Deep in Orléans East-Cumberland ward, along the Old Montreal Road on the rural eastern edge of Ottawa, lies a village lost to time.
The Cumberland Heritage Village Museum prides itself on preserving a series of true-to-era reproductions of buildings between the 1920s and 1930s. And in March, the museum is hosting an event titled “Tales from the Village”. It invites visitors to “step back in time and explore a 1920s and ’30s village with a museum interpreter as your host,” according to an online description of the event.
The show is offered by actors from the Vintage Stock Theatre, which specializes in historically based original productions that “bring local tall tales and folk stories to life.”
Anyone coming east from Ottawa would typically take Highway 174 to reach the museum. The unfinished Trim Road LRT station is one of the last urban structures a traveler might see on the way to Cumberland. Past that, the view is beautiful scenery along the south shore of the Ottawa River.
In fact, the trip eastward is like travelling back in time. The older, rural homes along the way add to the feeling of slowly transitioning from urban sprawl to a bygone era in the countryside.
Much like the river itself in the deepest part of winter, Cumberland’s heritage village has been frozen in time.
Scheduled to be held the weekend of March 22-23, registration for the storytelling event is now open and costs $23.35 plus tax per person.
