Goldie Krawec made a good suggestion during last Tuesday’s Clearwater town council meeting.
A longtime North Thompson history buff, Krawec said it is time for Clearwater and area to have its own museum.
This is an idea that’s been around for a while. Ida Dekelver has operated her privately-owned Yellowhead Museum on the road to Wells Gray Park for many years. Unfortunately, it has been open only for limited hours for the past few years. Also, a flash flood several years ago almost washed away a good part of the collection. Her grandson, Dennis Greffard, has talked about moving the museum to a better and more secure location, but faces the costs of finding the right site and constructing the right building.
Pete Miller also has a small museum in his antique store by the Flour Meadow Bakery. Quite a few items are for display only and not for sale.
Council only discussed Krawec’s suggestion for a short while but the consensus seemed to be that a museum would be a good idea but the project really should be done by a non-profit society, local government, or a partnership of the two.
This makes sense. There are many grants from senior levels of government, foundations and so on that are available to non-profit societies and local govrnments, but not to private entrepreneurs.
Also, many people with valuable memorabilia and other historic items would be more likely to donate to a museum run by a society or local government than to one that is privately-owned.
Where to locate such a museum would be an important question. Here is a suggestion.
The five-acre Bampton Recreation Area next to Dutch Lake Beach consists of two parts. The lower part, next to the lake, was donated to the municipality in 2010 with the restriction that it be used only for park purposes. The upper part is zoned commercial and the District paid $450,000 for it.
The upper part is quite hilly but appears to consist of glacial debris – rocks, gravel and sand – no bedrock. It therefore should not be a big expense to level it off. Possibly, if the landowners are willing, the waste could be disposed of in the pothole on the other side of Highway 5.
A museum situated in that location would have a stunning view of Dutch Lake. If there was a restaurant attached, it would be easy to imagine busloads of tourists stopping for a meal and tour of the museum.
Such a structure also would help fill the gap between the older commercial center in the Brookfield Mall area and the new commercial center that appears to be developing along the highway.
The North Thompson Valley does not have a lot of historical artifacts when compared with Europe, Asia or even eastern Canada. That just means we need to do more to protect those we have. A modern, well-designed museum situated in a location where it could do the most good would be a major step in the right direction.
