About a year ago now, on the 2nd floor of the Museum, a unused corner of space was transformed into an interactive educational puppet theatre.  This puppet theatre is one of the many kid-inspired and family-friendly components that makes this Museum a museum that I want to bring my own kids to (and often do, like today for strike day camp)!Cute and cuddly Folkmanis hand and finger puppets of Canadian creatures that dwell in our forests, fields, lakes, rivers and air, are the backbone of this space and provide kids and adults with their inspiration for the many shows that erupt from behind the puppet theatre’s wall.  But these creatures really needed a tapestry to fly, swim and live in…and so we turned to volunteer and artisan, Ipie Van der Veen for help.  And take a look at the magic she created–

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She has a long history of helping create props for the School programs at the Museum; from creating faux seal skin hides to cover our kayaks in the Kayak Building program to sewing costumes for our Trappers and Traders program.  When we asked her to create a backdrop for the puppets in the puppet theatre she jumped on the opportunity!

A little background on Ipie; she is the uber creative force here for all things fabric and before fabric she worked in the woodshop and helped build the Museum’s 36′ birch bark canot du maitre!  Her Hudson Bay Company blanket mittens, gun cases and camp vests are on sale in the Museum Store and she co-teaches the HBC blanket coat workshop. To top this off, every Christmas she makes 100’s of HBC blanket coat tree ornaments.

You can find Ipie volunteering in the galleries at the Museum on Mondays and Thursdays

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