Items

• 
  2021-09-20

  Town of Cochrane commits to Truth and Reconciliation, declares Sept. 30 a stat holiday

  This is a newspaper from Cochrane Today, a subsidiary of the Cochrane Eagle on the adoption of the National day of Truth and Reconciliation in the town of Cochrane. The document talks about how other municipalities and even the provincial government have chosen not to participate in the first day of this incredibly important national holiday.
• 
  2021-10-06

  Sharing Experience, Cochrane Times, October 6th 2021.

  2.) This is another photo within the Cochrane Times dedicated to documenting Canada’s first Orange Shirt Day; this was an article from the October 6th paper. The text underneath the photo reads: “Sharing Experience, Residential school survivor Jenny Clark shares her story with those gathered near the McDougall Stoney Memorial Church ahead of a ceremonial walk to Morley on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, September 30.
• 
  02/19/2021

  Ian Cohen Oral History, 2021/02/19

  Mini oral history with Ian Cohen, 2/19/2021. Interviewed by Padraic Cohen
• 
  2021-02-04

  My mom's quarantine crochet

  These two photos are of a recent crochet project my mom just completed, I just think they’re absolutely adorable – they remind me so much of my first teddy bear from when I was a baby. I’ve been telling her that kids would love if she made more of these, we could donate them or sell some on Etsy I keep telling her – but she doesn’t believe me when I tell her that her work is amazing. I just wanted to upload this to the archive to show how my mom has coped with quarantine life, and how her creativity has exploded over these last few weeks. In a weird way it’s very sentimental to me, because it reminds me of my own childhood and the amount of love my mom gave me throughout my upbringing when she could, I just want other people to be able to feel the love that’s been poured into this object during these unloving times.
• 
  2021-02-04

  My daily view

  This is a photo from my bedroom, and has been what I wake up to every day, and have been waking up to for the last 22 years of my life. I haven’t left my house in weeks aside from running to get groceries or a coffee. I haven’t gone out for a hike, a walk, almost nothing for these months. I’m mainly sharing this photograph to illustrate just how monotonous my life has become, and while this sounds depressing, because it is, I feel like I’m doing my part by not going out – it’s probably the only thing that’s making this bearable. All I do every day, is wake up and begin working on classwork and my internship, and then finish off with some games online with my friends, but I’ve even stopped doing that recently. I don’t really have a drive to do much anymore aside from school work. I feel even worse with the fact that I can’t find any work which would fit with my class work. So largely, I just feel incredibly useless, I take so long to get my school work done, and have little time to just do what I’d like – and on top of that I don’t even know what I’d like to do. Needless to say, this pandemic has really, really put a funk on me; class work is the only thing keeping me going at the moment, or I’d just be a potato in bed.
• 
  2020-06-26

  My new hobby

  During the summer of 2020, not a lot was going on in my life. I had just recently finished my undergraduate degree and had little to do on a daily basis, there were no jobs, no friends, not even family. Gradually, I got sick of just playing video games day in and out; however I wasn’t getting sick of the music of these games, many of which used the banjo. Some of these songs seemed pretty simple, and with my previous experience rudimentary experience with the guitar I figured I’d be able to some of these tunes. I started picking up my dad’s banjo, which is in the photo I provided on a daily basis; using YouTube tutorials I started to pick up the basics. In all honesty it was pretty easy to pick up, and just a relaxing experience, I even grew to like the feeling of developing callouses on my fingers? That’s a little weird but it felt like they were physical reminders of how much work I was putting into learning this new instrument. Recently I’ve kind of stopped playing, but I still love just plucking at it every now and then. My friends online similarly liked hearing me play every now and then, so in a sense it was a great coping mechanism to boredom and loneliness. However, I’ve really stopped even plucking at it, I don’t feel a drive to do much anymore; so I just kind of stare at it now every now and again, which is incredibly weird. This item maters to me as it helped me through the initial stages of the pandemic, and helped me stay mentally active during quarantine. However, as the pandemic has dragged on I kind of have lost the desire to play it, or do much of anything else really. I’d like to add this item to the collection of performing arts as it is a musical instrument, and I would perform for my friends on Discord every now and then (but then again I’m not a professional artist or performer so I don’t think it’d be appropriate for me to be in that collection) Mental health on the other hand is a way more accurate collection for this item, as it really helped me stay mentally active during the pandemic.