Membertou Heritage “Park”

This week in Sydney there is something called Action Week going on. I think the name of their festival leaves a lot to be desired. The name is really, kind of boring, in my opinion…but anyway… It’s a weeklong festival of sorts and there are a lot of events going on around town. A lot of the events are geared towards children but there are a few interesting things for adults as well. If you like live music there are a lot of concerts going on. Most of it is by artists who perform…I don’t know what kind of music you call it… Gaelic? Think Great Big Sea or Ashley MacIsaac. That kind of music. Things with fiddles.

Also…lots of motorcycles, lots and lots of motorcycles. Everywhere. They’re loud.

For more information you can go to their website: www.actionweek.com

One thing that appealed to me was the tour of Membertou Heritage Park. They advertised free admission for the first and last days of the festival. So I thought, sure that sounds like it might be interesting.

I tried googling it so I could get directions. I found their website, which you can go to here: http://www.membertouheritagepark.com/ but a lot of it seemed to be under construction. When I followed the directions that Google gave me I ended up at a dead end street and blocked by a fence. The Membertou Heritage Park turned out to be on the other side of the fence, but still, major confusion.

I found out later that the Membertou Heritage Park has only been open since June of 2012 so that explains why there isn’t a whole lot of information on their website yet. So in light of that, they’ve really accomplished quite a lot already.

However, I thought that since it was called a “Heritage Park” that there would be more… park… as in trees and green space and that kind of thing. Their website said that there were walking trails and medicine gardens.  It also said that the building was on five acres of land. I don’t know where that land is because on one side of the building you have an old folk’s home and on the other you have a hotel…

But I figure the walking trails and medicine gardens are something they plan on for the future since they only opened this year.

The building was very nice. They have a large gift shop and the interpretive centre tells the story of the Membertou people and community. There is an archives somewhere in there too. So, you know, research…if that’s what you’re into.

I liked how their exhibits were displayed. The text and images were on large sheets of canvas hung from the ceiling, but they were made up to almost look like wigwams. They also had viewing terminals where you could watch videos explaining more of the history.

But honestly, I found that the best thing about the interpretive centre was the air conditioning. Because whoa! Was it ever hot out that day!