New funding ensures a future for Glace Bay miners' museum
Jennifer Ludlow | CBC News | Posted: January 24, 2017 8:23 PM | Last Updated: January 24, 2017
$1.5M will be used to repair the facility, which has a leaking roof and air quality issues
A $1.5-million funding announcement for the Cape Breton Miners Museum has washed away the worries of staff and volunteers who've spent the past few months watching rain fall inside the building through a deteriorating roof, threatening hundreds of artifacts.
The facility in Glace Bay will undergo energy upgrades, along with the installation of a new roof, doors, windows, lighting, brick walls and a ventilation system.
Museum director Mary Pat Mombourquette said a building audit done more than a year ago identified a badly leaking roof, structural problems and air quality issues originating in the building's distinctive tower.
Crumbling ceiling
"Each time it rains, more of the ceiling collapses," Mombourquette said Tuesday.
"In the next few months, I won't be quite so worried about the next rainfall."
The Nova Scotia government is contributing $537,500, which will be matched by the federal government through ACOA's Innovative Communities Fund. The Cape Breton Regional Municipality is contributing $487,500.
Mombourquette said she knows just how to spend the money.
'Crisis point'
"The museum is at a crisis point now. We really need to fix it now before it really starts to fall apart."
Sheldon Gouthro, a former miner and a volunteer mine guide, said watching rain leak into the building over the last few months has been devastating.
"All of the artifacts that are here, the structure could cave in and it could ruin all of this, and you would never get this back again," he said.
Gouthro credits the museum with preserving Cape Breton's heritage. He said the best way to keep the story of the coal miners alive is to tell their underground tale.
The senior vice-president of operations for Cutlass Collieries, which is responsible for operations at the Donkin Mine Project, said supporting the museum benefits ongoing mining projects in the region.
"Hopefully we will have a built-in support system with former coal miners [at the museum] and we will be able to leverage that into a very successful operation so that the long history of coal mining continues," said Jim Bunn.
Upgrades to the museum will also include a planning study for future exhibits that could be interactive and appeal to all ages.