Costumes Bring History to Life

Interpreter dressed as a labourer at Lower Fort Garry in 1858.
© Parks Canada

The costumes seen today at Canada's national historic sites are meticulous reproductions of the items worn by the original area residents. Interpreters sporting period-accurate costumes help set a mood of time, and place and enable visitors to literally “touch” history. Parks Canada creates this effect by conducting hours of research and creating detailed plans and patterns for each and every interpreter tasked with animating a historical figure!

Excellence by Design

The fashions of the Governor's Wife in 1851 at Lower Fort Garry with accessories for hosting tea or taking an afternoon stroll
© Parks Canada

The historically-accurate costumes help visitors understand how people would have been dressed at work, home, and play. Attention to detail — based on in-depth historical research and high production standards — helps offer an accurate glimpse of how various levels of society, from the governor's wife to a farm labourer, would have been dressed in a thriving hub such as Lower Fort Garry, Manitoba.

Research and Creativity

An interpreter wears traditional aboriginal attire at Lower Fort Garry
© Parks Canada

For sites in western and northern areas of the country, Parks Canada's costume and textiles curator, Irene Romaniw, uses journals, letters, drawings and the careful inventories kept by retailers such as the Hudson's Bay Company as sources of research. The task of making a costume plan is difficult because of the scarcity of photographic evidence and because historical artefacts are difficult to locate; working people reused clothing, while garments for the ruling elite were often imported from Great Britain.

An interpreter at Lower Fort Garry dressed in fashions of the 1850s
© Parks Canada

Costumes must also be designed to stand up to daily use, changing weather conditions and public scrutiny. Every last detail from undergarments to overcoats, plus buttons, footwear, hats and more. is considered. Once the pattern is designed, with the assistance of tailors, seamstresses, milliners and other professionals, Parks Canada successfully crafts costumes for a wide variety of roles: a governor, his wife and their domestic staff; Aboriginal people; farm labourers, and more. The result is a diverse and accurate snapshot of daily life that is based on careful research, painstaking craftsmanship and dedication to providing a rich visitor experience that brings history to life.