Centre offering heritage skill training

Three interactive seminars were held at the main building. The open house also gave visitors the chance to tour the grounds, including the bunkhouses further in the grounds and the secluded beach area.

In the basement, Kirk Symonds from Region 6 Solid Waste Management had composting demonstrations set up. There was information on how the municipal composting system works, and also examples of how to set up composting in a backyard or even in a house.

“With composting, it’s one of those things where you can reap the rewards,” he said.

Joe Poissant and Allysia Park, from the Biology Department of Dalhousie University, showed visitors how to build bat houses for their backyards out of simple scrap lumber.

Inside the main building, Biologist Bob Bancroft gave a talk on his work with the Acadian Forest and reclaiming lands around his house.

Bancroft’s property was originally abandoned pastureland before he bought it 30 years ago. Over the years he has worked at restoring the land to its original diversity. He said that over 20-million hectares, larger then all of the Maritimes, has been drained to make way for agriculture. However, he said there is much people can do to restore it.

“One can work with nature to restore it.”

He said it does come with many challenges. Restoring balance to a land out of balance is a careful act, and when you think one thing is fixed, another problem seems to unbalance it. An example he gives is when he dug out land to allow fish back up stream. A group of otters moved into the area and started eating all the fish. In nature, dead tree branches in ponds and lakes provide a natural hiding place for fish. To bring balance again, he found some dead branches and sank them in the ponds.

Crystal Doggett, coordinator with the centre, said they hope to get the public more interested in what they’re trying to do, and help them get involved. One of the ways is through providing workshops.

Several workshops have taken place. One on chainsaw use for women was so popular they ran it twice, but they would also like to find out what the community wants to learn.

“We believe there is a lot of heritage skills or traditional skills that (our) grandparents knew how to do and were part of everyday life that are getting away from us now,” said Doggett. “It was common for people to work in the woods, it was common for people who lived on a farm to be self sufficient. Today that’s just not the way it is. We’d like to offer classes that would get some of those skills back.”

If there is something people are interested in learning how to do, the staff at the centre is willing to do the legwork and find out how to bring it here.

To contact the centre, e-mail them at hlc@eastlink.ca