An interesting event is coming to High River this weekend.

It's called the "History Harvest" and is part of a larger project called "Placing Memory in High River."

It's the brainchild of Ambrose University History Professor Kyle Jantzen who's asking people to come down to the Museum of the Highwood Saturday with an object that means something to them and telling the researchers the history of that object.

"We all have objects, keepsakes or other things like that that are precious to us. And we're interested in hearing about those and seeing them and also in hearing the stories that lie behind them, because we think that will help us understand more about the past of individual people and therefore the community too."

He goes on to say, the basic idea behind both the History Harvest and the Placing Memory project as a whole is that:

1) while some of our history is to be found in official documents (gov't records, etc.), most of our history is actually found in our collective memories; and

 2) our history and memories are intimately tied to places and objects.

The History Harvest is a little like an "Antiques Roadshow" and a little like "show and tell" from our early school years!

We are inviting people to come to the Museum of the Highwood to show us some historical artifact they own--perhaps an old photo, letter, or document, or a trinket, keepsake, or heirloom.

The object itself isn't the main thing.

What really matters is its importance as an object of memory.

We want to take some pictures of the object and a little video of the people telling us what the object means to them, why they want to keep it or pass it down to their children, and what memories it holds.

We're going to have university students and local volunteers ready to sit down with whoever comes in.

We'd love to see lots of artifacts and hear lots of stories about the past.

And we're going to turn them into an online archive of local history and memory.

We'll also be holding a public event next year to talk about history and memory in High River.

You'll hear lots about that next summer.

Jantzen and his team will be at the Museum Saturday from 10 A.M. until 4 P.M.