Volunteers start giving formal tours of Hay River memory wall

A touching photo tribute to people who have lived and died in Hay River is helping youth connect with the past.

The wall was started by current Hay River mayor Brad Mapes, and debuted at a town homecoming celebration in 2013. Mapes continues to maintain and update the wall, with the support of community volunteers.

In the past, volunteers, some of whom are members of the Hay River Museum Society, have offered informal tours, but this is the first time they have given a planned tour to local students.

Some of the people in the photos died decades ago, others as recently as one year ago.

The photos are hung on a fence seen from the highway that cuts through town. The images go up in the summer and come down before winter.

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The project started in 2013, with about 400 photos. Five years later, the number of images has doubled, with new submissions each year.

This week volunteers, many of them elders and longtime residents, are offering guided tours to students. The walking tours emphasize how chiefs, trappers, fishermen, bush pilots, war brides, doctors, and even a dairy farmer shaped the town's political, economic and social landscape.

Kleo Skavinski, 17, says she's proud her great aunt, Mabel Villeneuve, is part of the wall.

"It's a reminder that she was here, that people know her aside from our family. She was part of the community," Skavinsky says.

But she admits it is an emotional experience.

"The first year I saw her on the wall I felt really sad, like the grief is still there, but it's to the point now that it's a nice memory."

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Preserving oral history

Tom Makepeace is one of the tour guides. His family moved to Hay River in 1956. The retired government worker turned amateur historian says the tour is one way to preserve the town's oral history, which is at risk of disappearing with the passing of elders and longtime residents.

"If we don't do something quick it is going to be lost," he says.

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Shaping the North

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Zach Horton's great grandfather, Frank Hirst Sr, was a commercial fisherman.

"There was lots of stuff I didn't know, not about my grandfather, but about other people and how they helped shape the North here with fishing and aviation," he said, while visiting the wall. "It was pretty cool."

The wall is scheduled to come down this week, and will return next summer.