Highlanders birthplace to be repaired
AMHERST — Members of a community committee working to save the birthplace of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders remains confident the result of their campaign will be positive.
Amherst Armouries Plus Society representatives were given an update last week during a Zoom session with Lt. Col. Bryan Mialkowsky from the Department of National Defence’s real properties operations unit and other DND officials.
“I’m encouraged by what I heard,” said society president John Wales, who is also the assistant curator of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders Regimental Museum. “I understand why they are doing a staged approach and I also understand the impact COVID is having on industry. It’s one of those situations where we have to be patient, it’s something everyone has to be when you’re dealing with COVID.”
The future of the Col. James Layton Ralston Armoury has been in doubt for at least 15 years with the Department of National Defence indicating on several occasions it has no use for the building and plans on abandoning it, raising fears it could be demolished.
The military museum and three cadet corps were suddenly tossed from the building last August amid structural concerns, but following a rally in September, CumberlandColchester MP Lenore Zann received assurances the historic structure would be repaired before it’s divested.
Mialkowsky was last in Amherst in March to discuss the three-phase project the defence department is following to restore the armoury in downtown Amherst so it can be divested and potentially be taken over the society that has representatives from the regimental museum, the Town of Amherst and Cumberland North MLA Elizabeth SmithMcCrossin.
Mialkowsky said things were progressing nicely until the third wave of COVID-19 swept through Canada, leading most provinces — including Nova Scotia — to institute restrictions on business and movement.
Two of the three phases, including temporary safety repairs and making those temporary repairs semi-permanent, have been completed. The third phase, a formal assessment of the building to see what needs to be done to bring it up to modern standards, is taking longer than expected because of difficulties hiring someone to do the assessment during a global pandemic.
He said the number of contractors bidding on projects is low as they wait out COVID prices that have seen the cost of building materials skyrocket.
Mialkowsky, who is leaving this post later in June for a new one in Italy, said the defence department remains committed to the project, which has the interest of the department’s leadership in Ottawa and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
“This file is still important to Ottawa. I’m still receiving emails and calls on this file almost every day,” he said, adding his successor, Lt. Col. James LeGresley, who is a native of River John, Pictou County, is familiar with Amherst and the museum and is committed to the project.
While there’s not a lot of activity on site, Mialkowsky said work is continuing in the background so tenders can be called for the assessment as soon as COVID conditions permit.