Georgian Bay Township
Historical Society
A busy day in Port Severn 1915
Welcome from the
Georgian Bay Township Historical Society
We are a small, grassroots organization, in a small, rural town. And even though our focus is on our history, we realize that to be at all relevant in a world of Gen X’ers and Z’s and Millennials and Alphas, we have to be current – thus, we are once again on the World Wide Web.
You can read more about who we are by checking out “About Us”.
Beyond simply being current and showing off our accomplishments, a major objective is to build a repository for photographs which we have collected over the past few years. They are stored in any number of places and formats, and many are very old and already deteriorating badly. And, the knowledge base of who, what, where, and when. . . well, they are unfortunately also deteriorating.
In addition, finding any one picture out of the assortment is nearly impossible. We are hoping that our website can be a mechanism to continue to manage more pictures but even more importantly, maybe gather some details pertaining to the pictures we already have - what we quite simply call “the stories”. We feel there is much more to see in a picture - more colour, more sharpness - if there is a perspective, maybe an emotion, beyond those two flat dimensions.
Our Archive section is being built for that purpose. The website is currently in the early stages of construction (and with minimal content) by a resource also in the early stages of becoming a website developer, and so this is going slowly. Our hope is to attract visitors who take some interest in our growing library and who might know of, or have some experience with, the subject sites or people, and who are willing to pass their stories back to us.
Beyond Pictures
Our archives focus on photos from our past. Photos have taken different formats over recent years going from paper to digital (with continuously evolving digital formats). But often, some pictures exist only in our minds – those generated by stories heard from others or even our own memories of the past. They may take on different formats again. Maybe a letter found in a chest in the basement, or what your father would repeat at every family get together, or even a legend told by many with no real knowledge of where it originated, but which often still influenced us – whether factually based or suspected fictional, it can play a part of our history.
Coming soon!
Our website’s, soon to be, “Recollections” pages allow for such stories to be told. This section is open for images of such a letter, or photo of a newspaper article, but most often provide an opportunity to create some prose of a historical recollection of our own. We realize too, that history is not only events older than 100 years, or even 50 years, but are truly things that happen so much more recently and would be of interest to others. We are gathering several recollections from our members and are anxious to receive many from our visitors.
Along that same vein of contributing to our efforts, we are always looking for new volunteers. People who are comfortable in work gloves, and maybe have some skill with a hammer or a paint brush, a pen, a keyboard, can add numbers or spell, or is artistic or creative in other ways. All we ask is for you to be a team player. Even though the work is sometimes long and hard, we are all in this for that final reward, with some fun and the comradery along the way, as well as an occasional muffin or slice of pizza.
In Our News October 14, 2024
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Recess of general meetings during summer months. Next full meeting October 21.
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Participated in SEGBAY Chamber of Commerce’s Christmas in July in the Heritage Park by setting up a booth and distributing Historical Society promotional material.
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Collaborated with Township and SEGBAY to obtain funds, selected a contractor, and complete the installation of new high efficiency geothermal HVAC equipment for Bressette House. Now, one of the oldest buildings in the township has one of the most modern furnace/AC available.
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Major repairs are underway for the house’s front porch, as well as siding to match the profile for the Lockmasters office was cut and will be painted and installed there. In addition, a new pathway is being laid through the bush from the park exhibits up to the Petro-Can plaza above. All are expected to be completed this fall and being done by local contractors and society members. New signage is also being designed to promote these improvements.
As is mentioned often, we are a volunteer organization and so are not permanently staffed or committed to rigid timelines. Our intentions are to provide regular updates of our groups activities and particularly additions and changes to the archives. Also, if you do visit in some detail, please contact us with any constructive feedback or suggestions on what you might like to see, or how the site could be improved in any way.
Website Change Log
October 2024
Updated site with recent activity
May / June 2024
Monitored and promoted usage.
May 8, 2024
LAUNCHED!
Continuing testing and clean-up
May 1, 2024
Planned go-live with Release 1, ahead of 2024 GPCA magazine.
April 24, 2024
Release for final review and team testing.
First batch of approx. 200 pictures published.
March 20, 2024
Website development very busy.
Data loading proceeding well.