Heritage Park Museum<\/a> each year to raise funds for the rural museum north of Thessalon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe do have a lot of help from the community,\u201d Miller said. \u201cFor something like this, we call in all our friends \u2014 and their friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
A steering committee that was formed to purchase the former Little Rapids School eventually evolved into the Thessalon Township Heritage Association during the late 1970s.<\/p>\n
Upon its incorporation in 1978, the heritage association acquired a triangular parcel of land on Little Rapids Road \u2014 for a dollar \u2014 with the goal of preserving the area\u2019s history by collecting various artifacts for the cultural and social benefit of the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Miller says the idea of establishing a museum was the vision of local historian and writer J.E. MacDonald.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had one building on it \u2014 it was a chapel that was built by inmates at the prisoner camp in McCreight just north of Little Rapids,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
The present-day Heritage Park Museum property now features replicas of a blacksmith shop, general store and schoolhouse, as well as a drive shed containing historical artifacts that harken back to the area\u2019s roots in the logging industry.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Miller knows about the history of the area firsthand: She has been\u00a0a member of the heritage association right from the beginning, serving as its first-ever secretary treasurer 49 years ago.<\/p>\n
Three generations of the Miller family also attended the Little Rapids School, which led to Miller and her father being a part of the steering committee that acquired the former one-room schoolhouse.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dating\u00a0back to the late 1800s, the historical building is now a community centre that\u2019s operated by the Municipality of Huron Shores.<\/p>\n
Miller says her primary focus these days is leading the heritage association as its president, with the day-to-day operations of the Heritage Park Museum being handled by its curator, Mary Anne MacDonald, who is also the niece of museum founder J.E. MacDonald through marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m more into organizing. I like to organize \u2014 maybe that’s why I’m still doing it,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the president of the Thessalon Township Heritage Association concedes that she would like to see \u201csomebody younger\u201d assume some of her responsibilities in\u00a0the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just want to keep the museum going as long as we can,\u201d said Miller.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have a few younger people interested now \u2014 but we’re happy for that, because one day somebody’s got to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The heritage association has been\u00a0busy preparing for its Country Fair and Silent Auction<\/a>, which takes place tomorrow on the Civic Holiday.<\/p>\nThe one-day event features a number of activities for the public, including:<\/p>\n
\n\tlive music
\n\tchildren\u2019s activities
\n\tfood
\n\tarts and crafts marketplace
\n\t50\/50 raffle
<\/p>\n
This year’s edition of the Country Fair and Silent Auction\u00a0takes place Monday, Aug. 3 at the Heritage Park Museum from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Township of Thessalon’s Heritage Association is hosting a full slate of activities in Little Rapids on Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,293483],"class_list":["post-842477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-little-rapidsthessalon-township-heritage-associationsilent-auctioncountry-fairheritage-park-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}