Ontario-based not-for-profit organization Fixt Point has recently launched an oral history service that aims to capture the collective community memory from Canada’s main streets. Dubbed “The Tale of a Town”, for three years a team of young adventurers will gather stories around the country in a hope to inspire people to head back to downtown and remember why main street matters.
Fixt Point was founded in 2006 as a professional theatre and media company and is currently receiving operating support from The Ontario Arts Council. Their goal is to engage with the community through the combination of site-specific performance and audio art, in order to tell tales across multiple platforms that serve to preserve local heritage and promote neighbourhood culture.
The Tale of a Town is just about that, preserving local businesses and trying to keep local communities away from the fast growth of nowadays cities, who tend to capitalize everything, caring less about the charm of a neighborhood. The project initially started in Ontario, in 2012, and it’s currently expanding across Canada.
Hope for small communities
What’s the point? Well, this could be a way of preserving stories of people, of local business for generations to come. Imagine a car pulling a small trailer with a built-in radio station, where people interview locals. That information is stored and put online, for everybody to check out. The project will last three years and the national venture will culminate in a multi-platform celebration of the country’s main street culture, in commemoration of Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017.
“Starting in the east and moving westward, The Tale of a Town - Canada will tour the country over the next three years in our ‘Storymobile’ to gather and record oral histories in person by means of scheduled and impromptu interviews with independent business owners, local heroes, community stakeholders and neighbourhood residents”, the project is explained on its website.
This year, the team's plans are to tour Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland & Labrador. Main street stories can also be contributed to the collective community memory by phone or online. Moreover, those who have a story to tell can also contact the team and ask the storymobile to stop by.
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