Fredericton North Heritage Fair looks to build community through history

The 15th Fredericton North Heritage Fair drew over 100 volunteers and nearly 30 exhibits to help visitors learn about and share their own stories about the region.

For Joanna Aiton-Kerr, who stood at a table full of old photographs, exchanging stories with community members is essential to her work as provincial archivist.

"Often we get more details about the photographs from people who are really familiar with certain buildings or certain family names," she said.

"We love to come and talk to folks and get more background so that we can make our own descriptions about the holdings that we have even better."

At the Saturday event, Aiton-Kerr said attendees seemed most drawn to a photo of a barn on fire on the Neill Farm in the 1970s.

She said several people had walked by and said they had no idea that the barn had burned down. "So even folks who have lived here their whole lives, they may not have a memory of something." 

Fred White, vice-president of the Fredericton North Heritage Association, says the fair is a way for community members to get involved in preserving greater Fredericton area history.

"It's a museum on wheels," he said. "You come here and you don't have to have one subject, you've got sports and telephones, history, your clans, that's what we feel like we should be doing."

Robert Mabie, a New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame inductee who played hockey alongside Willie O'Ree, likes to tell people about north-side history through the lens of sport. 

He proudly pointed out a small red clock that was first used at the York Arena in 1948 to time hockey games.

"A lot of good hockey players come from the north side, I know that....  At one time the only rink in Fredericton was on the north side, the York Arena," he said, standing next to a wall full of photos, newspaper clippings, and even an old stick.

"It's good to remember them, but it's good to know how good they were. I think that's the main thing."

Other exhibitors chose to share history through the lens of family. 

Carol Howe and Rosalie Soutar, members of Remembering Every African Cemetery History, want to encourage people to celebrate their ancestors.

But they also want people to understand that not every family has been able to do that equally over time. 

"What we're trying to do is basically let people know about the Black graveyards because so many graveyards have been lost and forgotten, and as some people know, some have been basically destroyed," Howe said. 

Howe and Soutar say identifying cemetery sites and the people buried there makes for a more accurate historical record.

"We have contributed so much to North America, and it needs to be celebrated," Howe said.