By Christian Van Campen
When we think of history, it’s easy to turn our mind to the ancient past, to founders and old stone ruins and near-forgotten relics from “a time before.”
What we tend to overlook and underappreciate is history that to many is still very much alive; history that my parents lived through, that many people reading this will themselves have lived through, and that feels to some like it was just yesterday; history filled with discotheques and Pierre Trudeau and a “new” metric system. That history is, of course, the 1970s.
As bizarre as it sounds, 1975 was indeed 50 years ago. Much has stayed the same, but so much has also changed in Napanee and all throughout Lennox and Addington County.
Since May of this year, I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside the wonderful staff at the Museum of Lennox & Addington in the Archives. Specifically, I’ve been tasked with sorting, identifying, and digitizing thousands of black and white photographic negatives shot from 1971 onwards. These images were largely captured by photographers of the Napanee Beaver newspaper, and many of them were printed in the paper and seen by citizens of Napanee and other surrounding towns. My job this summer is to make it so the photographs are seen once again.
The first step in this process is to identify the subjects of each photographic negative. This, in theory, is a very straightforward step. I look at a negative, I look at editions of the Napanee Beaver from around the same time, and when I find a published photograph that matches the negative, I throw my arms in the air and yell “Eureka!” or some other such cry of excitement (or maybe this is a bit too loud for a quiet archive room and I simply smile with satisfaction). With a match discovered, I scan the film negative, create a catalogue record, and write down all the information I can glean from the relevant newspaper article – who took the photo and when? Who or what is in the picture? What did the subjects do to warrant publication?
The trickier portion is dealing with the unpublished negatives. Not every picture in the paper exists in the negatives collection, and not every negative donated was published. Without newspaper articles to guide me, I have to turn to the Archive’s other collections to look for matching faces, business names, council records, and more. Fortunately, after a few months of seeing many of the same faces and buildings published time and time again,it gets easier not to rely on newspaper articles. Former Napanee mayor Lorne A. Smart’s slicked hair and aviator shades are recognizable anywhere, and former Bath clerk-treasurer June Carruthers’ clipboard and thick glasses seem to turn up at every local event. Other times, a 3-dimensional map like Google Street View can make a huge difference in identifying structures that may have changed their purpose, but still exist today as they did in the 1970s. Take a look at this picture, for example. On the left, a crowd gathers to watch in shock as the Gibbard’s Furniture storefront is consumed by fire – an event some of you readers will certainly remember! On the right, the same intersection looks much unchanged – the Texaco has closed, and some new crosswalks and accessible parking spaces have been added, but the buildings are all still there. Next time you pass through the intersection of Dundas Street E. and East Street, take a look towards the wall of the Gibbard’s factory and try to imagine what this crowd must have seen.
Aside from major events like the one shown above, dozens of more minor headlines have caught my attention and made me smile as I read through issues of the Napanee Beaver. For example, in February of 1975, police responded to a call about a break in at a local pizzeria, arriving just in time to step through a shattered window and find the culprit cooking himself a midnight snack of pizza and fries. And in July of the same year, this very museum’s first temporary exhibit opened to the public, displaying art by local painter Orval Madden. In the picture below, the museum’s first director, Helen Hutchison, prepares a few of Madden’s paintings for display.
The digitization of the Napanee Beaver Negatives is still underway – there’s just too much to tackle in a single summer! So far, there are records for all the donated negatives from 1971, 1972, and 1975, with a good portion of the negatives from 1973 finished as well. Take some time to browse our digital collection, using the keywords “Napanee Beaver Negatives” to find the photos above and over a thousand more connected to unique stories from the County’s past.
What an exciting and enlightening summer it’s been working with this truly unique collection at the archives! I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a wonderful crew, and to fall in love with local history just a little bit more.
Below are some other personal favourites from the collection!
You can view the contents of the collection that have been digitized up to this point here.
