Summer Harvest celebrates pioneers

With the Spices of India display at the Western Bay Museum, Pawan Mittal, Anu Bhardwaj, Bhupinder Bhardwaj, Karan Mittal and Sandeep Pawan of Spice Traders. Photo: Elaine Fisher

A successful harvest of animal fodder and food for people was vital to early pioneers and bringing in summer's bounty meant hours and hours of back-breaking work often using very basic handtools.

Those tools and the stories of how they were used feature in the Western Bay Museum's latest exhibition Summer Harvest, which runs until March 2017.

Museum manager and curator Paula Gaelic says not many museums regularly change their exhibitions but the Western Bay Museum will stage a new one every three months, featuring topical and informative themes.

The new exhibits feature alongside the permanent exhibition Taonga Maori – which is a collection of stone toki, kete, poi, moa bone and patu pieces.

For the first time the museum has focused on multicultural diversity in the district with the display The Spices of India provided by local business Spice Traders.

Anu Bhardwaj says spices have been a traditional part of Indian cuisine for centuries, but are also used to treat ailments and she's noticed an increasing interest among Kiwis in not only how to cook with, but also how to use spices medicinally.

The display in the museum includes a range of fresh spices together with traditional Indian silk and hand-embroidered fabrics.

Summer Harvest occupies the main exhibition room and the museum also features an interactive space with an operating telephone exchange, a dairy, replica 1910 coal range and an operating treadle print press.

These hands-on activities are popular with children with 10 schools visiting in the last six weeks to learn butter churning, scone making on the coal range, mowing with a push mower and doing laundry on washboards, all while dressed in period costumes to add a real-life experience.

The Western Bay Museum on Katikati's Main St is open 10am-4pm daily. Admission costs adult $5, under-15s $2. For more information, visit: www.westernbaymuseum.nz

You may also like....

0 comments

Leave a Comment


You must be logged in to make a comment.