It's cannon season once more, and this lunchtime I persuaded Angie to come and video a noon firing at the bastion. I quite enjoy this little Summertime task, done in addition to my other voluntary work at Nanaimo District Museum. Corinne, one of the museums Summer students, does the speech and tries not to fluff her lines bless her little cotton socks, while I do the grunt work of loading, ramming and firing. Between the two of us, we've got the drill up to a reasonable standard, although seventy two seconds from load to firing isn't quite Navy speed. It's a performance for the tourists, and we treat it as such.
I always find the bangs quite satisfying, although today just as we dropped linstock to charge, two elderly people attempted to bypass the safety rope which we place around forty feet directly in front of the muzzle blast. This noontide we had what I describe as a 'good detonation' and gave our would-be interlopers quite a scare. Perhaps they will pay more heed to the numerous 'do not pass - Cannon firing at noon' signs we put up all around in future. The abject look of terror in their eyes as the gun fired a cloud of smoke and polystyrene wadding at them gave my darker side a brief twinge of amusement.
We were also graced by the presence of a Japanese TV crew who filmed the firing, which is why I was hamming it up a bit with the exaggerated 'parade ground' behaviour. Normally I don't say "Ma'am!" at the end of every command confirmation. Not that I think anyone noticed.
Tuesday is our Museum day, when Angie and I take a break from the day jobs and help out with research and displays. Angie, being the brains of the outfit, mainly handles research, while I help out with displays. Mostly this involves constructing displays which the display staff haven't got time to do. Like the overhead projection array which will be used for this Saturday's Astronomy event. It also means refurbishing and cleaning some of the mechanical exhibits, and generally trying to be useful by restoring various artefacts to working order.
This afternoon's result was a mounting stand for a Mine Rescue Rebreather unit, shortly to grace the inside of the new Coal Mining exhibit. Made out of two pieces of 5mm perspex shaped and bent with a heat gun to support the straps and mask, the intention was to display as much of the unit as possible with the maximum safety.
David the curator liked the end result and dropped one of the display helmets from archive storage on its 'head' with a view to fitting a miners lamp. Debbie, the Museums General Manager also seemed quite pleased. The overall effect, once we get the lighting right, promises to be quite spooky. Next weeks job is the mine lighting display, where we'll be trying to demonstrate the light given off by mine illumination devices such as Davy Lamps etc. As space is at a premium, that may prove quite a challenge. We've done voice overs for the miners biographies, researched events and characters from the past, and generally supported the full time display staff, who have had their work cut out designing and troubleshooting the rest of the mining exhibit. Today they were busy painting the coal seams in and fitting 'support' timbers.
Below is three views taken in late May just after the contractors had finished rendering work on the interior of the exhibit and the floors had been cleaned. Rene and crew usually work constructing film sets for the Vancouver movie industry, or 'Hollywood North' as it is referred to locally. From a bare framework of blue painted steel sections it's come a long way. When you walk past the entrance it really is like being underground, and all Rick Slingerland's design work has really paid off, despite a mountain of hitches and hangups.
Having been involved almost from the beginning, both Angie and I are really looking forward to the opening of the mine exhibit. The end result of everybody's hard work promises to be very good indeed, and in some ways deeply poignant, especially when you read the casualty lists from various local mining disasters which I've heard referred to as a 'deadly tithe'. Safety records like those from the late 19th and early 20th century would nowadays rapidly see charges of corporate manslaughter brought against the mine owners. But then those were other times, and attitudes were different.
I like it, there's always something to tweak my curiosity on the nose. David has tantalised me with the promise of working on a very unusual outboard motor in the near future. One that doesn't utilise a propeller, but instead has some sort of oar based propulsion. Sounds interesting. Very interesting indeed.
