COLIN KERR
Staff Reporter
WILNO – Since its inception 24 years ago this March, the Wilno Heritage Society has accomplished great things in the recording, preserving, and sharing of the culture of the people who landed on this spot on the Opeongo Trail 162 years ago.
The best proof of this lies in their biannual newsletter. The newsletter not only records the activities of the society and other relevant cultural events, but is a repository for invaluable historical and genealogical information. The newsletter’s editor is the museum’s curator, Shirley Mask Connolly. You can reach her at maskconn@magma.ca. If it is fascinating read to a non-Kashub, it would be that much more to a Kashub!
Another proof of the massively fruitful research work the Society has fostered can be seen in the number of books it has for sale in its shop and online. A few of these titles were written by Mask Connolly herself, including Marriages Matters, Crossing on the Agda, and A Giant Among Us.
The painstaking research undertaken by people like Mask Connolly, Joshua Blank, and David Shulist, among others, through archives, through conversations, through trips back to Kashubia, has uncovered so much valuable information and has enabled the descendents of the first ‘Wilno-ites’ to get to know their past to a degree that was impossible even 30 years ago.
The popularity of the Kashub Day celebrations shows that some of the work has been a lot of fun too.
If you are already an online subscriber, CLICK HERE to access your subscription and read the full story.
If you wish to subscribe online, CLICK HERE, or you can pick up a copy of the April 28 Valley Gazette for the complete story.