Renewing the story
The challenge
The Hudson’s Bay Company Staff House in Moose Factory is the oldest surviving HBC officer’s residence in Canada—a place layered with fur trade history and Cree memory. But the interpretive panels inside hadn’t been touched in decades. The Ontario Heritage Trust wanted to do more than refresh graphics; they needed to reframe the story, placing Moose Cree perspectives at the centre while honouring the building’s national significance. This was very much a team effort: the Trust handled the stewardship and logistics, Double Dare Design did logistics, layout, and a beautiful graphic layout, while I was brought in to shape the interpretive plan in close dialogue with Moose Factory community members.
The approach
We started where every good interpretive project should: with the community. Through workshops and interviews, local participants told us clearly that these panels must not present a generic “fur trade” story. They wanted a Moose Factory story—about Cree hospitality and reciprocity, about Scots and Cree fiddle music ringing through the halls, about mixed-ancestry families, and about the seasonal rhythms that sustained the post. I helped organize their insights into a framework of eight panels, each balancing local voice with national context.
Lessons learned
Projects like this reinforce that interpretation isn’t just about getting facts right—it’s about getting relationships right. The Staff House stands today not simply as an HBC relic, but as a living reminder of Cree resilience, welcome, and continuity. By grounding the interpretive plan in community voices, we created content that locals can feel proud of and that visitors from away can find accessible and compelling. It was a privilege to help shift the narrative from “their history” to “our story”—with all the nuance, complexity, and warmth that Moose Factory deserves.
