Montague museum gets new space
The Garden of the Gulf Museum in Montague is building a new off-site storage space for artifacts not on display, which will free up more space in the museum for exhibits when it's completed next summer.
The museum will share the $283,000 cost with the federal and provincial governments. The town donated the land right next to the Cavendish Farms Wellness Centre.
Until the building is finished, the third floor of the museum will remain filled with boxes of artifacts packed from floor to ceiling, said Edgar Dewar, chair of the museum board.
There are even more artifacts stored in barns all across Kings County. "People will bring things in, and we'll say, 'Well, we'd love to have it, but we just can't take it,'" Dewar said. He said the humidity on the third floor is harmful to the artifacts, and finding things is impossible.
"You can't look it up on an index, and say, 'Oh, it's on shelf A 24,' and go find it, he said.
Dewar has lobbied for the new building for three years. It will have 3,600 square feet of storage space. It will include a repair shop, a board room and lots of shelves, filled with neatly catalogued artifacts in a temperature controlled environment.
"For the future generations, to educate, particularly the younger people, to retain more of the local heritage," Dewar said.
This means the third floor of the museum will soon be open for public displays.
Dewar already has an idea of a display he'd like to see on the third floor. The building used to be the post office, and the third floor belonged to the caretaker. Dewar would like to set up a little room with antique furniture from that period.
Dewar said about 2,000 tourists go through the museum every summer, and he hopes that number will increase, as the museum expands.
Meanwhile, Dewar said, the museum has also had some positive feedback from the federal government on its proposal to build a home for the famous Canada Tree.
The tree was created by Montague sculptor Tyler Aspen who died when he was struck by lightning 10 years ago, not long after he finished the sculpture.
"[The federal government] said they were interested. That doesn't make any commitments from anybody. They understand the Canada Tree is a valuable piece of art that needs to be housed somewhere. It's too valuable just to let it go. It would be a separate building with walkways to the museum, as we now visualize it, but it's strictly a concept," Dewar said.
The museum is forming a new Canada Tree committee to come up with a formal proposal for funding, he said.