Sarah from Archives
Download MP3We know our services and programs impact you, so let's talk about them. Together, we'll learn from the people behind the scenes and get to know our city a little better. From the city of Winnipeg, this is Our City, Our Podcast.
Natalie:This podcast is recorded in Treaty 1 Territory, the home and traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininew, and Dakota peoples, and the national homeland of the Red River Metis. We acknowledge that our drinking water comes from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory.
Archive audio clip:Ladies and gentlemen, this is indeed a historical moment as far as the city went based concern. I think you'll all appreciate that the completion of this building will finalize the centralization program as far as our administration is concerned.
Shannay:What is this? What are you listening to?
Natalie:It's some audio on the archives, Winnipeg and Focus website. Actually, it's an old reel that, I guess they found in a time capsule in the old public safety building.
Shannay:Oh, very cool. Is this a clue into who we're chatting with today?
Natalie:Yep. We're talking to Sarah Ramsden, senior archivist here at the city and why archives aren't just about keeping old things, but more about discovery and connection. Hi, Sarah. Thanks for joining us today. You are the city's senior archivist, and to some, you know, that can be a pretty mysterious profession.
Sarah:Yeah. That's right. So first off, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm so excited to to be here to talk more about what's in the archival collection, how people can access our services, and a little bit more about what we do in the archives, day to day. So to explain more about my job at at a very high level, what what I do is manage the archival collection, provide archival services, and develop archival programming.
Sarah:So this means that, I'm assessing the records that come our way for archival value. So if they do have archival value, we're adding them to the collection. We're, working to make the records available, and this means creating archival descriptions, inventories. So we're not just storing the records. We wanna make them discoverable and searchable, and eventually, we post those descriptions to our website, Winnipeg and Focus, so others can can search and discover the archival materials.
Sarah:Of course, a big part of what we do is, provide reference services, and, we work to encourage interest in the city city's archives and its history through outreach and programming like exhibits.
Natalie:Right. Now maybe take us back, right to the the top of your day and how your day starts because right off the hop, it's not your average desk job.
Sarah:Essentially, you know, I I start my day, just walking around some of the storage areas, turning on the lights, opening the building, looking for any signs of disturbances that could be leaks, signs of rodents. Of course, we want to address any issues with the building early on, so that they don't get out of control because ultimately, like, the building preserves the archival collection, and it's our responsibility to make sure that lasts, in perpetuity, so that it can be used, in the present and in in and by future generations, of course.
Natalie:That's very different from me just coming and turning on my computer and getting at it.
Sarah:Yes. Yeah. Not your average desktop.
Shannay:So sometimes we ask people, what's on your desk? And for you, it's not unusual to have a really interesting answer on this one.
Sarah:Yes. Thank you so much for asking that. I have a lot of cool stuff on my desk. So often I'll have boxes that I've ordered from storage that haven't been opened for 50 years. And to me, this is like Christmas day.
Sarah:I love opening these boxes and seeing what I'll find. Recently, I had a box that was just labeled mayor Juba's stuff or something like that. And there was this unlabeled VHS tape. And when we, you know, brought out the VHS player and, played it, it turned out to be a public roast of mayor Steven Juba, which and it was so, like, fascinating to see this politician that I've and I've read so much of his correspondence and, of course, read so much about him in council minutes. And then, to see him in this context and with all this humor, it was, yeah, quite fascinating.
Natalie:Were there any good zingers that, you know, you remember?
Sarah:Yeah. Definitely. There was one from Don McDonald. He was, like, a long time public servant, a former CAO of Winnipeg, and he said something like, mayor Stephen Juba didn't know the meaning of the word failure. He didn't know the word defeat.
Sarah:He didn't know the word quit. In fact, there were a lot of words that mayor Stephen Juba didn't know the meaning of. I was like, I think the first part of it really rang true to me. Like, he didn't know the meaning of failure. And because I have read so much of his correspondence, I knew I know that there were, like, so many ideas that mayor Steuben Juba, like, generated and was excited about, and, not all of them were successful, but he certainly didn't let fear of failure prevent him from pursuing them.
Sarah:I will share, like, one of my colleagues, he he had the best one of the best lines. We were listening to Slaw Rebchuk speak, and Slaw Rebchuk was, of course, a long time city councilor, an important voice on city council. But at this roast, his jokes just weren't landing. And so one of my colleagues said, like, at least the Slaw Rebchuk bridge goes somewhere.
