“I have always thought that ECONOMUSEUM® were hybrid institutions: a curious mixture of heritage preservation, cultural industries, art, design and the avant‑garde.”
Francine Brousseau
Bulletin Heritage "That earns its keep"
WINTER 2006
What’s New in the economuseum® Network?
The year 2005 was a productive year for openings of new economuseum®. In Quebec, the butter-making economuseum opened its doors in Compton on May 10. La Ferme Jean-Noël Groleau is the only artisanal butter-making operation in Quebec.
On May 30, L’Atelier Amboise, the cabinet-making economuseum in Pohénégamook, joined the network in the Témiscouata region. Martin Nadeau specializes in the reproduction of traditional European and Quebec furniture, adding his own personal touch.
A week later, Le Chevrier du Nord inaugurated its animal fibre craft: mohair economuseum. The Pilote family breeds angora goats and then spins, weaves, knits and felts the fleece. Annie, a fashion designer, uses the resulting cloth to design and make garments signed “Annie Pilote”. Le Chevrier du Nord is the second economuseum in the Saguenay region.
On July 11, the Boulangerie Perron de Roberval became the bread-making economuseum. This family business, operated by Clément Perron, is the first economuseum in the Lac-Saint-Jean region and the third in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. The Boulangerie Perron is known for its home-made pain à pâte droite (unleavened bread).
In New Brunswick, the London Wul-Farm joined the network on July 27 as the spinning economuseum. It is in Lakeburn that Heidi Wulfraat chose to set up her working studio for spinning the wool of sheep, goats and angora rabbits. Before spinning the wool, she chooses the fleece and cards it. After it is spun, it is dyed and she uses it to make superb cloth. Heidi also teaches knitting techniques.
On September 29, the network celebrated the opening of the Maison de Calico, quilting economuseum in Pointe-Claire, located in the Montreal area. In a lovely heritage home Eve and Marie-Josée Drouin host a group of quilters who get together weekly; they also give quilting classes.
To end off this year of prolific development, the Savonnerie Olivier Saguenay opened its economuseum in the borough of La Baie. The owners, Isabel Gagné and Pierre Pelletier, were already operating a soapery in Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, Nouveau-Brunswick. They wanted to set up a second soap-making economuseum in Isabel’s home town.
A New Business Accepted into the Network
A new business has been accepted as part of the growing economuseum network. The Chocolaterie Chocomotive, owned by Gaëtan Tessier and Luc Gielen, both hotel management instructors, will become the chocolate-making economuseum. Located in a heritage rail station in Gatineau in the borough of Masson-Angers, this new economuseum means that the network has expanded to a thirteenth region in Quebec. The owners have great projects coming up for their chocolate-making operation. For instance, they want to create products for specific occasions and specific clientele, include local Quebec products in their chocolate and begin networking with other economuseum.
Chocolaterie Chocomotive
10 rue de la Gare
Gatineau, Borough of Masson-AngersQC
J8M 1B2
Phone: (819) 522-6063
E-mail: gaetan.tessier@sympatico.ca
The Originator of the economuseum® Concept Receives the Most Prestigious Award Given by the Government of Quebec
Cyril Simard has received the Gérard-Morisset award, the highest honour award in the field of heritage in Quebec. The award highlights his unfailing commitment as a researcher and administrator to reviving and keeping alive artisanal traditions, never forgetting the importance of renewing and adapting them to the economic reality of cultural tourism. An excellent example of his work is the implementation of the innovative economuseum concept.
Prix du Québec awards are the Quebec government’s way of acknowledging the professional work accomplished by men and women that has resulted in marked advancements in eleven fields of the vast world of culture and the sciences.
Holder of a bachelor’s degree in architecture (1965) and a master’s in design (1970) from the Université de Montréal, he obtained a doctorate in ethnology from Laval University in 1986. His doctoral thesis was titled “Economuseology: A Test of Applied Ethnology”.
The network now includes 44 economuseum, 34 in Quebec and 10 in the Atlantic Provinces, and is presently expanding into Ontario and Western Canada.
