Mar 10 2025 51 mins
Host Bryndis Whitson welcomes Alison Mercer, the Senior Curator of the Military Museums in Calgary, Alberta. Alison was the curator of the Cold War exhibit in the Air Force Museum and is currently overseeing its expansion alongside the board. Alison talks about what it’s like to curate museum exhibits, how artifacts are sourced, and the supply chain logistics of transporting a fighter jet down the highway. Alison has a breadth of museum knowledge and fascinating stories to share.
Alison's interest in military history stemmed from her father, who she calls an amateur military historian. She grew up with books and artefacts, took a Canadian Military History course, and sought a posting for an internship with the military museums that turned into a 14+ year career.
Alison describes the Air Force Museum’s set up, including the Great Escape Experience and the Cold War exhibit and how tech combines with experiential experiences in both exhibits. She and Bryndis discuss sourcing everything from display cabinets and lighting to exactly which types of transportation are used to transport major artefacts, how they’re preserved during transfer, and the complex logistics of driving a CF 100 fighter jet down a highway.
About Alison Mercer:
Alison Mercer has fourteen years of on-the-job experience in museums, including display preparation and fabrication, project management, artifact classification, and storage methods.
She has also engaged in six years of research training at the university level, including the production of two theses and four major papers. Alison’s primary focus is Canadian military history from the 18th century to the Korean War and her secondary concentration is Métis history.
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Contact Bryndis Whitson:
- Website: ZebrasToApples.com
- Instagram: @ZebrasToApples
- LinkedIn
Contact Alison Mercer:
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Transcript
Bryndis 0:03
Hi. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. What I love to do is highlight what is supply chain logistics that you would not normally think about, and that's exactly what this podcast is all about. You might not think of a museum as a hub of supply chain logistics, but it totally is. Think about it, the collection, the artifact, the painting, or in this case of this podcast, the airplane had to get there somehow. It requires care and attention and precision. My guest for this episode is Alison Mercer, the senior curator of the military museums in Calgary, also referred to as TMM. Alison, was the curator of the Air Force Museum in the Cold War exhibit, and is currently overseeing its expansion with its board. This episode highlights not only a great museum, but also an area of supply chain logistics you might not have thought about, please join me and my friend Alison Mercer as we talk about how do you move a fighter jet down the highway, amongst other things. Okay, so I'm here with Alison, and we're talking about museums and the logistics and supply chain that actually is involved in curating a whole bunch of different activities. So tell me about how you got to the military museum.
Alison 1:26
So yeah, it's, I grew up with a lot of military stuff, kind of in the house, because my dad's very much sort of, like an amateur military historian. Likes a lot of, like, the material culture that comes with it. So yeah, I grew up a house full of books and, you know, here's, like, random inner tank shells and things like that, and-
Bryndis 1:43
Just random things around the house.
Alison 1:46
Yeah, like, every kid has, so, yeah, yeah. So, it was just, like, very much, like, standard part of my life, since, like, getting to the point of remembering things, and, yeah, so, and then I went into university, studied kind of a variety of different sort of fields of history. And then by I think it was the middle of undergrad, took my first kind of Canadian Military History course, and it was just like, I know all this. Like, I don't know it, know it, but like, it feels like coming home, so throughout kind of the rest of my undergrad degree, I went ahead with that, focused on that, and then for my master's degree, pursued that same topic, specifically Canadian Army in the Second World War.
Bryndis 2:23
Okay.
Alison 2:24
And just looking at sort of styles of leadership, which, again, leadership analysis, and kind of comparing some of the senior officers of the Canadian Army to each other and how they were good and how they were bad. And so yeah, that that was pretty much it, yeah. And then at one point in undergrad, I saw a job posting for an internship here, applied, got the job, came here, did it for that summer, and then went off to grad school. And then after grad school, called the museum again to say, Hey, do you have any more internships? And they said, Well, no, but the Navy Museum is looking for an assistant curator. Again, it's pretty much an internship position, but, yeah, yeah, it still was going to kind of like, you know, open a door or two. I had no intention whatsoever of actually doing this as a career. It was just like, here's a job. Okay. I know this stuff. I will do this job. And then that turned into, like, about two years later, working for the Air Force Museum here as their curator, which I've done for 14 and a half years. And then just recently, I got hired on as the senior curator for the whole military museum. And yeah, it's, it's kind of like a little bit of shell shock there. But yeah, yeah, I'm stoked anyway.
Bryndis 3:31
Which was really exciting.
Alison 3:32
Thanks. Yeah, yeah.
Bryndis 3:33
And so at the Air Force Museum, there's a lot of different displays you've had, sending up two different, like sections and stuff like that. Can you maybe talk a little bit just about what's in part of the Air Force part of the museum at the moment?
Alison 3:48
Yeah, for sure. So the way the Air Force Museum here is set up is we have two specific galleries. We have the interior gallery. We just revamped a little bit of that, added this really cool display. It's called The Great Escape Experience. I wanted something kind of experiential based there too, that wasn't just like a touch screen that was breaking all the time. And essentially, it's a facsimile of one of the prisoner war huts from Stalag Luft lll as per Great Escape moody fame, I guess. And as well, a recreated length of the tunnel. It's built to the same height and width of the original that people can actually go through themselves on a little trolley. So yeah, so that's the inside gallery. And then the outside gallery is our Cold War exhibit sponsored by Ken Lett, who unfortunately, has lately passed away, but he was a big, big benefactor there. And it is really like the only milit...