Natalie:Oh. Oh. Yeah.
Sarah:It's funny because it's true.
Shannay:So for their record, what kind of items are in the city's archive?
Sarah:Well, as you can imagine, we have a lot of records that document city business and decisions. So, the city's council minutes, bylaws going back all the way to 1874, the city's beginnings. We have all the records of former municipalities that amalgamated, into the city of Winnipeg. And, yeah, it's a lot of council records, and I wanna acknowledge all the past city clerks and our present city clerk who, create and manage these records. Because of them, we have one of the most complete municipal records, or collection of records in all of Canada.
Sarah:Oh, wow. Yeah. It's an important record of our our corporate memory of course. And in addition to the city records we have items and collections that were donated by a private individuals. So this includes the records of Susan Thompson, Winnipeg's 1st, woman mayor.
Sarah:And, a lot of it is, a lot of what ends up in the archives, like, is textual records, so letters, reports, but we also have photos, maps, plans, artifacts, even an art collection. And in the art collection, we have everything from royal portraits, to an old model of aunt Sally's farm. It's Mhmm. Yeah. Quite remarkable.
Sarah:A lot of people don't know that.
Natalie:Right. And I understand what there was a moment that we thought we were planning maybe for a city museum. Some some items that maybe typically wouldn't be taken into an archive.
Sarah:Correct. Yes. There, is a lot of interest in the artifact collection, and, essentially, it's like the remnants of a collection that was meant for a proposed museum. And that idea was never fully realized. But as the archives, we continue to care for and exhibit these items.
Sarah:We also add to it. Like, for instance, we have gifts, from sister cities, that we acquire and and preserve in the archives. So just last year, we had the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, visit Winnipeg, and that was, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the sister city agreement with Winnipeg. And I got to meet the mayor, and bring out all these items that had been gifted to the city of Winnipeg at at the event in the mayor's foyer. And it was an honor to meet him and to show him and others that we had kept all these things.
Sarah:Right? And that we were preserving, the story of our relationship.
Natalie:You know, actually, you know, talking about preserving relationship, this is maybe a good moment to plug that, accessing and and replicating files from the archives. This can be done by by any anyone who who comes to visit and it can really, you know, sometimes make a really beautiful and personal gift.
Sarah:Yeah. Absolutely. I've often worked with people who maybe bought their first home, and they want, something to put up in it, and they come looking for a photograph of the neighborhood or a local park. And it's it's a great way to provide something meaningful and and personal. I really enjoy working with with those researchers.
Sarah:So another example of a gift was, an item that was copied from our collection and gifted to prime minister Justin Trudeau, when he first went visited Winnipeg after he was elected. So this item was a letter that his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had written as prime minister, and it was a letter congratulating, Winnipeg on amalgamation. And it was read at council, and it became the 1st council communication of the newly unified city of Winnipeg. And it was of, deep personal meaning to the prime minister who realized it was written just 2 days before he was born.
Shannay:Wow. That would be so cool to see him react to that because I imagine that would have been a very touching gift. But, of course, an archive is different than someone collecting items and storing them
Shannay:in an attic. The archive paired with someone like you who knows what they're looking at plays an important role in current understandings and sometimes myth busting.
Sarah:Yeah? Yeah. Absolutely.
Sarah:So records have the potential to perpetuate myths, and also debunk them. When we interpret records, we have to consider the larger context. So why was that record created? What purpose did it serve? And what are the biases in there?
Sarah:So records, when I think about that, some of the records that come, to mind are are ones created about Rooster Town. So Rooster Town was, of course, a a Metis community that was demolished to make way for the Grant Park development, and newspapers at the time referred to residents as squatters, and there were city officials that said this too. They were saying that residents didn't have the right to be there, but that was fundamentally untrue. The community remembers something different, and there are assessment records that support this. Like, the assessment records, at the archives show that residents own land.
Sarah:They pay taxes. There were building permits issued to residents, and ultimately, there were bylaws expropriating certain lands. So these records were used by families and researchers like doctor Evelyn Peters, to combat negative stereotypes that plagued the community for far too long and were ultimately quite damaging. I wanna encourage people to visit the Rooster Town history panels, to visit the city of Winnipeg's Rooster Town website to more learn more about this history. So in the archives, we talk about the right to know the truth of what happened and why, and we've seen the retelling of Rooster Town history at a local level.
