{"id":24117,"date":"2019-06-28T11:52:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24117"},"modified":"2019-06-28T11:52:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:52:26","slug":"museums-film-examines-close-ties-between-aurora-and-regiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/museums-film-examines-close-ties-between-aurora-and-regiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum\u2019s film examines close ties between Aurora and Regiment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muskets on their\nbacks, they marched through what is now Sheppard\u2019s Bush Conservation Area\nprepared for enemy fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their forest green\nuniforms contrasted against the sunlit leaves as they took their positions and\nwaited until they got the signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case,\nhowever, the signal they were waiting for was not a sign from a commanding\nofficer to draw their muskets; rather, it was the call of \u201cAction!\u201d as they\nrelived key moments of the War of 1812.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joggers and soccer\nplayers making use of Sheppard\u2019s Bush on Saturday afternoon could have been\nforgiven for thinking they fell through a wormhole into a bygone era as\nre-enactors took over portions of the green space to film sequences for a new\nshort film examining the history of the Queen\u2019s York Rangers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioned by the\nAurora Museum & Archives, the short will shed a new and innovative light on\nlocal links to the Aurora-based Regiment and explore stories that have remained\nin the background for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film, produced by\nMountain Goat Film Company, has been commissioned to coincide with a new\nphysical exhibition being mounted by the Museum this fall that takes a deep\ndive into the Queen\u2019s York Rangers\u2019 storied history \u2013 both here in Aurora and\nin conflicts around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday\u2019s shoot saw\nre-enactors breathe new life into the 1st<\/sup> York Militia, a precursor to today\u2019s Rangers and their service for King\nand Country during the War of 1812. Previous shoots have included walking in\nthe footsteps of their forebears at the Battle of Stoney Creek and the retreat\nfrom Fort George, but this past weekend \u201creally homed in on the Aurora\nconnection,\u201d said Michelle Johnson of the Aurora Museum and Archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have been able to\nrecover some names and some of the names are tied to different land grants from\nthe late 1700s, so this is really helping us make that connection to actual\npeople who were residing in this area, who went and served under General Brock\nduring the war, and it is fantastic to know how this lineage ran,\u201d she\nexplained ahead of the shoot. \u201cBefore, we weren\u2019t really sure about the\nspecifics of people from this community who went and fought in 1812, but there\nwere some documents where this was clearly spelled out.\u201d
\nProduction on the documentary began last year.\nImpressed by Mountain Goat\u2019s work with other museums, the Aurora Museum &\nArchives thought a short film would be the perfect accompaniment for their\nupcoming exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Regiment is a\ntopic they\u2019ve long-considered worthy of a closer look as previous exhibitions \u2013\nincluding those on the history of Town Park and Aurora\u2019s built history, both of\nwhich featured the historic Aurora Armoury \u2013 just touched upon the history that\nwas available. Given the Armoury\u2019s ongoing restoration work, the Museum felt\nnow was the perfect time to take that dive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping them along\nthe way has been the Queen\u2019s York Rangers Regimental Museum, which has opened\nup the archives for both records and artefacts \u2013 including a bugle presented to\nthe Regiment following the Fenian Raids in the 1860s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Museum\u2019s\nassistant curator has been a lifeline for us [in] just understanding the\nlanguage and complexities of the [Regiment and its name changes over the\nyears], the ins and outs of military language and the right titles of\nuniforms,\u201d says Ms. Johnson. \u201cWe\u2019re really relying on a wider network to do\nthat research, source locations and just bring it all together. There has been\nextensive research to get it right and we\u2019re vetting that at each level we can.\nThe [filmmakers] have all of our research and all of the information available,\nand we\u2019re really trusting their vision of how they can bring this to fruition\nthrough the medium of film in a way that is compelling, intriguing, and makes\nbest use of that medium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a museum, we\u2019re\nconstantly trying to go beyond our walls and reach people in different ways to\nadvocate for these stories throughout Aurora\u2019s history. Last year, we used the\nmedium of theatre with the re-staging of The Temple of Fame to draw people in\nand get some investment in Aurora\u2019s history and different narratives. This is\njust another example of how we\u2019re trying to use different media and be a bit\ninnovative in going beyond our physical space to bring these stories out to the\ncommunity and to residents and visitors alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Queen\u2019s York\nRangers have an incredible history and they have very strong ties to Aurora.\nBeing able to showcase that in an exhibit is fantastic, but not everybody can\ncome and see it. Our hope is this little moment from Aurora\u2019s history can be\naccessed by people far and wide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora Museum & Archives exhibition on\nthe Queen\u2019s York Rangers, along with the associated documentary, will both be\nunveiled in September.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Muskets on their backs, they marched through what is now Sheppard\u2019s Bush Conservation Area prepared for enemy fire. Their forest green uniforms contrasted against the sunlit leaves as they took their positions and waited until they got the signal. In this case, however, the signal they were waiting for was not a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/2019-06-27-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6gZ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 21:38:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}