3 Coal in Coronach
A project by Kristin Catherwood,
Heritage Saskatchewan
Kristin Catherwood, the Director of Living Heritage with Heritage Saskatchewan, has facilitated several living heritage and intangible cultural heritage initiatives throughout her career so far. A notable initiative Catherwood coordinated was the Coal in Coronach living heritage project, which brought together a community through their shared experience with the coal industry. Though most grassroots projects interchange the terms living heritage and intangible cultural heritage, Kritstin made the distinction between intangible cultural heritage and living heritage which are defined differently by UNESCO and are applied differently based on the cultural practice or topic at hand. As an expert, Kristin leads the province in understanding of heritage and culture. This expertise is evident in the passion she has for the communities she works with.
Coronach is a small community in the southern region of Saskatchewan that has thrived on the extraction of coal and its power generating facilities. In recent years, an expiration date has been put on the coal mining industry and energy creation facilities in Coronach due to environmental and fiscal concerns by governments. In order to better understand the impacts coal has on the community of Coronach, and to bring to light the historic importance of coal in the region, a living heritage project was proposed and carried out. In 2017, a booklet and documentary were produced about the coal mining industry in Coronach. The story of coal in the community was told from the early 20th century all the way up to large-scale mining in Coronach today. Community members were deeply involved in the project and were the primary sources of stories for the written booklet. High school students were also involved in this living heritage project. Catherwood explained that, “tangible culture is known, you can see it […] that’s why UNESCO created the convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. [UNESCO] realized we have museums, we have world heritage sites […] and yet, there is this entire compendium of human knowledge that is just flowing [in]visibly in our communities all the time and it is increasingly at risk in our changing world.” Coal in Coronach captures this cultural knowledge. The project was intergenerational, it was collaborative and it showcases the impact of heritage on a community.
Catherwood found that the word “heritage” is not viewed the same by everyone in Saskatchewan. She explained how when discussing heritage, those who were unfamiliar with its connection to the present viewed heritage in a negative or irrelevant light. For this reason, the project was never advertised specifically as a heritage project to avoid any misunderstandings or misrepresentations of the initiative. The Coal in Coronach project reveals that heritage is not only housed in museums and historic buildings, it is also the ingrained and unique characteristics of a given community due to a shared past that shapes the cultural practices of the present. Living heritage is about the cultural aspects of our day-to-day life. For the town of Coronach, coal mining has been part of the community since the early days of settlement. Catherwood indicated that almost everyone in Coronach had been impacted by coal in some way, which made coal a focal point of Coronach’s living heritage. As the community looks at transitioning away from coal, according to Catherwood, “[…] for the community what was important was getting together and sharing and documenting their heritage,so that they had something they could show and hold in their hand. [They could] look at and say, ‘this is us’, ‘this is part of our story’, ‘this is part of who we are’.”
Heritage Saskatchewan provides a booklet and two videos around this project.
