Working at a smaller museum can pose its own unique challenges, but it also allows for great opportunities. For the next two weeks our curator, Grant, is taking a well-deserved vacation, leaving me as the sole employee at the museum. Even though he’s only been gone for a few days, his absence is definitely felt – being in charge of a museum has some unexpected challenges!
The day-to-day job of a museum curator is a lesson in multitasking – ensuring the upkeep of Sir Frederick G. Banting Square, handling questions from both visitors and online guests, and keeping track of gift shop and admission revenues, as well as leading tours and researching exhibits. It is lots of responsibility, but also makes for lots of fun – I’m getting to know aspects of the job that I had never really experienced before!
Now that summer holidays have officially started, things have started picking up at the museum and more visitors arrive looking to learn more about the life of Frederick Banting and the discovery of insulin. With a long weekend both in Canada and the United States, we’ve received many visitors from across North America, from coast to coast – we’ve had visitors from California to Labrador this week!
Working at the museum alone makes me appreciate the volunteers so much more – without them, Banting House wouldn’t be able to offer the experience to guests that it does today. Not only do they give tours to the visitors, they also help with the research and creation of new exhibits, as well as countless other things.
For now, I will continue to hold the fort, and Grant will return in mid-July – I hope he has a great two weeks of holidays and that things will continue to run smoothly until his return!
This post was written by Kylie Smith. Kylie recently graduated with a B.A. in history and anthropology from The University of Western Ontario, and will be attending teachers college in the fall.
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