With renovations underway at the Fort Frances Museum on Scott Street, an interpretive development intern has been hired to get a new exhibit ready for when it re-opens next year.
Emily Carr, from Whitby, Ont., just started the job last week but already is aware she has a lot of work ahead of her.
Carr explained her job over the next year will be to develop an exhibit that portrays the history of Fort Frances, Rainy Lake, and the surrounding area, adding the focus likely will be on lakes and forestry.
She’ll be researching all she can about the area, and going through the museum’s extensive collection of artifacts to determine what she’ll include in the final exhibit.
Carr said she’ll also be visiting other museums in the district, and likely ones in Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, and parts of Minnesota, to get ideas for the exhibit.
“It will be very interesting and challenging,” she conceded. “But I’m looking forward to it.”
Carr noted the exhibit will be quite extensive, and likely take up much of the upper floor in the newly-renovated museum.
Carr graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton with a B.A. (Honours) in Art History, then went on to recently complete a degree in museum management and curatorship at the Peterborough campus of Sir Sandford Fleming College.
During her time at the college, she did an internship at the National Gallery of Canada.
As previously reported in the Times, extensive renovations are underway at the museum and will be ongoing until the new year.
The work includes adding an entrance to the south of the building, as well as a small addition there to alleviate receiving, crating, and shipping problems.
There also will be changes to the existing building to alleviate circulation and exhibition space problems. New heating, ventilation, air conditioning, safety, security, and electrical systems will be installed, as well.
The total cost of these renovations is expected to be around $900,000.
In the meantime, the Fort Frances Museum is temporarily located at 334 Scott St. as the renovations are completed.
It is open Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. The public is welcome to drop by and pick up a “Discover Fort Frances” package.
The museum’s collection was moved to the old North American Lumber store on Mowat Avenue (next to Fort Duty-Free) back in late May.