A new museum exhibit, curated with input from Cambridge, Ont. residents, will take visitors on a 50-year journey to places that helped shape the city. The snapshots are now on display inside the historic McDougall Cottage. “Our community has changed so much. The world is changing so much, and it seemed like a really good opportunity for people to reminisce and reconnect,” said Michelle Bartlett, head of content and experience at McDougall Cottage. The exhibit, titled “Snapshots in Time: Nostalgia & Memory,” features memorable schools, businesses and gathering places. Many were chosen based on feedback from the city’s own residents. “[There] was a survey which asked the public to think about remembrances and nostalgic memories that they had of various locations,” explained exhibit designer Philip Ower. One popular pick was the Knotty Pine Restaurant. “The Knotty Pine came up, and it was just a beloved restaurant that spanned the whole timeframe of our periods, which is the ‘40s all the way up to the late ‘90s,” Ower said. From the Knotty Pine to the Galt Gardens Arena and even the drive-in, people also wrote in with some of their favourite memories from each location. “We had voice actors essentially read those, and we created soundtracks for each portal,” said Ower. As for which residents contributed the most, Bartlett joked that one neighbourhood came to mind. “I think the people from Hespeler tend to be extremely nostalgic,” she said, smiling. Choosing sites was easy, but putting the exhibit together had some unique challenges. “McDougall Cottage is a historic site, so you can’t really alter it,” Ower said of the 168-year-old building. “It’s protected and there’s conservation concepts about it, so you can’t be too intrusive.” The team had to be creative with wiring and changes to certain rooms. One unique way they managed to display a database with key locations was on a retro arcade machine. “The ‘80s Asteroids video game [machine], which everybody seems to remember,” Ower noted while showing how to click through the console’s buttons, containing Cambridge’s history instead of a game. “It’s a good way for patrons to kind of investigate these locations.” The exhibit runs until mid-December 2027.
