Christmas 2025

Museum of the Middle Ages (MoMA)

(circa 1965). A milestone year for our venerable stalwarts. While the provenance of this pair differs, when displayed together they complement each other well. The Lori collection was loaned out this year to Portugal to be exhibited with relics from her childhood, Lesia and Cariosa. A gala event was held at MoMA July 26. The large attendance of dignitaries locally and from further afield, the musical performances by Cuz & Co and Rachel Casponi, and the Performance Art by Franca, Tara and their entourage were highlights and much appreciated.

In the spring, our artefacts were combined with the ‘Roberts on the Road’ collection as they hiked and paddled the highlights of Western Canada. The duo was then loaned out to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey as part of the “I Can’t Sleep” exhibition.

To round out the year, our artefacts will once again be displayed, as they were earlier in the year, on the ski slopes at Sun Peaks and the cross country trails at Stake Lake in their home of Kamloops.

The Mackey Modern

The Mackey Modern relocated from Victoria, BC, to Kamloops in March to be displayed alongside the MoMA. This exhibit is developing rapidly and will require re-categorization over time. Rachel is working in communications/graphic design for the First Nations Tax Commission and Liam is busy as curator of the museum, cleaning the exhibit and keeping him fed and dressed. The feature exhibit, Joey, displays well alongside Paul from the MoMA on the couch reading books or playing on the piano. He also combines well with Lori when displayed in the stroller or at the park.

Museum of Education, Entertainment and Design

These exhibits keep shifting from one section of their museum to another. In January, Ted directed a community theatre production of Mamma Mia and Jeryn had several roles in the chorus. Later in the year, Jeryn had a lead role in Bluebirds, a play about Canadian nurses in WWl, and their production received several awards at the provincial Main Stage theatre festival, hosted in Fort St John.

Continuing the Museum’s outreach work, Jeryn had an article detailing her revamp of Kin Park published in the Spring edition of the journal “Landscapes”

This collection also went on its own tour, by bike, through The Netherlands and Belgium.

Museum of Environmental History and Anthropology

This collection has had a busy year. Rachelle continues to pursue her degree in Environmental Studies at Douglas College. In May, she went on tour (with Paul from the MoMA) to climb (and do a handstand on of course) a volcano in Vanuatu. This was combined with a quick co-appearance with exhibits from the Museum of Antiquities at an Aussie Rules match at the MCG in Melbourne. In the Spring a kids program provided soccer coaching and in the Summer a “Return to the North” retrospective tour was organized involving construction work in Fort St John.

Science and Ice Cream Museum

Thea completed a BSc in Biology and Chemistry in April. Since then, this exhibit has been taking a gap year, travelling a bit with friends, and mainly working as an ophthalmic technician at the Alberta Retina Consultants and as a scooper at Made By Marcus ice cream.

Her favourite flavour is malted chocolate honeycomb.

Museum of Antiquity

In September, this venerable heirloom received the Order of Australia for services to the law and community. As the MoMA was on tour, they were unable to be at the ceremony but were able to watch the livestream from their hotel room. John was joined at the ceremony by Sandra, Simon, John’s brother Peter, and Paul’s friend, Paul Street, the latter two who did the bulk of the work completing the nomination.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these samples of our exhibits for this year. As always, there was much more going on that space precluded us from including. We hope you will continue your subscription and we look forward to sharing more with you in the years ahead.

Paul Mackey & Lori Bonertz
Senior curators.