The drive to get more visitors to the Sturgeon River House Museum continues.
Now into its 10th month of a year-long pilot, West Nipissing council got an update on how that project is coming along and elected officials were not disappointed.
Before the initiative was started the museum was open for six months of the year.
At the end of the pilot, it’s hoped the facility can be a four-season destination point.
One of the objectives is to turn the museum into a place for arts and culture and education.
To that end, exhibits have been redone, events have been added and programs are coming back.
One of those initiatives is a return of the snowshoe program for beginners.
Council was told schools are bringing their students to the museum for the snowshoe program.
An area where the museum has shown a big uptick is with the number of tours with buses coming from Ottawa and London.
The museum has also welcomed visitors from other countries.
An extra effort will be made to reach out to bus tours to let them know the museum is in West Nipissing and they are more than welcome to stop and see what it has to offer.
On the matter of bus tours, the museum plans to work with the local International Plowing Match and Rural Expo committee to get visitors to the IPM in Verner this September to also drop by the museum.
Plans this year include creating a mobile museum that can be taken to the various high schools in West Nipissing.
In addition, more events are being planned at the museum that coincides with specific times of the year, like Easter, in an effort to increase visitor numbers.
Work is also underway to enhance the gift shop as a means to increase museum revenue.
If there was one complaint from council, it was regarding signage.
Councillor Christopher Fisher suggested having signage off the highway would go a long way to directing people unfamiliar with the museum on its location.
