Butter churners and paystubs or why you should clean out your desk!

As part of an ongoing fire code compliance project at the Curatorial & Corporate Services Centre, we have been working with and relocating thousands of artifacts. Most of these haven’t moved since the WDM moved into this location in 1984. This has led to several interesting challenges as material is photographed, inventoried and moved. On July 9, 2024, as we were starting our day, we came across two desk drawers hidden at the back of a pallet. As we wrestled out the drawers to take them down, we discovered that one of the drawers was full. Inside we found not only a piece of Saskatchewan history, but a treasure trove of information about how the WDM itself came to be.

The drawer was full of letters, memos, speeches and documents from the beginnings of the WDM, all pertaining to the first curator George Shepherd. These documents, which had been tucked away, show everything from admission sales and paystubs to letters from prospective donors. Some of them even outline the early ethos of the WDM itself. Writing to explain the vast number of spinning wheels and butter churners in the Collection, George Shepherd noted that these ordinary objects held a connection to a way of life that was already rapidly disappearing in the late 1950s. Other documents offer a more lighthearted insight into the running of the Museum itself, including one written in blue pen by a small child to George asking when the Museum would open and to hope he wasn’t sick.

There is a remarkably human and casual quality to much of the documentation. What it makes you realize is that far from being a detached historical figure, George Shepherd and those he dealt with were just regular people, working at the same special workplace as us long ago. They did paperwork, edited memos, and dealt with the always delicate dance of artifact acquisition. George left behind a personal record that not only made two interns chuckle, but also shows how little many of the issues museums face have changed. But perhaps most human of all, George forgot to clean out his desk.

By: Dall Perkins and Alan Wobeser
Young Canada Works Building Careers in Heritage and Summer Student Interns