STELLARTON, N.S. — Bernice Byers-Arsenault never did get used to the taste of city water.
In her home in Africville, she grew up with well water and remembers the first taste from a tap after her family was forced to relocate in the name of urban revitalization.
“I tasted the chlorine and never drank it since.”
Byers-Arsenault was at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton this week as a travelling display was set up to tell of her former community. A Walk Through Africville: Feel the Comforts of Home will be on display from Feb. 4 to 28. A special opening will be held on Feb. 4 at 2 p.m.
Family, community and church. Those are the three words Byers-Arsenault uses to describe the primarily black neighbourhood which was razed in the ‘60s.
Childhood memories for her consist of blueberry picking and walking to school. Of fishing in the basin and skating on a pond. They are memories of home.
“We were closely knitted – one large family living in a small community. Everybody was your mother, your father. If you were coming home and nobody was home. If you were hungry, you could always go next door.”
It was the kind of community where if you got in trouble you would hear about it at school and again once you got home. Few people had phones, but word travelled fast.
Juanita Peters is executive director of the Africville Museum and was busy overseeing the setup of the travelling exhibit.
“It’s a hybrid of an exhibit that toured all over Canada into the U.S. 30 years ago,” she said. “We have a couple pieces from the original exhibit and we decided to expand on it and see if we could give people a little taste of what it might have felt like walking down the road in Africville.”
She hopes the exhibit gives people a sense of what made Africville comfortable and unique.
The exhibit includes artists’ renditions of some of the houses and the church. As well, the museum will incorporate some of the sounds and smells that people would have experienced.
“I hope that people walk away with a feeling of what it might have felt like to be in such a close-knit community and a community that shared so much,” Peters said.
In the ‘50s and ‘60s when the City of Halifax set about evicting residents and tearing down the homes, there was a negative view of the neighbourhood. But, for those who lived there, there was something inexplicably comforting.
“I hope people feel and understand the safety and security that people felt. The love that people felt for the land and all the things that made that perfect recipe.”
In many ways Peters believes that sense of community has been lost in today’s society.
“We tend to work in our own silos. We don’t connect with each other as much. But there was a time when you could walk into someone’s house without an appointment and it was a beautiful time. There was a time when without an invitation, people knew they could come and sit at your table.”
There was a time, when a little girl could drink fresh water from a well and not be left with a bad taste in her mouth.
