The main street has long been the center of town, where people meet, build and grow their community. The oral history of Canada’s main streets is getting compiled by The Tale of a Town.
Helen McCutcheon, Director of the Parkland Regional Library, says that they decided to host the event because the library has long been a fixture of the central street in Yorkton, as well as having a focus on local history through hosting the Genealogical Society as well as their local history room.
The goal of the entire project is to chronicle the way main streets have changed and how their role in communities have shifted in the past 150 years. It’s a three-year project, stretching from coast to coast, with the goal of finishing by the country’s 150th anniversary in 2017.
McCutcheon has no doubt that there will be a large number of stories collected and compiled with the amount of history that the main streets of the city have. She notes that whether it comes to recent history, like the flooding in the city, or the distant past, such as the tales surrounding bootlegging in town, there is a rich vein of stories ready to be tapped for the project.
Part of the inspiration for the entire project is to get a feel for what main street has been for communities, and chronicle what is being lost as trends in business shift away from main street as the central focus of a town, McCutcheon explains.
“They’re trying to get the essence of main street, because main street is disappearing.”
One of the reasons she believes Yorkton has an unique story in terms of main street is the way the town is designed, which has kept Broadway as a major corridor.
“You have to go through the main street to get anywhere... Whoever did the planning for the community did a fabulous job, and we’re smack dab in the middle of it.”
The stories collected by Tale of a Town will be mapped to location, become part of a podcast series and inspire the creation of a performance which will take place in Regina on July 12. They will also be available online at thetaleofatown.ca.
There will be two days when people can come down to share their stories, June 29 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and June 30 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. People can just drop in, or make an appointment by calling the library at 306-783-3523.
“We just hope for people from all walks of life with experiences on the main street in Yorkton.”
