Forty years from now, if everything goes according to plan, a future Nelsonite will dismantle one of the guest room walls at the Hume Hotel and discover a time capsule left there by owner Ryan Martin.
“We were renovating all the guest rooms, we’re in phase four now, and we found this old bottle of original Nelson Brewing Company beer from the 1930s. It was such a cool bottle, and it inspired me to put together a good time capsule for the next person who ends up renovating this place,” Martin told the Star on Wednesday afternoon, as he put the finishing touches on it.
Included in th
e capsule: a bottle of Kootenay Country Craft Distillery vodka, a six-pack of organic Nelson Brewing Company beer, a menu from the Hume Hotel and the Wednesday, February 18 issue of the Nelson Star.
“I also wrote a one-page letter, hand-written, just talking about the times. The winter, global warming. I saw the story about these people going to Mars in 9 years, which blew my mind, so I wrote about that.”
Martin made sure to mention some of long-term staff by name, and requested that the finder to forward it to his future family.
But the vodka? The finder can have that.
“I’m turning 40, having my first child in seven weeks. I think it’s a good snapshot of what my life is like,” he said.
And though he doesn’t even know what he’s going to name his kid yet, he gets a kick out of imagining him or her being the one to unveil the capsule.
Martin said the hotel is full of discoveries like this one.
“When my parents bought this place in the 1980s, they didn’t completely redo it. So there were these angled walls that had never been opened, and a couple months ago we unveiled these two original fireplaces that stemmed off the library lounge,” he said.
It’s above one of these historic fireplaces that Martin has stashed the capsule, and where he hopes one day someone will read his message.
“I wrote to whoever finds it: go up to Mike’s Place and put a cold pint of NBC on my tab,” he said, with a laugh.