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Jeff is a carpenter, tasked with creating all the fixtures for
the exhibits. When the museum mounted its Yellowstone
exhibit, Jeff had to custom-build displays to accommodate
the collection and the space. Dave and Jeff also have to set
up traveling exhibits. At the time of this writing crates full
of dinosaur fossils, casts, and display materials are bound
for the Mifune Dinosaur Museum in Yakumoto Prefecture,
Japan. Dave and Jeff have the enviable job of traveling
with it to ensure that it is taken down successfully, while
paleontologist and dinosaur maven Carrie Ancell will
make sure that casts or other items damaged in transit are
fixed before going on display.
From September 21st to January 26th, the special
exhibit was "Welcome to Yellowstone!", an expansive
story of the park encompassing over a hundred years and
interpreted through thousands of artifacts. Much of the
exhibit was made up of a major recent accession, dubbed
the Hamilton-Povah collection, an unprecedented wealth
of materials relating to Yellowstone Park. It was collected
over lifetimes by the families of the folks who ran the
Hamilton stores, the major concessioners in Yellowstone
for years. The Hamilton-Povah family, not wishing to
see these treasures separated or sold, donated them to the
Museum of the Rockies several years ago. The collection
ranges from ephemera like postcards and pens to larger
fare, like a Park bus or a 1940 Lincoln Zephyr.
As Fox says with more than apparent excitement, "We had
to take it and come to terms with the future of the collection".
Part of coming to terms with the collection means
making it available for viewing and research; the recent
Yellowstone exhibit did so although only 1/160th of
the massive donation went on display. The problem
Carrie Ancell
working on
hadrosaur bone
Michael Fox
with firearms
