Canadian Canoe Museum eyes Johnson Park site
Environmental assessment, testing planned next week, with hopes of construction starting next year
The Canadian Canoe Museum has named Johnson Park on Little Lake as its new preferred location for its new museum after recently pulling out of a deal to relocate to the Peterborough Lift Lock Visitor Centre site because of soil contamination there.
Johnson Park is a city-owned property at 2077 Ashburnham Dr., on Little Lake between Ashburnham Park and Parks Canada’s Trent-Severn Waterway headquarters.
“It’s been a hard couple of months … Now we’re on the upswing,” Canadian Canoe Museum executive director Carolyn Hyslop said Thursday. “This is a really good location for the canoe museum.”
Environmental assessment and testing is planned from Monday to Wednesday.
Johnson Park has been home to the Peterborough Canoe and Kayak Club for its competitive canoe, kayak and dragon boat racing programs.
For years, the museum on Monaghan Road has had ambitious plans to open a new $65million museum with a conference centre. After having to pull out of the deal to relocate to the Lift Lock in October, there were reports the museum planned to scale back the plan at a new site.
Hyslop said on Thursday the building will still be a larger new facility, but it’s too early to know exactly how much it might cost on a new site.
“Right now all that we’re doing is figuring out if this site’s viable,” she said.
Hyslop added she expects the investigative work — which would include environmental assessments as well as discussions with the city, the conservation authority and the canoe and kayak club — ought to take until the end of the year. If that deadline is met, she said, construction could begin by the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, the design for the museum next to the Lift Lock was so site-specific that it had to be abandoned, and on Thursday Hyslop said it’s unclear who will design the new museum or what it might look like.
No comment was available late on Thursday from Peterborough Canoe and Kayak Club officials.
Coun. Gary Baldwin, as the city council representative on the canoe museum’s board, made a statement about the matter on Thursday via email.
“At this point, the Canadian Canoe Museum is doing site investigation work after identifying its preferred site,” he wrote. “Depending on the outcome of its site investigation work, negotiations would follow.”
The museum has received more than $45 million in fundraising pledges. Hyslop said she believes it’s possible to do all the planning necessary to start construction in a year.
“That sets us up beautifully — if all goes well — to be a significant project for economic recovery and hope for the community right now.”