Carberry
Plains Archives was created on April 14, 1988, by the passage
of Bylaw 2064 by the Joint Councils of the RM of North Cypress
and the Town of Carberry. The Archives has its own Board
of Directors and mandate: “To acquire, preserve and
document archival material which illustrates the growth and
development of the Town of Carberry and the Rural Municipality
of North Cypress both before and after incorporation or the
immediate surrounding areas relating to the above.”
Carberry Plains Archives thus became, along with the
Boissevain Archives, one of the two oldest rural archives in
Manitoba.
The need for an archives arose from the successful operation
of the Carberry Plains Museum, which had been established in
1974. Over the years, the Museum had frequently received
donations of articles which were more truly items of an
archival collection. It was apparent that such
valuable material must not be lost, and equally apparent that
the museum was simply not equipped to care for it properly.
The need for a true archives became imperative, and the Museum
Board conveyed this need to the local councilors of the town
and RM.
Gail
Wiebe, one of the hardworking volunteers, became its first
paid Archivist. Gail oversaw the uploading of all of the
Archives fonds to the CAIN network, and retired in 2004 after
sixteen years of meticulous work..In July, 2004, Penny Shaw
replaced Gail as Archivist.
Since
1988, the Carberry Plains Archives has been a busy place.
To date, their accessions number close to 1200, and our
citizens are active in bringing material for safekeeping in
“their” archives. The Archives has been involved in
many community activities, including collecting and
documenting all of the photographs of the local newspaper,
staging a Strawberry Social, and a Memories Fashion Show,
helping families write their family histories for the Town and
RM’s 125th Birthday Celebration History Book, and most
recently, helping to research the approximately twenty-nine
heritage buildings which comprise the Town of
Carberry’s proposed Main Street Heritage Conservation
District. The Archivist also writes an occasional column
on timely topics or interesting archival features for the
local newspaper.
The
importance of a rural archives in preserving the history and
memories of the people in its geographical area cannot be
overemphasized. In Carberry, the citizens are aware of
the Archives’ presence in the basement of the library, and
willingly donate their valued family documents to be preserved
within their own community. As one donor put it
recently: “I like to know they’ll be close to
home.”
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