Sarah:We've seen the truth and reconciliation commission at the national level. So these records have all shown just how important records are to people who have experienced injustice, and it's important to our community as a whole.
Natalie:Wow. Critical. Let let's kinda stick there with those acts of discovery for a minute. You have, something completely different, but a story about someone who showed up on the doorstep of the archives with something that wasn't what he thought.
Sarah:Yeah. That's right. So I had a researcher come in. He was from Europe traveling around, Canada and came to Winnipeg with a key to the city of Winnipeg that his grandfather had acquired and, during another visit to Winnipeg. And so this researcher asked, if it came with any rights or privileges.
Sarah:So And he said
Natalie:it unique? Okay. Got it. Like, what was he thinking?
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Well, he shared with me that in Europe, having a key to the city or in parts of Europe, anyways, gives you the right to herd sheep.
Natalie:Little fact of the day. Okay.
Sarah:Yes. That was new information to me as well. So, you know, ultimately, I did find some material for him. I I found, this file from the 19 twenties or 19 thirties, and it showed that the city of Winnipeg, at the time made thousands of these keys, as souvenirs because they it was more, inexpensive to produce than pins or brooches. So, yeah, it was not the story I think he was hoping for, but he did learn a lot about Winnipeg that day.
Sarah:I think a lot about our frugality. And it does say actually on the key and in the motto, commerce, prudence, and industry.
Shannay:And you can actually see a picture of this key on the city archives page by searching for city souvenir brooches. But, honestly, I'm with that visitor. That looks like a real key that could really open something. In another story, you had a mystery to solve even within the city's own collection.
Sarah:Well, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah. That's right. So for years, we had in art storage, this framed embroidered badge of the 27th Winnipeg battalion. And it shows on the badge, like, the city of Winnipeg former crest, and stitched into it are the names of some of the battles of the First World War.
Sarah:And when we were preparing to move the art collection, our inventory didn't say, like, who created it, where it came from, or how we acquired it. And some people asked, like, why we were holding on to these, these items and this item in in particular. So I tried to look into it further, and eventually, I found this file in the committee on finance records, now at the archival or sorry, now in the archival collection. And out came this rich story, about a man named Herbert h Clark who enlisted in in Winnipeg. He had worked at Eaton's, and he enlisted to fight over seas, and he was fighting in France, but he fell ill with tuberculosis and sleeping sickness and was hospitalized in England.
Sarah:And while he was sick in his hospital bed, he taught himself to embroider, and he made this badge, that he later worked with his, brother-in-law to frame. And many years later, he did end up staying in England. But many years later, he, came back to Winnipeg, and he gifted this item, to the city of Winnipeg and wrote, a beautiful letter explaining, the story, and he even gifted a photo of himself. In the photo, you can see, like, the cap badge from his hat and the buttons from his uniform, and he actually sewed these into the embroidered badge. So it's it's one of my, favorite items in the archival collection, And it's so much more meaningful knowing the work that went into it, the story behind it, and that is ultimately what we're trying to do in archives is not just preserve the the item, but to preserve the story that goes with it, to, maintain those links, so that others can interpret records in a meaningful way.
Natalie:And maybe to call that out even more clearly. Sarah, you have this really great way, you've been touching on it throughout, of seeing your work as this way to connect. And can you, you know, maybe in some other words, tell us more about why it's not just about keeping records but but actually getting this information out into the hands of people.
Sarah:So it's it's ultimately our responsibility to to serve the public by making records available. And, personally, I really love working with researchers and, providing access to the archives. I love working with with first time users of archives, helping them to navigate the archives, explaining what we have in the collection, trying to make it relevant to them, sometimes explaining the differences between us and libraries. You know, in in working with researchers, I've I've found that there's ultimately, like, 2 main types. I talk about the explorers who come into the archives and are just delighted to find everything related to their topic and, wanna find more and more and more.
