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| Robert H. Bohart family residence in Fort
Steele (1901-1902) |
A question that is asked frequently at Fort Steele is "What is
history about?" It is a good question. The circumstances of the
history we find ourselves engrossed in are always changing at Fort
Steele. Pre-eminent for the last couple of seasons are thoughts about
the ways and means by which people addressed aesthetic needs and fed
themselves in this town 100 years ago. One of the things history,
in both yesterday's and tomorrow's sense, is about is survival.
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| Mather house porch at Fort Steele (1997) |
In the 1890s almost everyone had a "kitchen garden"of
some form or other. This was their only affordable source of fresh
vegetables. Prior to mechanization, agribusiness, chemical fertilizers
and superstores our forefathers relied on simple procedures that
guaranteed a good first harvest and an even better one with each
new season. As Donald J. Berg says, "They grew a much greater
variety of vegetables than we do now and they developed methods
to extend their homegrown bounty throughout the year."
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| Ron McConnell in the Egge/Ewan Garden. |
As wildflowers reproduce themselves year after year, colour true,
while our manipulated hybrids falter and fade, so does history offer
us clear images of how people survived. It is about how we look
after and provide the tomorrows for all those we love. History,
and Fort Steele, is about truth and sustainability.
Both perceptions and practice change over time. As a society we
have moved away from the time and labour expenditures required to
maintain a Victorian yard and garden. It is a difficult concept
to marshal support for in a corporate culture divorced from the
soil.
History is also about fun, and we have a lot of that in the gardens
- with our public, our heritage animals, and with each other. History
is also about hard work, and no Program demands more work than our
gardens do. By gardening organically we also have to do more work
in anticipation of problems in the future.
None of this is new. Gardening has been with us since the dawn
of civilization. And ever since people gave up their nomadic ways,
flowers have been planted to brighten our outlook. The Victorians,
in their time, simply took it to more wondrous heights and refinements
than had been considered beforehand. For a sense of gardens, however,
we can go back to Sappho of Lesbos at the very least.
If Jove would give the leafy bowers A queen for all their world
of flowers The rose would be the choice of Jove, And blush the queen
of every grove. Sweetest child of weeping morning, Gem, the breast
of earth adorning, Eye of flow'rets, glow of lawns, Bud of beauty,
nursed by dawns: Soft the soul of love it breathes, Cypria's brow
with magic wreathes; And to Zephyr's wild caresses, Diffuses all
its verdant tresses, Till glowing with the wanton's play, It blushes
a diviner ray. Sappho of Lesbos, c. 600 BC
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History 