By Kyle Reid | Nov. 19, 2020
Admiralty House Museum is making sure not to leave Frosty out in the cold this year by making an effort to preserve the history of the nearly 40-year-old winter festival.
With plans for the 39th Frosty Festival iced for next year due to COVID-19, Admiralty House museum staff decided it would be a good time to begin work on an oral history project to collect memories of past festivals.
“We just wanted to start a project to preserve the memories that people have had over the years, particularly the early memories of the Frosty Festival sort of around the time of its inception,” said assistant museum manager Nora Allen. “Sadly the community has lost some of the original developers of the festival, so we kind of thought it was a good time to start collecting these memories before they’re gone for good.”
As of Tuesday, staff had completed interviews with two well-known past Frosty Festival volunteers, Agnes Murphy, who has been a volunteer since the inception of the Frosty Festival in 1983 and chair of the festival committee in 2010, and David Lythgoe, a nearly decade long Frosty Festival volunteer.
“The Frosty Festival means different things to everyone but I think it really means, community, comradery (and) friendship,” said Allen. “Just to hear the stories from the people themselves is really, really, important.”
In many ways, Allen said, some of the early Frosty Festivals looked quite different, particularly the events. Some of the earliest iterations of the festival included events such as human chuck wagon racing, beard growing competitions and arm wrestling tilts.
“Hearing about some of those unique events was really interesting,” Allen said.
Museum staff are hoping to collect all their information, including interviews and pictures, by the end of March. From there, Allen said, they are hoping to publish a booklet of memories and photos, or perhaps even stage an exhibit.
“We’re still so far into the early stages that we don’t know exactly how it will end up, but there is definitely going to be something that the community can see, that the community will be able to read and learn more about these memories,” Allen said.
Given that Frosty is hanging up his magic hat for the time being, Allen said the project is perfectly timed to keep Atlantic Canada’s largest winter carnival alive this year.
“As sad as it is that the Frosty Festival was cancelled for 2021 we think that at least this project is a good way to keep it on people’s minds,” said Allen. “Keep people thinking about the Frosty Festival and get people excited for 2022.”
Allen added that anyone looking to contribute to the project can contact Admiralty House at 748-1124, or by e-mail at admiraltyhousemuseum@gmail.com.