Concept and Quality Control Management Committee
The economuseum network is now in its thirteenth year. The IENS decided to set up a Concept and Quality Control Management Committee whose role is to set guidelines for verifying the relevance of certain criteria of the economuseum concept and to ensure that there is consistency throughout the network.
The mandate of this decision-making committee is to update both the list of eligibility and selection criteria and the list of trades and crafts recognized by the IENS. It will also ensure that members of economuseum societies are guaranteed the exclusivity of their trade in their region, reviewing that principle if necessary. The committee can be called upon to renew the definition of what comprises an economuseum and the principles underlying that definition, as well as the content of each of the components of the concept in order to adapt them to changes and introduce improvements.
In addition, the committee must set up a procedure for controlling and verifying these criteria and definitions and make recommendations to the Board of Directors on quality-related matters.
The committee is composed of François Tremblay (IENS), Louise Brunelle-Lavoie (outside advisor), Cyril Simard (IENS), Maryse Tellier (SÉQ), Tom Young (AEC), Suzanne Amos (AEC artisan) and Johanne Watkins (SÉQ artisan).
The International economuseum® Network Society Acquires Three Eminent Ambassadors
The IENS has received the moral support of three influential figures well known among Canadian decision-makers.
The ambassador for the Atlantic region is the Honourable Aldéa Landry, president of the consulting firm Landal Inc., lawyer and businesswoman. Ms. Landry is an associate member of J.F.L. Arbitration Services Inc. She was elected member of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick from 1987 to 1991 and was the first Acadian to be named to the Cabinet. She was Deputy Premier and Minister responsible for various portfolios in the McKenna government. In January 2003, Progress Magazine chose her among the twenty citizens who most represent the avant-garde spirit of Atlantic Canada. She is currently active in the Canadian Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC).
For Quebec, the ambassador is the Honourable Martin Cauchon. A native of La Malbaie, he began his political career and was elected for the first time on October 25, 1993. He was President of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party between 1993 and 1995. The following year, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien named him Secretary of State responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec. Re-elected twice, he was given the National Revenue portfolio and then named Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada in 2002. He remained the member for the federal riding of Outremont until 2004 and is currently with the law firm Gowling, Lafleur, Henderson in Montreal as Special Partner.
Lawyer Maureen McTeer agreed to take on the role of ambassador for Ontario. Over the past year, she has been teaching, among other things, law and ethics in the healthcare field at American University and George Mason University in Washington D.C. As a lawyer, her expertise in the reform of democratic institutions and electoral systems has earned her the title of Senior Fellow of the Centre for North-American Studies at American University. She has given several conferences on democratic deficits in North America and on ethics as it relates to technological advancements in the field of healthcare. The author of several books on the subject and on the role of women in the development of our society, she is president of the advisory committee of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women’s Health Centre in Ottawa.
Our ambassadors represent the Society by advising its administrators in their decision-making. Moreover, they bring notoriety and influence that is crucial to the achievement of our development projects.
Creation of the Ontario ECONOMUSEUM® Society (OES)
To support our development projects further west in Canada, the IENS recently created the OES. According to the IENS vision, the next territory to receive economuseum will be Ontario. Royden Potvin, General Manager of Thunder Bay Ventures, a group dedicated to the economic planning and development of the Thunder Bay region, is the President of this new Society. He has set up his Board of Directors, made up of Maryse Tellier, General Secretary and representative of the IENS, Brian McKinnon, H.B.A., M.E.D., consultant, and Sylvie Millette LeDuc, Senior Policy Advisor for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Royden believes in the economuseum concept and is committed to setting up the structure for managing the development of the network in Ontario. He has the support of the Society’s ambassador, Maureen McTeer. Having partially completed the inventory of Ontario artisans, the OES is now working on locating the funding required to start up its development projects.
Ontario ECONOMUSEUM® Society
P.O. Box 10116
Thunder Bay, Ontario - P7B 6T6
Phone: (807) 768-6650
Fax: (807) 768-6655
Email: tbventur@tbventures.on.ca
Website: www.tbventures.on.ca
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