It’s a place where old and new mix, and a traditional dinner is shared during a contemporary event.
The Cumberland Museum and Archives presents its annual celebration of the workers May 1 at the Cumberland Cultural Centre at 6 p.m.
Join the dinner with friends and family for a taste of traditional baked beans, a local beer and a teaser of homemade applesauce. Kids and individuals can participate in mural painting while remembering the “songs of the workers” and the stories of working people through the musical renderings of well-known B.C. singer-songwriter Corwin Fox and Rebel Voices from Seattle.
The Bean Supper commemorates the Big Strike of 1912 in Cumberland — a bitter and prolonged strike which saw miners’ families turned out of the company houses in which they lived. The families set up tent communities that are remembered today in the names of places such as Strikers Beach.
The government, seeing the destitution of the miners, sent boxcar-loads of dried beans to Cumberland.
Corwin Fox, who now calls Cumberland home, is one of Canada’s best-kept musical secrets. As a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer and session musician, Fox has worked on more than 50 albums and toured across Canada, the U.S. and Australia countless times playing everywhere from huge outdoor folk festivals to rowdy bars to intimate cafés and coffeehouses.
Rebel Voices is a female musical duo whose lyrics focus on women and working people’s lives. Their songs are real stories of real people. With an integrated vision of theatre, harmony and politics, Janet Stecher and Susan Lewis fill the stage with rare power and compassion.
The Bean Supper also corresponds with International Workers Day — a celebration of the achievements of the labour movement held in countries around the world. Workers Day celebrations were an annual fixture in Cumberland until the closing of the last of the mines in 1966.
The festivities featured a parade and rally for better living and working conditions. This serious business was then followed by a boisterous field day of sports activities, picnics and treats for the kids and an evening dance. In 1942, Cumberland earned the unique distinction of being the only city in Canada to celebrate May Day.
Cumberland was never shy about celebrating Workers Day, so why not come out to dinner and keep the spirit alive? Come and be part of this annual celebration that is part of the very fabric of the Village of Cumberland.
The achievements of workers in their struggle for safer, healthier and kinder working conditions are achievements we all benefit from — regardless of our employment today.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for age 12 and younger (under 5 is free). All proceeds go to the Cumberland Museum. For tickets call 250-336-2445 today. Online go to www.cumberlandmuseum.ca or go to the Cumberland Museum on Facebook.
— Cumberland Museum