Exhibits / Orcas Island Oral History Project
An archive of oral histories has been accumulating on Orcas Island since the 1950s. This community-wide effort, known as the Orcas Island Oral History Project, celebrates the island’s past by preserving the personal histories of local elders. To date, volunteers have successfully documented fascinating stories shared by 100 individuals. Interviews were initially recorded on soundscriber discs. Today interviews are taped on cassettes and eventually transcribed. Thirty elders, their photo portraits, and transcribed interviews are currently exhibited at the Historical Museum.
“My only [paying] job was in construction. We didn’t have any power tools when I started. We had only 10 minutes for lunch. We kept busy. Had holidays and Sundays off. But I still found time to go fishing, I mean a lot!”
(Fred Nicol, b. 1925)
“When I started school in Eastsound, my first teacher was Edith Kimple. Our teacher was really strict. She used to whack our knuckles when we misbehaved. We had running cold water in the primary room, but had to go to a ‘five-holer’ outhouse for the girls.”
(Ellen Bruns Madan, b. 1927)
