On March 17, the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation (TRMF) came before council to provide an update on their 2024 year.
This was the year, says Executive Director Zena Conlin, that the TRMF pivoted from survival mode to planning mode, as funding from the Peace River Regional District (PRRD)—which had been withdrawn due to problems with the way it had been granted in the first place—came back onstream. “The first half of the year we rekindled some projects we put on hold, made the necessary plans, and with the capacity to match funds we applied for two major grants totaling over $330,000 in addition to our regular annual applications,” writes Conlin in her report to council. “We are waiting for those outcomes and will know within the next two months if those projects will be launched.”
She says the museum anticipated visitor numbers to be back in the low 5000s but this didn’t materialize. “At 4702 guests we were still up over 2023 by seven percent, but short of 2021 and 2022,” she says. “Excitingly however, we did witness a higher volume of Tumbler Ridge and PRRD visitors.”
What accounts for this? She speculates in may have been the 2023 evacuation. “We suspect the lower than anticipated visitor numbers, like our fire, may have been a holdover from 2023. Anecdotally, we were working with consultants on a project proposal who were nervous to travel to Tumbler Ridge with the holdover fire still showing as active on the BC wildfire map. They were also quite nervous regarding the possibility of an evacuation if there was a flareup or a new fire start. We suspect this could have been a more widely shared sentiment.”
Also down this year: gift shop revenue. “One of the most dramatic shifts over the last year was the decrease in gift shop revenue by 14 percent over the previous year” says Conlin. “We hypothesize that people are happy to pay for experiences but with overall rising costs they are less likely to spend extra on souvenirs. This experience has also been reported to us from other institutions.”
She says the museum has been struggling to find people. “Our winter/spring campaign failed to yield a permanent new employee and our funding application for a summer student was denied. An autumn recruitment campaign was successful however and we welcomed a new full-time Programs and Events Coordinator in October. It will be 2025 where we will see significant improvements in our public programs.”
The museum’s collection continues to grow, and they remain committed to advancing research both internally and externally, through partnerships that span the globe and continue to expand. “We have improved efficiencies in accessioning new specimens and database input and are anticipating the launch of our public portal later this year.”
Despite capacity issues, the museum has prioritized taking part in local events, with continued participation in Family Day activities at the Community Centre and supporting the Geopark Time Machine activities. “We also attended the Tumbler Ridge Senior Secondary Summer Job Fair, the TR Days Society Fall Fair, and participated in the Holly Jolly festivities at the library.”
However, interest in educational programing has decreased, with 43 students from schools in Dawson Creek and Mackenzie. This was down 65 percent from the previous year.
While school visits were down, tracksite tour participation and revenue was up for the first time in two years, with 121 participants and an increase in revenue of 51 percent over 2023. “The air quality was much improved over the previous year perhaps leading to increased interest in outdoor activities,” speculates Conlin.
In June, the museum hosted its first “Fossil Hunting 101” program led by the Collections Manager, which we attended. “He presented on how to spot a fossil and best practices in photographing, describing, and reporting discoveries to the museum.” This should become an annual event, says Conlin.
On July 27, the museum held a Doors Open event, part of a wider Northern Trails Heritage Society project where several museums and archives held similar events across Northeast BC. “We coordinated with the Visitor Centre and Community Centre for additional locations we could promote in Tumbler Ridge through this initiative. At the museum, we had 146 visitors, and we delivered three tours through our outdoor heavy collections.”
While there have been plans to do a major revamp of the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery exhibits, this year there were only a few changes, adding new specimens and updating text and photographic elements. “We have not had the capacity to move major refurbishments forward,” says Conlin. “With several other major projects now back on track, we are currently working on the plan to also move this project ahead.”
Changes are not just happening out front, but in the back as well, says Conlin. “TRMF Collections Manager, Eamon Drysdale, has been working diligently at implementing and populating our new collections database. With the assistance of a summer student, they cross-referenced and reconciled collections data from several sources and matched those records with the physical location of approximately 3,500 specimens, or approximately 75 percent of the collection.”
For this year, they are hoping to photograph each specimen, update the notes and flag objects with missing information, as well as document any conservation needs, and put together custom storage boxes/supports using archival grade materials as per museum best practice standards.
The TRMF also spearheaded the creation of a Research Group consisting of staff and expert volunteers from the Museum and the Geopark. This group will work together to publish scientifically important peer-reviewed research papers. “With the formalization of our research activities, we have also been focusing on policy development and standardized procedures to ensure consistent and robust scientific exploration.”
And the TRMF signed four new repository agreements in 2024: via Stantec, Pouce Coupe Pipelines and Enbridge Pipelines; via Aeon Paleontological Consulting, Conuma Resources Willow Creek Mine; Lifeways of Canada for CTI Plus Resources baseline study for the Rocky Creek Coal Project. These agreements mean these projects notify the museum of any potential discoveries, and, if necessary, bring the specimens in or let the museum come and collect. “Through our agreement with Conuma Resources, the museum accepted 70 new specimens from the Willow Creek mine site, making our total for 2024 over 100 new fossil specimens added to the collection. These range in size from small stones to large boulder-sized pieces.”
And it’s not just pre-history. Archivist Crys White accepted historical records from local organizations and residents. Conlin says highlights from 2024 include a limited edition serigraph of Tumbler Ridge Town Hall, titled “Tumbler Ridge”, by artist Ted Harrison, a photograph of the first elementary school staff, a photo of the graduating class of 1994, and a letter from when the post office opened at its permanent location and photograph of the staff.
The upcoming year should see the start of a number of new projects, including upgrades to the heavy collections building, more work on the Digital Collection Project (contingent on funding) and more work on gaining official repository status. “With the assistance of the DTR grant writers, we have applied to the Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program to support a facility assessment specific to standard museum requirements with a plan and budget for necessary improvements. If successful, consultation and inspections will begin in April and the assessment and plan will be completed by the end of summer.”
As financial and human resource bottlenecks have been eased, expect to see plenty of changes over the next year. “The disbursement of core funding from the PRRD in August of 2024 has been transformative,” says Conlin. Plans for 2025 include: monthly STEAM based drop-in programs, birthday party programs, a new experiential “dig-site” program, new education programs, a feasibility study for a purpose-renovated museum, a new book about the early years of Tumbler Ridge, an online exhibition, an archives digitization project, and a minimum of four field work sites over the summer.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
