When you are looking at  the Galt Museum’s new exhibit, “The Greatest Years You Never Knew: Lethbridge 1906-1913” which opens Saturday, April 30, don’t forget to bring your ideas for other exhibits, because the museum is planning ahead for the next couple years.

“We need help from the community, so we’ll have pieces of paper for you to write down your ideas. We’re planning for 2013-2015,” said curator Wendy Aitkens who was glad to let Belinda Crowson take the reins on this exhibit.
“I always enjoy having a guest curator because I get to see their process,” Aitkens said.

“That era is when Lethbridge transformed from a frontier town to become the city as we know it,”  said Crowson, who did a lot of research to create this exhibit which includes  a replica of a home made cave where some of Lethbridge’s original settlers would live rent and tax free. They’d dig a hole into the side of a coulee and reinforce it with any wood they could find.

For people who like their history a little more hands on rather than from dusty old text books, The Galt Museum is beginning a special series of monthly workshops, Jan. 19.
“It’s a new series called Galt Workshops. And the idea is to take topics from Southern Alberta and bring them alive in a hands on way,” said Leslie Hall, Galt Museum community programs co-ordinator, adding the Jan. 19 workshop  features guest speaker Monta Salmon who will be teaching participants how to research their family history.

“She’ll teach you how to get started if you are thinking about it. It’s not that scary. So she’ll teach you the basics,” Hall continued.
“It’s a great, informal way  to start learning about it,” she continued. The two hour seminar takes place 7-9 p.m and admission is free.
 Hall is planning on having these workshops once a month.
The next one will be a beading basics workshop on Feb. 10. The one following that will be on how to create  patchwork quilt.

“It is inspired by  a historical piece of art in our exhibit,” Hall said adding the Café Galt presentations are kind of similar, but  the workshops are more hands on.

Lethbridge libraries will be “playing all day for literacy” during Family Literacy Day, Jan. 27, and with two of them operating, the day will be twice as much fun.

“Literacy is more than just about reading books,” observed Crossings Branch teen-brarian Paige McGeorge, adding  there are a variety of Literacy Day activities scheduled for both branches.

“We’ll be playing for literacy, so we will be having a variety of play related activities both here and downtown,” said McGeorge, outlining an array of  play themed activities to happen all day long , Jan. 27.

“Here, we’ll be starting with story-time at 10 a.m.,” she said adding something special will follow after the opening ceremonies at noon— a celebrity dictionary race.
“We’ll be pitting local celebrities against each other in a dictionary race, where the first person to find a word and a definition in the dictionary wins,” she continued.

“But it will be separate from the spelling bee,” she continued adding the afternoon will be dominated by a preschool literacy carnival.
“It will have a lot of activities for the kids like story corners, colouring, a beanbag toss and activities like pin the tail on your favourite storybook characters,” she continued adding there will be games throughout the day as well, both board games as well as video games.

Consumers need to have constant vigilance, especially during the Boxing Day shopping season. But today, the old adage, “You Get What You Pay For,” has never been more true.

Because everything you can buy can be counterfeited including the currency itself. So it is a perfect time for the Galt Museum to  open their latest exhibit — Fakes and Forgeries: Yesterday and Today. The traveling exhibit, comes to the Galt  from the Royal Ontario Museum with the help of a  special Heritage Canada grant.

 The interactive exhibit, which opened Dec. 18 and runs until April 10, features 11 showcases full of  numerous different types of forgeries  from currency to ancient artifacts, as well as originals set side by side. They include counterfeit merchandise, minerals, drugs, hockey helmets and uniforms, counterfeit software and popular items like toys and ipods as well as ancient artifacts and their counterfeited counterparts from Egypt and China.

“The collection puts them side by side and  gives you a chance to  guess which is which. But they don’t just leave you guessing, you  can open a door and see if you are right or wrong. Underneath the door is an explanation of what to look for,” said curator Wendy Aitkens adding counterfeiting costs Canadian taxpayers about $22 million a year.

“The Royal Ontario Museum has six million objects, so when they found out they had fakes in their collection, they put some of them together side by side with the real ones,” she continued.