Arts & Entertainment: Culture Corner, A Guide to the Museums of Tacoma

Museum of the Week:

Fort Nisqually Living History Museum

Point Defiance Park, 5400 N. Pearl St.

Wed.-Sun., 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Fort Nisqually is a living history museum where volunteers and staff, in period clothing, demonstrate the crafts of the 19th century and engage visitors in historic dialogue. Visitors discover what life was like in the 1850s at Fort Nisqually, the region’s premier living history museum. This Hudson’s Bay Company trading post was the first non-Native settlement on Puget Sound. Visitors can explore the award winning restoration of the fort’s National Historic Landmark buildings and try 19th century games and find out what life was like before electricity!

This week’s events:

April 19, 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Sewing to Sowing

Experience springtime in the 1850s at Fort Nisqually Living History Museum during Fort Nisqually’s Sewing to Sowing: A Living History Day.

Come into the Fort’s buildings or explore the outdoor areas and mingle with several dozen re-enactors.

They’ll be cheerfully cooking in the kitchen, spinning yarn in the Laborers’ Dwelling, or hammering in the blacksmith’s shop while woodworking and spring gardening takes place outdoors.

Guests are invited to participate in hands-on activities such as 1800s games, butter churning and laundry techniques or take a turn at the rope-making machine.

Learn about hand sewing from the Fort’s seamstresses and see demonstrations of one of the world’s earliest sewing machines, the Wheeler and Wilson. Visit with the Fort’s gardeners and help sow seeds.

At the Kids’ Outstation, youngsters can play quoits, graces and checkers, grind coffee and walk on stilts to their hearts’ content.

Current Exhibits:

Dr. Tolmie, The Naturalist

April 12 to July 21, 2014

Its common name is the Piggyback Plant, but its scientific name is Tolmiea menziesii. It was named for William Tolmie, the on-site manager of Hudson’s Bay Company operations at Fort Nisqually from 1843 until 1859. A new exhibit at Fort Nisqually reveals the exploits of a younger Tolmie as he collected plants and animals of the Pacific Northwest.

Tolmie’s mentor, botanist William Hooker, named the Piggyback Plant (also known as Youth-on-age or Pig-on-a-back) after his then 20-something student.

“Hooker hoped that Tolmie would make great discoveries in the Pacific Northwest,” said Exhibit Curator Chris Erlich. Perhaps Hooker hoped Tolmie would collect as much as one of his other former students, David Douglas, who collected more 200 new specimens, including the Douglas Fir which is named in his honor.

Tolmie’s first botanizing expedition in the Northwest was history making. In 1833, he became the first European to enter into what is today Mount Rainier National Park. Images of several of the original specimens he collected on that adventure are included in the exhibit. Also on display are modern specimens of plants that were named in Tolmie’s honor, as he was the first to successfully collect them.

Through the 1830s, Tolmie developed a collecting network for both plants and small animals (some of his original bird specimens are in the collection of the Smithsonian). In the early 1840s, Tolmie determined that the best course for his future was to put his full attention and energies into the Hudson’s Bay Company, and he left his naturalist exploits in his past.

Tacoma Museums:

Tacoma Art Museum

1701 Pacific Ave.

Wed.–Sun., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Closed Mondays and Tuesdays)

http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org

Museum of Glass

1801 Dock St.

Wed.-Sat.,10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., noon to 5 p.m.

Info: http://museumofglass.org

Slater Museum of Natural History (currently under renovation)

University of Puget Sound

1500 N. Warner St. #1088 