The new cabinets arrive

Today Chris Hunter has delivered the new cabinets. This is the beginning of their journey from truck into the museum. Chris had been in and measured the spaces between the displays at the back of the museum and there was just enough room to get the new cabinets in without moving anything.








Here they are at the end of a very busy and successful day. You can see that the canoes are now in their new resting place and we began to put some of the objects into the other case, but still have quite a bit to do. Happy day!

Beginning the new displays

I have had two enjoyable days working with Joan and beginning to unpack objects and put them back on display.


Here is the first part of the display (apologies for the reflections, I should have taken the photos while the doors were still open).



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Beginning to put it all back

The Cook & Scoresby wing of Whitby Museum has now been repainted and we can begin to put things back on display.  Fiona has been working really hard to re-display the collection that relates to the two Captains Scoresby, father and son.  The Scoresby collection is a mixture of objects from the regions around the Arctic where they were engaged in whaling.  Captain Scoresby Junior was also a scientist and so there are many artefacts he constructed as part of his investigations into magnetism and other experiments.  There are a few Inuit items and some very beautiful carved tusks now returned to display.

This is the view into the other end of the room and you can see we still have a lot of work to do.  The two new display cabinets will be located against the wall at the far end of the room, hopefully with the Maori Tiki figure between them.  The figure standing in the corner of the room in the above photo is of Captain Cook and usually stands on top of the hexagonal cabinet, but we took him down while we re-positioned the cabinet, so one of the next jobs is to put him back.  Today we have begun to think in more detail about where things will go and how they will be supported within the cabinets, to give visitors the best possible view.

Here are the two new cabinets under construction in Chris Hunter's workshop.  I took this photo a week ago and work is making quite rapid progress.  I love the corner detail which Chris has copied to match two of the existing cabinets.  The opportunity to work with such a skill craftsman has been brilliant.  He really listens to what is needed and comes up with ideas and solutions to help.