Discovery North Bay receives $80K OTF grant

From left, Ontario Trillium Foundation rep Lori Venasse, Heritage North Bay Chair Gordan Rennie and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli (with the cheque in hand), after announcing the funds at Discovery North Bay Museum Friday. Photo by Mark Pare.

Preserving history was the focus Friday morning, as the Discovery North Bay Museum received an $80,000 cheque from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

The money will go towards upgrades to the museum’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. Director and Curator of the Discovery North Bay Museum Naomi Rupke says it’s incredibly important to keep North Bay’s history alive and this funding will help that in a number of ways.

“One way is by helping us to preserve our artifacts because with the change in climate, they do become damaged over time so that’s one really important way,” she said, “It’s also going to allow us to have more of our artifacts here on display because we can now meet those environmental conditions.”

MPP Fedeli says this will go a long way towards enhancing the viability of the museum.

“Many people have donated artifacts, with the hope and desire that they’ll be carefully maintained throughout history,” he said, “These artifacts have been lovingly collected and painfully restored and now it’s time to install the ventilation system to ensure their long-term viability.”

The installation isn’t expected to take long, as the new system is scheduled to be completed during the course of the fall months. Rupke says the museum has a variety of displays they rotate around so that every experience is different.

“We want (your experience) to be fresh and different so that if you come here in March and then you come back in July, you’re going to see something different,” she said, “We really want to make it worth it for families and individuals to just really become a part of our community here at Discovery North Bay.”

Fedeli says if you haven’t already, come out to the museum and see the history of North Bay unfold.

“Bring your kids, bring your grand kids,” he said, “It’s very exciting, a lot of focus on our rich railway history, you’ll see focus on (the) Fur (Trade), you’ll see focus on aviation. These are all the important things. Now, with the ventilation system that’s being installed, hopefully we’ll see more traveling exhibits and just broaden our horizons outside of North Bay-only history.”