are still tickets left for the two performances of this fabulous puppet show on Saturday

Jurassic fantastic puppet show

Snowflakes

In the run up to Christmas each year there is a display of Christmas trees in St Mary's Church in Whitby.  This year I suggested that the theme for decorating the museum's tree should be snowflakes.  This is inspired by the beautiful drawings of snowflakes in the museum collection done by Captain William Scoresby Junior.  He was a successful whaling captain and while in the Arctic regions he surveyed the coasts of Greenland and Jan Mayan island and studied the flora and fauna and ice and snowflake formations under different weather conditions.  The museum has a substantial collection of his scientific instruments, many of which are on display.  He also made many beautiful sketches of ice formations and of birds he observed.


Here is a picture of some of the drawings by Scoresby and some of my 'test' paper snowflakes.  On Thursday   25th November at 2pm a small group of us will be attempting to make enough to cover our tree, please join us if you can.

A bear?

One of the objects in the museum collection that really has impact is this colourful totem pole from Nootka Sound.  Nootka Sound is on the north west coast of Vancouver, one of the areas visited by Captain James Cook in March  1778, with two vessels, the Resolution and the Discovery.  They were in search of the North west passage.  This totem is from a much later date and stands at the back of the main room of the museum, close to the back doors.  It is a beautiful and colourful object and I have been trying to find out about the significance of the bear (shown here in my photograph) as the other figures all have an explanation listed for them. 

Carved and painted wooden bird

This has to be one of my favourite objects in the museum collection.  It is a carved and painted wooden bird.  It's label says that it was brought from New Ireland and was given to the museum by Captain Readman in 1928. It is such a vibrant piece.  I would love to know what significance or meaning it had originally?