Sarah:And, I love hearing about their projects and and, their excitement. And and then, of course, we have researchers who come in, for a very specific purpose. So it could be that they're working on a home renovation and they need a building plan or they want a photo of their their home to to support that. For building plans, I will just say, ultimately, I do have to refer them to central files at planning property development is if it is for a building plan. But sometimes we'll wanna bring out, like, fire insurance maps that show the outline of of a house.
Sarah:It'll tell you whether or not that that dwelling had a porch, for instance. And then, of course, there's people who might just need a council motion that says, you know, something about a street renaming or a street opening, for example. Yeah. But regardless of, like, why they're visiting the archives, like, my job is to kinda listen to understand their needs and and work with them to, to, to meet their needs.
Shannay:Awesome. And it's worth reflecting on that this month, we are wrapping up Winnipeg's 150th anniversary, which celebrated a theme of our shared stories, our shared future. How can you connect that theme with archives?
Sarah:So the keyword for me in our shared stories, our shared future is sharing. It's the act of sharing our story. Like, that's how we connect to people. That's how we connect past, present, and future, and that's how we build community. So I've been very grateful, to be involved in Winnipeg 150 for that reason.
Sarah:So one of the things we did early on was to launch a digital exhibit that shared a number of records of Winnipeg's early years and talked about how Winnipeg has commemorated past anniversaries. So it's been, you know, delightful to see those those records used in other projects throughout the years and support other projects. I also had the opportunity to work on the Winnipeg 150 traveling exhibit that toured malls and libraries. That exhibit relied heavily on archival images to tell stories about when pigs passed, and it invited viewers to continue their learning by drawing attention to archives, libraries, museums, and all the other wonderful resources we have. Maybe not everyone has visited an archive, but but you've certainly encountered archives.
Sarah:Like, I knew somebody who, once compared archives to plumbing. So it's something maybe you don't realize, like, supports just like, everyday functions. Right? So you've probably encountered archives just in books, in TV, movies, like, in a background paper. We are, in my opinion, living in a world shaped by archives.
Natalie:You know, finally, Sarah, it's important to to touch on and move into this shared future. Talking a little bit about your physical location. The current location of the archives building and research room is 50 Myrtle Street and that's just behind the old, Christie's Cookie building on, or the factory, I guess, on Notre Dame. But, something old is about to become new again because Archives is in the process of moving back into the Carnegie Library downtown on William Avenue.
Sarah:Yes. It's very exciting, and I'm happy to share that plans are underway. It's, we're we're calling it the Winnipeg 150 legacy project, and it's another way that we're sharing our stories and planning for the future, and what could be better than the gift of of memory.
Natalie:You know, I I think there's a lot of at least a few people out there who are dying to know what what is this really gonna look like.
Sarah:Yes, it's very exciting, the new facility will have improved storage space for archival preservation, there's going to be more space for researchers, a multi purpose room for events and for films. There'll be classroom space and even some dedicated exhibit space, which will be wonderful to have. We really do see it as a as a place not just for storing records, but a place for engaging with records, a place for people and community. And I love that the Carnegie Library was once this flagship library for the city. And it's an honor to say, like, that we'll be reopening the doors to serve the public in that building again.
Shannay:Thanks again for joining us today, Sarah. This last question is something we ask everyone, and we'd like you to share something about Winnipeg that you wish everyone knew. It can be work related, but it doesn't have
Sarah:to be. What I wish everyone knew is, like, that they can access the archives too, that they can become the storytellers. As I mentioned, we have one of the most complete collections of municipal records in Canada, and these records are an asset. They're not just for city staff. They're not just for historians.
Sarah:They're for everyone. And there's so many different uses of archival material. And, you know, put simply, we're not keeping these records so they can sit on the shelf and collect dust. These archival records are for sharing and for use.
Natalie:Well, thanks, Sarah. I learned a lot.
Shannay:Yeah. Me too. And I will definitely be coming to you for my next gift idea. So thank you for that.
Sarah:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Natalie:Coming up on the next episode of our City Art podcast, we're bringing back the mayor roast.
Shannay:No. We're actually talking to HR , Natalie.
Shannay:We won't be roasting anybody.
Natalie:Really? Yeah. Okay. Well, in that case, happy New Year, everyone. And be sure to subscribe to our City, Our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.
Natalie:Also, we love to hear from our listeners. You can send us an email, citydashpodcast@winnipeg.ca, with topics you'd like to hear about. Thanks for listening.
