The Badlands Historical Centre is working on finding a new path forward and is wanting to know what residents would like to see in the space.
The Badlands Historical Centre is considered Drumheller’s original museum, founded in the 1950s. Recent years have been hard for the museum, with COVID, 19, a break-in in 2019, where they lost a significant part of their valuable collection as well as building issues. The last year they were open, they had 800 visitors.
“Does the community want another museum and what does that look like?” said new chair, Louise Henrickson.
In June a new board was formed, with six active members, with a vision of revamping the focus of the museum to agriculture.
‘We have two scenarios, but of an agricultural theme. One is more of agricultural and Drumheller’s history, or do we move into agriculture across Canada? That would be unique across the world because there is no history of agriculture anywhere,” explains Henrickson. “We want to look at what would be enticing and what would be something that people could support.”
“Or is there an option C that we are not seeing? What would you like to see?”
They are also looking at the best way to use the space. Beyond the traditional mandate of a museum, they are wondering if the space could be used by the community as a meeting or event space.
“Could we rent out the space? If all the displays are in the cases, and they are locked up, is there some way of clearing out that space and renting it out for different activities? Making it a diversified space,” said Henrickson.
“We can’t just rely on a casino and that gets very stipulated on where you can spend the money,” she said.
One of its most pressing issues is the roof. There needs to be significant repairs. To help raise funds, they are holding a Raise the Roof event at the Museum on Saturday, September 24. This will include a free scavager hunt, a barbecue and a kick-off for a Silent Auction. The event will also allow residents to provide feedback on what they like about the museum and what they would like to see moving forward.
