Each year in April the Maple Ridge Historical Society hosts its annual heritage tea at the Ridge Meadows Seniors Centre, offering a chance for people who have lived in Maple Ridge for many years to come and visit old friends and reminisce about how the community has changed.
Everyone is welcome.
This year the tea is taking place on Saturday, April 2, from 1-4 p.m.
The event will feature display panels from the Maple Ridge Museum and Community Archives, reflecting on the Heritage Canada theme Travel through Time: focusing on transportation and travel though railway, roads and waterways.
The early history of most western Canadian settlements was determined by how you travelled to them and how you got around once you got there.
In the beginning, water transport was all there was – for First Nations, then for the European settlers.
Next to come was rail transport – the CPR and its extraordinary agreement with the government of the new country to lace together all the provinces and territories with a ribbon of steel.
Finally, trails became roads, then highways, at first supporting horses and wagons and later motorized vehicles that revolutionized travel and the transport of goods.
The panels will also showcase archival photographs from our collection.
In addition to the museums display will be panels from the Maple Ridge Family History Group, presenting on the Edge Family Legacy Project, which used family history research techniques to discover more about the early British Columbia settler family’s story.
In the process of clarifying historical questions and beliefs, the project has placed the family and its community in regional and national context.
The project will also be at events around the Lower Mainland until November.
For information on displays or how to organize your own community history project, please contact the Maple Ridge Family History Group mrfamilyhistory@gmail.com or the Maple Ridge Museum website, mapleridgemuseum.org.
– By Allison White, curator at Maple Ridge Museum and Community Archives.