The Naval Marine Archive’s Canadian Collection is housed in the former Post Office building on Picton’s Main Street, now called The Victory. It is stewarded by Paul Adamthwaite and Betty Ann Anderson, who have both strong ties to the County — Betty Ann’s family is County-born for two centuries — and strong ties to the water — Paul is a retired navy sailor and independent maritime historian.

What is County heritage? Mr. Adamthwaite points out that the County is nothing without the water. He is decidedly of the “island” camp when considering County identity: “for recorded history, at least, Carrying Place was at least marshland, if not totally wet.”  The cutting of the Murray Canal in the 1880s just sealed the deal.

That means that “we have a privileged position in Lake Ontario, geographically and historically.” Water access defined the culture, giving farmers a way to market, and creating a shipbuilding industry, which enabled further economic development, including fisheries and harbours.

The Naval Marine Archive’s motto is taken from Saint Augustine, futurum ex praeterito, or, “the future from the past.” 

“If you take Heritage in its broadest sense, it’s what’s come before us, what has formed us, what we have now, and what we can manage for the future.” 

For Mr. Adamthwaite, the opening of the Parrish and Heimbecker grain silos on Picton Bay last week is a moment of County heritage that reaches to the past and looks to the future.

Heritage is a combination of the tangible and the intangible. Our buildings and physical spaces represent history, but the way of life, the mental and moral disposition of the people who have lived within this material setting, is, he argues, the most important inheritance.

He sees the County’s stability of population, basically 25,000 since the 1860s, as a special feature when it comes to heritage. It enables a concentration of cultural memory, a continuity that can preserve the intangible personality of the County.

In this spirit Mr. Adamthwaite distinguishes between the physical books on the Archive’s shelves and the knowledge they contain.

This knowledge takes many forms: not only books, but a gallery of paintings. The Archive hosts the annual exhibition of the Canadian Society of Marine Artists, as well as artifacts such as ship’s models, and includes educational programs.

The guest book conveys this spirit. Not only is our local MP represented, but a message of thanks from a Chinese tourist, and a six-year-old’s enthusiastic scrawl, “I love this place!” The Naval Marine Archive is heritage in action.  

The Archive offers a searchable catalogue of its collection and database of ships at its website navalmarinearchive.com, and is open to visitors daily.