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Williams Lake’s Tourism Discovery Centre is celebrating Canada 150 with a growing display

The Tourism Discovery Centre is celebrating Canada’s 150 years of confederation with a display that will grow throughout the month of June
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Monica Lamb-Yorski photo Staff at the Tourism Discovery Centre is creating a display to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary of confederation. Visitor counsellor and event co-ordinator Betty Turatus says the display will grow each week through the month of June.

The Tourism Discovery Centre is celebrating Canada’s 150 years of confederation with a display that will grow throughout the month of June

Visitor information counsellor and event co-ordinator Betty Turatus said the first portion of the display will feature brochures and posters about Canada.

“From June 1 until the end of the week the display will be about Canada,” she said. “We have brochures on travel around the country, posters about what makes us unique as Canadians, some heritage information, who has invented things and other famous Canadians.”

The following week, Aboriginal displays will be added and the TDC will dedicate the afternoon of National Aboriginal Day, June 21, to a market in the grass area featuring First Nations artists and businesses from the region.

“We will be advertising that the week beforehand for them,” Turatus said, noting the market will take place from 1 to 6 p.m. in order not to interfere with other Aboriginal Day events taking place that morning in Williams Lake.

French culture will be featured in the next addition, with help from Canadian Parents For French who will put together a French Immersion display and some history on St. Jean Baptiste Day which is celebrated on June 24 in Quebec as a national holiday.

Completing the exhibit by Canada Day, July 1, will be a multiculturalism component.

“Nothing is coming down,” Turatus said of the exhibit.

Additionally the TDC will host photographer Tim Van Horn of Red Deer, Alberta with his Canadian Mosaic Project mobile pavilion on Wednesday, June 21.

Van Horn will be there from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and encourages everyone to come down and have their portraits taken that day.

“There will be a table where you can select a clipboard with a slogan for you to complete with an erasable felt pen phrases such as ‘I am a …, My Canada is …, I’m building a better Canada by …,’ and pose for a photo,” he said, noting they will be taking some videos of people as well.

His plan is to create a montage during 2017 with thousands of photographs.

“The Canadian mosaic is this elusive concept and notion but we don’t really have a concrete genuine authentic portrayal of what that looks like,” he said. “The only way to really do that is to accumulate thousands of portraits from across the country that cover geographical regions, the multiculturalism, the demographics and socio-economics levels and indicators and weave that all together from a grassroots point of view.”

Turatus said with the Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin moving into the TDC temporarily this July, the Canada 150 displays will be in the upper level of the building.

In the original version of this story, Tim Van Horn was scheduled to come to Williams Lake on June 20, but as of Monday, June 12, he has changed the date to June 21.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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