A group of museums in the tri-county region have received little to date for thousands of dollars invested into a program facilitated by the former South West Shore Development Authority.
The Interpretation Specialist project was presented by Yarmouth and Acadian Shores (YAS) last year and was funded by Nova Scotia Tourism and ACOA. Participating museums were asked to contribute funds and in-kind labour.
Camus Productions from Halifax conducted site visits last summer, provided suggestions on how to tell fascinating stories in an appealing way, and was going to create signage and other promotional aids to more effectively direct visitors to sites. The demise of SWSDA put the breaks on all that.
The Yarmouth County Museum and Archives recently sent out several letters hoping to find answers about the $4,000 they had invested. Half was paid last year, the remainder this spring, when SWSDA was already clearly having financial difficulties.
On Friday, Yarmouth County Historical Society president Aurel Mooney was interviewed after museum representatives met with YAS general manager, Larry Peach and ACOA representatives.
“They’ve arranged through different sources that we should be able to have that project on stream by the second week in October,” she said.
“It’s a definite go,” she added.
Other facilities that signed on for the project are the Cape Forchu lightstation, Le Village historique acadien, Musée acadien de Pubnico‐Ouest, Sweeney Fisheries Museum, and the ÉgliseSte‐Anne Church.
The total project cost was listed at approximately $200,000 including in-kind services.
The paid fees were broken down into phase 1 and phase 2. Phase 1 has fees of approximately $40,000, which went to cover storyline development.
Phase 2 would include the purchase of interpretive media estimated at approximately $140,000. This was to be split between the six sites on a tiered system.
“Denise Nickerson at the Cape Forchu Lightstation says they invested $6,000.
“We were supposed to receive $33,000 in interpretive media. It took us two years to pay that money. We got as far as doing the translation in French then everything stopped.”
Bernice d’Entremont at the Musée acadien de Pubnico‐Ouest says they contributed $4,000 to the project.
“It was a heavy volunteer involvement. Our board was on track to change. We knew the Cat wasn’t coming back so it was a new way of showing our history for locals.”
