Step through the front door at Mackin House and step back 100 years in time.
You are about to have what the museum professionals call an "immersive experience." An example of an immersive space would be a theme park, such as The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida. It is a space where you can interact with your environment, suspend your disbelief and accept the sights, sounds and smells around you as your reality.
A phenomenon such as this is most felt at theme parks or within the world of virtual reality but it can also take place right here in Coquitlam.
Much like a theme park, Mackin House Museum employs some fundamental techniques to enhance the experience of stepping back in time while providing an educational experience for those visitors immersed in history. Immersion, the feeling of being fully in another time and or place, is most felt when all five senses are acted upon and stimulated. Mackin House strives to be a representation of the early 1900s home so that visitors feel as though they are transported back in time into a welcoming home rather than merely a museum.
At Mackin House, visitors may walk through every room and even touch and gently handle the artifacts. We do not have those vexing velvet ropes that deny the tactile sense and remind guests they are in a museum space. By engaging all five senses, visitors are better absorbed into the narrative and history of the house, which enhances the educational experience. Visitors may listen to the fire crackling or the gramophone playing, see the furnishings and objects from the early 1900s, and during events they would smell and taste baking from 100-year-old recipes.
We do not tire visitors by focusing on identifying artifacts; rather, we explain the artifact by contextualizing it within the given time period while talking about its role in the household or community. During group and school tours, we often ask a series of questions so visitors are engaged and become a part of the history as they learn.
With young children, we enact hypothetical situations in the kitchen so the children come to understand how life would be different without such things as a faucet, a freezer or electricity. Imagine the look on a child's face when they find out that everyone in the household used to bathe in the kitchen.
Our tours at Mackin House are unique in that we teach visitors not only about what life was like in the household but also what life was like within the community and as a worker at Fraser Mills. Mackin House is the place to learn about the peopling of Coquitlam long ago as the house was a company home of the Fraser Lumber Mill, and it was the offer of land and employment at the mill that enticed people to come and live in the area. Hence, Mackin House is where visitors can learn about daily home life along with the greater narrative of the history of the neighbourhood because we also offer neighbourhood walks.
Sadly, Mackin House Museum is positioned to really only capture the history of Fraser Mills and Maillardville for a brief period of time: about 1909 to the mid-1920s. Since the early 1900s, Coquitlam has grown to the status of a city and with this maturation comes the need for a full-scope museum. Our heritage house is beautiful but limiting.
Those who attended the Coquitlam Heritage Society's AGM will recall Erica Williams' presentation, which detailed a bit about Coquitlam's prehistoric past. There is much to tell and we hope our near future will bring a building which will showcase all our history featuring many interactive and immersive exhibits representing a wider range of our past including that of Riverview and Burke Mountain.
But for those interested in the history of Coquitlam's earliest pioneers, we invite you to come to Mackin House Museum and enjoy one of our tours.
Your History is a column in which, once a month, representatives of the Tri-Cities' three heritage groups writes about local history. Stefani Klaric is with the Coquitlam Heritage Society.
