OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT

The Sidney Historic Signage Program

The Sidney Museum & Archives

The Sidney Museum & Archives has an ambitious program to interpret the history of Sidney over a multi-year period. Last summer, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of BC, three historic panels were unveiled by the Mayor and local dignitaries at the foot of Beacon Avenue. This spring six more historic panels were completed and erected by the end of March along the Sidney waterfront thanks to support from the BC 150-Heritage Legacy Fund program.

While the Museum is located in the heart of Sidney, on its main street, local by-laws limit the extent to which it can advertise its location. So the Historical Interpretative Signs Program is also a way of raising the Museum and Archives profile.

The signs place local events or sites within a larger historical context: the strategic value of San Juan Island, the role of the Pat Bay military aerodrome within coastal defense and Commonwealth air training, or the evolution of ship design from sail to steam.

The program has benefitted from broad support from the Town of Sidney and the active participation of their officials in the Program Advisory Group. Don Tarasoff, historian, leads the research and develops the text elements of the signs. Many people have helped him in the conduct of the historical research: the town archives, the Maritime Museum of BC, the Aviation Museum of BC, the Centre for Plant Health, as well as many individuals.

The program is also very fortunate in retaining the services of Liz Sheen (of Peninsula Signs) who combines an artist's eye for a harmonious balance between images and text, and adds her original drawings to embellish the letterhead, generate brilliant layout and design.

The Town of Sidney has taken the lead in mounting and erecting the signs, and has taken responsibility for their ongoing maintenance. In addition to the funding received from the BC 150-Heritage Legacy Fund, financial support has also come from the local community.

A leaflet has been designed and printed that promotes a walk along Sidney’s seafront by introducing and identifying the location of each sign and incorporating additional discovery elements.  The current leaflet is something of a pilot to gauge interest and inform the design of subsequent printed material as more signs are put in place.

Future plans call for a major interpretation of the downtown core, based on the historic development of Sidney