Volume 10, Issue 49, Week of December 9, 2013
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Once Upon a
Christmas
Volunteering at the Western Development Museum is another way for Cheryl Hill-Hampson to celebrate Christmas (Photos by Sandy Hutchinson)
WDM’s display a treasure among treasures
A
five-star attraction in Saskacoming back year after year. toon’s holiday season is the “If you consider the fact that 18,000 Western Development Musecome through our building during the um’s Once Upon a Christmas display, Festival of Trees and most want to have a treasure within a mass of historical a look, and then you add the numbers treasures. who come through in the other nine Once Upon a Christmas was once weeks, you really have something a flagship window display — built in special on your hands.” 1946 — for the Eaton’s One wall occupies the store in Winnipeg, with seven-chapter story of The hundreds of mechanical Boy Who Would Be Santa. figures dancing and prancAnother wall is labelled An ing under the power proOld Fashioned Christmas. vided by surplus air force In between, near the ennavigational motors. trance, are displays like the In 1976 the scenes were Winterkins Playground, the put into storage by the deAngels Workshop, the Angels partment store giant, and a Sewing Circle, two displays year later the Eaton’s store of bears in motion, Doctor in Saskatoon, then located Doolittle’s arrangement of at the north end of the animals, an Old King Cole People Midtown Plaza, acquired display with more than 15 some of the units. They moving parts, and a carolwere on the second floor until 1984. ling scene near the entrance, where 12 Then in 1987 they were welcomed choristers and two dancers draw oohs into the Western Development Museum and aahs. (WDM). And through the tremendous It’s all about the motors. Some of efforts of volunteers they are working the displays are run by a single motor, like a charm and enchanting youngsters many others with multiple motors. and adults alike from the first week in That’s where the WDM’s far-flung November until early January. network of volunteers come into play. “It’s like a Disneyland attraction Del Huyghebaert and Nelson for us,” said Jason B. Wall, manager of Remenda were among the first of the the museum. “There is magic in what volunteers who brought along their children see for the first time. There are expertise at mechanics and painting happy memories for those who once to help the museum staff members, saw the attraction at Eaton’s and keep George Seabrook and Gene Barlow,
NED POWERS
Some pieces of the display are almost 70 years old refurbish the display. “Nelson Remenda and I had been at Pioneer Grain during our working lives,” said Huyghebaert. “The opportunity to work together at the museum was a real experience, sometimes very challenging, and we enjoyed every moment of it. “Nelson was very good with motors and the electrical services. I was more into the painting, the cleaning and the maintenance.” When the displays came to the WDM, Huyghebaert remembers there “were lots of working parts that needed refurbishing. Over the first four years, we were able to get almost everything in order. Nelson and I probably ran up a total of 3,000 hours between us in the earliest days. We’d spend most of our days there.” On some occasions they could lift a scene out its place, take it to the shop and repair it. Others were fixed on the spot. Some were more challenging than others. In the Winterkin Playgrounds there were supposed to be three
parachutes going upwards and three coming down. One day they all stopped moving. And once the skaters on the pond quit skating. He laughs about one incident when Mother Bear was supposed to be placing a bottle in baby’s mouth, but it kept missing, and the bottle would hit the baby in the eye. “The wires were worn out. We had to cut the skin of Mother Bear, insert a new wire, and then everything was back to normal. Another time, there were two children sleeping in the bed, and you could see them breathing by the rise and fall of the bed covers. One day they quit breathing, and we had to do a quick fix. To some people these may seem like easy changes. But our jobs were to make the displays seem as real as possible.” Huyghebaert said the work of the volunteers is immense. “The members of the Women’s Auxiliary were mending the clothing, knitting new (Continued on page 4)