CANYONVILLE — The Canyonville Community Library hosted the Native Innovation traveling exhibit, all the way from Eugene and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History, for most of the month of October.
The exhibit explored how Native Americans in the First Nations of Oregon designed items with knowledge and creativity to solve problems, according to the museum’s website. Exhibit attendees tried engineering crafts and learn from examples and explanations of various technology related to housing, travel, tools, recreation and more.
The library hosted various classes from nearby schools to see the program, hosted family nights and left it open to the public. Library Program Manager Linda Grace said the exhibit was pretty well attended and very engaging.
The exhibit features eight tabletop exhibit stations, two exhibit stations displayed on top of shipping crates and four six-foot pop-up banners. It also comes with a programming toolkit with books, lesson plans and materials to support fun learning engaged with science and engineering.
The museum’s website says there are two complete Native Innovation exhibits, which allows it to be it two places at once.
“We have it divided into stations, which makes it easy to go around,” Grace said.
Sheets of paper had exhibits listed and small paragraphs with information for students to read. Features included interactive exhibits with small replicas of interesting technology like shoes, woven baskets or different types of fishing equipment.
Grace said they taught students what blue camas is and how to collect it. Crafts included weaving with yarn, creating a pole to catch fish with magnets or fashioning a boat out of aluminum foil.
“This is Native Innovations based in Oregon, so this is the tribes that are part of it here in Oregon,” Grace said. “Everything here is Oregon related. Even this shoe, which is the world’s oldest shoe, and they found that in Eastern Oregon.”
Grace said the exhibit was sponsored by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, and there was enough money to buy an additional 25 books for the library. Books were all related to the Native Innovations exhibit topics, Grace said.
The exhibit also made a stop at the Sutherlin Public Library earlier in the summer. It’s on its way to the North Bend Public Library and the Oakridge Council for Art and Culture.
The Museum of Natural and Cultural History also has a second traveling exhibit called Oregon’s Dino-Story. According to the museum, this exhibit helps uncover the history of Oregon’s dinosaur, teaching students what makes a dinosaur, what a fossil is, why dinosaur fossils are rare but existent in Oregon and more.
