HAMILTON, Ont. – The Workers’ Arts and Heritage Centre (WAHC) has launched a new virtual exhibit on it’s newly-created Virtual Museum of Canada Web site at www.virtualmuseum.ca.

A cocktail reception and presentation of the new exhibit was held Feb. 19, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., at the Workers’ Arts and Heritage Centre.

The exhibit describes how Canada’s main highway networks handle over 600,000 truck trips per week.The exhibit also points out how, at present, trucks move 90 per cent of all consumer goods and generate almost $40 billion per year in revenues.

Here are some more questions the site hopes to answer:

How much do we know about the life of a truck driver?

Who are these people behind the wheel?

How do they cope with the solitude and endless days of driving? What skills and special talents are required to be a trucker?

What is it like to call a truck your home, and even share it with a partner as many couples do?

The WAHC is presenting the fascinating history and culture of truckers in “Highway Workplace: The Canadian Truckers’ Story” to explore all of these questions and look into other issues that the Canadian trucking industry faces.

This exhibition is designed to inform visitors about truckers’ history and culture.

It aims to engage visitors directly through a number of interactive components, using oral history, imagery, sound, text and artefacts.

The virtual museum aims to offer an accessible, intimate look at the daily life of the Canadian trucker, as well as a thorough history of the Canadian trucking industry – one of Canada’s largest and most important industries.

The site’s creators are hoping that, through this virtual exhibit, the story of the highway workplace and its vitally important group of workers will become better known.

Visitors will be given an opportunity to understand their historical relationship to this industry, and also to share related experiences through interactive components on the site, say the creators.

The site aims to promote public discussion of issues related to the industry and the workers who rely on it for their livelihood.