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New blacksmith’s shop coming to Fred Light Museum

Sep 26, 2017 | 2:00 PM

Battleford’s Fred Light Museum is seeing some new growth as it constructs a new blacksmith’s shop for the local tourist attraction.

Board member Dan Schweitzer said it’s good to see the museum continue to stay strong.

“Eagle Hills Community Club, located south of Battleford, donated funds for us to do this,” said Schweitzer. “I think it’s a heck of a good thing. This is just something that came up, and we had the money to do it. So we decided to do it. We always want to move forward.”

The new blacksmith shop is currently under construction by volunteers at the back of the museum and should be completed later in October. Blacksmith demonstrations will start next spring when the museum opens for the season.

“It’s all volunteers and it’s all donated money,” said Schweitzer. When the work is complete, he estimated the value of the project might be around $25,000 between materials, volunteer labour and donations.

He said the Fred Light Museum board had the idea to create a blacksmith shop for the museum.

“We had a young blacksmith who wanted to set up demonstrations at the museum, so the ideas just kept coming: ‘Let’s see if we can build a blacksmith’s shop,’” said Schweitzer. 

He said the Eagle Hills Community Club group was closing as a result of declining membership, and wanted to do something for the community with the money it had left.

The Eagle Hills volunteer group was able to help a number of projects with its funds.  

“They decided they might as well keep helping the Fred Light Museum, and we named the Blacksmith after them,” said Schweitzer. “Eagle Hills is connected to the town of Battleford in a lot of ways.”  

He said the group has also donated to the museum to help with the Lighthouse Service Station. 

Schweitzer said the non-profit Eagle Hills Community Club closed with only a small number of members left. About five years ago the club had sold the community club building – the former Eagle Hills School – to a farmer who purchased the property.   

The volunteer group had made donations to a number of non-profit organizations following the sale, including the Legion hall, the Tot Lot in Battleford.

“They have been donating to a lot of projects in the town,” said Schweitzer.   

 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

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