Motels group boosts new canoe museum
Destination Association gives $50K after disbanding
The Canadian Canoe Museum’s coffer is $50,000 richer after a donation from the Peterborough Destination Association.
Representatives from the association announced the contribution at the Monaghan Rd. museum on Thursday afternoon.
The money is benefiting the museum’s capital campaign, which will fund the planned new facility next to the Peterborough Lift Lock.
The association is made up of all the area hotels, including Holiday Inn Peterborough – Waterfront Hotel, Best Western Plus Otonabee Inn, Comfort Hotel and Suites Peterborough, Motel 6 and Quality Inn Peterborough.
Grant Zwarych, president of the association and the general manager at the Holiday Inn, said the association donates funds to events or organizations that attract tourism in the area, basically putting “bums in beds,” he said.
It has supported the Peterborough Folk Festival, Peterborough Musicfest, the Indian Reptile Zoo and various sports events in the past, for example.
But the association is now disbanding and there were some leftover funds in the bank – $50,000 to be exact.
Members wanted to put the money to good use, particularly a tourism draw.
The new canoe museum fit the bill.
“We thought it was a perfect ending for us as a legacy build as the association winds down,” Zwarych said.
The $65-million facility will sit by the water’s edge of the Trent Canal below the Lift Lock.
Carolyn Hyslop, museum executive director, said the association’s contribution is a “wonderful” gift towards the project.
“To us, it’s a real confidence builder that the community, especially our tourism partners, are behind us and feel that this is a significant project to be investing in,” she said.
The new facility is expected to triple the museum’s attendance, Hyslop said. It will offer an increased availability for school programs to grow, more workshop participants and more onwater experiences, for instance.
The museum’s event space will also help draw crowds in for weddings, galas, conferences, and banquets.
And it’s not just local residents that museum officials are counting on for the increased traffic. Hyslop said they’ll be targeting markets outside the Kawarthas, such as Ottawa, Kingston and the GTA.
The museum also attracts international visitors, who come to Peterborough specifically to visit the museum, Hyslop added.
“We expect that that will grow as well in the new building.”
The capital campaign is currently in a private fundraising phase, focusing on leadership donors.
All levels of government have committed to supporting the new build, Hyslop said, and last month, the campaign got a $7.5 million contribution from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.
Construction is slated to begin early in 2019.