Zoom in to Dalnavert lecture series

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This article was published 20/02/2021 (1689 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are few better places to mark a 100th anniversary than a Victorian-era mansion.

Dalnavert Museum, built in 1895 at 61 Carlton St., as a home for former Manitoba premier Sir Hugh John MacDonald, is hosting a new lecture series starting Sunday to mark the Winnipeg Foundation’s 100th anniversary.

Titled the Elizabeth Alloway Lecture Series, after the city philanthropist and wife of foundation founder William Alloway, it includes eight events held throughout 2021 that mostly focus on history and life during the late 1800s and the early history of Winnipeg. When she died in 1926, her $800,000 estate was bequeathed to the foundation, the largest donation to the organization at the time.

“The Alloways were friends with the Macdonald family and the Macdonalds lived kitty-corner to the Alloways. Hugh John was on the very first board of the Winnipeg Foundation back in 1921,” says Charlene Van Buekenhout, the Dalnavert’s program content and marketing director. “Elizabeth, her legacy, she was really interested in charitable acts like women’s work, nursing and the health of children.”

The opening lecture, which will be on Zoom starting at 1:30 p.m. Sunday (register at friendsofdalnavert.ca) is about author Robert Louis Stevenson, famous for the novels Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. University of Winnipeg English professor Carla Manfredi will focus on Stevenson’s photography from this Pacific Ocean voyages and his time living in Samoa during his later years, a subject she has written the 2018 book Pacific Impressions: Travel and Photography, 1888-1894.

In the past, Dalnavert’s lectures have been held in the museum, but the first four lectures of the Alloway series, which take place in the winter and spring, will be held on Zoom, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. They will be recorded for viewing later on Dalnavert’s Facebook channel.

The museum will open its doors on March 5 after a five-month hiatus. It will offer hourly guided tours for a maximum of five people, Fridays to Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. 

The museum hopes to have the lectures scheduled for the second half of 2021 in the museum, but Van Bueckenhout says it will wait and see what the province’s pandemic regulations on public gatherings will allow.

Other Alloway lectures include:

● March 21: Out at Dalnavert: Gender and Sexuality in the Victorian Era, with Winnipeg art historian Kyle McPhail.

● April 18: Canine Teeth: Rabies at the Species Border of Victorian Literature by city playwright Vivi Dabee.

● May 16: Annie Bannatyne, the early Winnipeg Michif pioneer, by teacher and historian Jennifer Janzen.

● June 13: Form and Function: A Cultural History of the Corset by historians Sabrina Mark and Vanessa Warne.

● Sept. 19: Present Day Impact of Rooster Town, by Laura Forsythe, an educator and Métis inclusion co-ordinator at the University of Manitoba 

● Oct. 24: Bram Stoker: The Man Inside the Monster, by city theatre artist Kevin Klassen.

● Nov. 21: About Silk: The Origins, History and Importance, by Inés Bonacossa, Dalnavert’s collections registrar and frequent lecturer on Victorian-era wardrobe.

● Dec. 19: Carols and choral singing with Mel Braun, conductor of the Winnipeg troupe Camerata Nova.

On Feb. 28, Barb and Clarence Nepinak, the museum’s elders-in-residence, will host a Zoom storytelling session called Stories of the Frozen Earth: Part III that focuses on the spirit of winter, that is targeted at children, who are encouraged to draw the stories the Nepinaks tell. Visit friendsofdalnavert.ca to register.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca  

Twitter:@AlanDSmall