“I don’ t know of an exact total, but I’ d say it was close to that,” said Shirley Klyne, a Society board member and the museum’ s former manager. “We’ re happy with that.”
The museum’ s official opening was held last Saturday, on the anniversary of Welsh explorer David Thompson’ s European discovery of Lac la Biche Lake in 1798-an occasion that Klyne says the Society would like to celebrate annually on Oct. 4.
The museum, located in the basement of McArthur Place, has been open to the public since late May, when one of its premier exhibits, the gigantic and newly restored model ship Empress Of France, was unveiled.
The grand opening was a celebration, a fundraiser and also a sort of changing of the guard, as Klyne ceded her management duties to Society member Linda Johnson. Klyne has now taken over cataloguing and archiving the museum’ s hoard of artifacts and historical records.
“There are still tons of things in the backroom,” Klyne told the POST. So museum visitors still have plenty to look forward to.
The backlog of displayable items hasn’ t discouraged the Society from accepting any more, Klyne says. After all, items that help to tell the story of this region deserve to be seen by the public.
“Anybody who has anything that they want to showcase that tells the story of Lac La Biche, we may not be able to display it all the time but we’ d be happy to have it,” she said.
One of the more unusual items the Society plans to showcase is the original entrance to the Lac La Biche Inn, which was located where McArthur Place now stands. That building, which was originally built by railway magnate J. W. McArthur, burned down in the late 1980s.
“When the building burned, that was a piece that didn’ t get burned up. Fortunately for us, nobody threw it out in all these years,” Klyne said.
Aside from new exhibits, Society members also plan to expand the museum’ s programming to make it more tour group-friendly. The number of groups visiting the museum is on the rise, Klyne says-no less than five groups of Grade 2 students are expected to tour the place this week, and visitors are highly interested in the region’ s history.
The fundraising dinner and silent auction last Saturday drew in approximately 110 people.
