Class will be in session starting Thursday, July 31 at the South Fort George School House near the Exploration Place thanks to the Prince George Heritage Commission.
At a special meeting of the commission held at city hall on Tuesday, July 29, members heard that they had been invited by The Exploration Place to host information sessions at the school house on days when the Little Prince train is operating through the rest of the current season.
The building was the first school in South Fort George, originally built in 1910 at the corner of Thapage Lane and Queensway before it was donated to the museum in 1976 and later moved.
In its current location, the school is situated right next to the historic train station where visitors line up to ride the miniature train. Currently, the Little Prince runs on Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m.
The commission’s members unanimously approved running the information sessions as well as applying for a booth at the British Columbia Northern Exhibition being held from Aug. 14 to 17.
Speaking to The Citizen after the meeting, chair George Davison and vice-chair Ayesha Rogers said they think a lot of locals don’t know about the commission and their work and they want to use this opportunity to educate them.
“We hope to introduce the idea of what the job of the commission is and what they do,” Rogers said. “And also to get people involved, actually talking about what they feel is the heritage or the things about Prince George that, for them, really give it meaning.”
She said they’ll have a flip chart and sticky notes on hand so people can give them ideas not just for what historical buildings should be acknowledged, but people, events and places as well.
“We’re interested in the stories of individual people, oral histories,” Rogers said. “There are certain views in Prince George which are really critical to understanding the city, its geological past, its historical past, the whole thing. The role of the river, the industrial heritage of the railway and all the railway-associated stuff.”
Rogers also noted that the city’s historical register doesn’t commemorate anything from the forestry industry that made Prince George what it is and those elements are in critical need of protection, documentation and understanding.
Davison said the sessions will be a dry run for what the commission hopes will be a larger, more serious project creating an inventory of heritage elements in the city.
