Broome Chamber & Environs Kimberley to spark Morgan's Camp revitalisation

Written on the 4 December 2016

The Broome Chamber in partnership with Environs Kimberley is gearing up for our next big clean up - this time at Morgan's Camp in Chinatown.

An iconic historical landmark we've joined the Hunter family to bring their their vision alive to activate this space with Indigenous storytelling and arts.  This is the first step toward making their dream come to fruition.

Please join us as we clean up Morgan's Camp this Sunday 11 December, prior to further restoration of the shack and landscaping.

All volunteers are asked to wear long pants (snake season) and bring gloves, hat and a bottle of water.  EK will provide refreshments.

VOLUNTEER NOW!

FLASHBACK ARTICLE - Museum plan for old pearling camp (Broome Advertiser, November 2015)

A local group of Broome residents are embarking on a mission to breathe life back into one of the town's old pearling camps and transform it into an Aboriginal Pearling Oral History Museum.

Morgan's Camp, based at the end of Chapple Street on the Roebuck Bay foreshore in Chinatown, is one of the last authentic pearling sheds in Broome.

The area where it sits used to be a hub of activity and industry in the town's heady pearling days, but the building has now been sitting unused for decades.

The Hunter family are the custodians to the area, possessing management and development rights with grand plans for the historic site.

The brainchild of Broome locals Jacinta Hunter-Sesar and Quenten Bruce, the idea of turning Morgan's Camp into a tourist and historical drawcard has been concocted.

The site, which has the cultural name Burrgugoon, holds particular significance to Ms Hunter-Sesar, who remembers swimming around moored pearl luggers close to the camp at high tide as a child.

She painted a vivid picture toThe Broome Advertiser of the area as a thriving maritime hub in her youth, with a slipway for the pearling boats on the water line in front of Morgan's Camp.

Mr Bruce, who plans to be one of the orators when the plan comes to fruition, said the site was of real importance.

"There are a lot of stories that we possess but they will be lost if we don't pass them on," he said.

"We want to bring tourists and locals down here and tell them the stories about how Western Australia was built on the back of pearling."

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