Grant named chair of Canadian Canoe Museum board
An Indigenous woman has been named the chair of the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough.
Temagami First Nation member Victoria Grant, who grew up on Lake Temagami and still owns a house there, has a wide range of administrative experience including as the Temagami Community Foundation director and the chair of the Canadian Community Foundation.
Grant succeeds Peterborough resident and Telus executive John Ronson as chair of the museum.
“I went on the board (of the Canadian Canoe Museum) in 2018 as a board member and I came from the Community Foundations of Canada where I was the Chair of the board,” Grant said.
“Then I was considered to become the chair and here I am. But I have a long experience with volunteer boards. I was one of the founders of the Community Foundation in Temagami.”
Grant said she feels that all of her experience serving on boards in the past will serve her well in her new role with the Canadian Canoe Museum.
“I’ve done the ICD-Rotman Directors Education program, which is the program that teaches director responsibility and what it means to be a director,” Grant said.
“It’s a 12-part series program that has been around for, I would say, 10 years, maybe not much longer than that. I took that program maybe five or six years ago, learning how to be a good director and bringing people to the board. You all bring different strengths to the board and competencies, so as you build a board, you build it with the competencies you need to run an organization.”
The Canadian Canoe Museum on Monaghan Road is a unique national heritage centre that explores the canoe’s enduring significance to the people of Canada through an exceptional collection of canoes, kayaks and paddled watercraft.
The museum has more than 100 canoes and kayaks on display and offers visitors interactive, hands-on galleries, a scavenger hunt, model canoe building and a puppet theatre for children.
The museum was founded on a collection of the late Prof. Kirk Wipper and was established in Peterborough in 1997.
The museum’s holdings now number more than 600 canoes, kayaks and paddled watercraft.
Grant said that what she is most looking forward to in her new role is making the Canadian Canoe Museum “a national museum” and to have reach right across the country.
“The canoe is one of the most significant artifacts in Canada we have,” Grant said.
“The kayak, the canoe started in Canada and it was built by Indigenous people and if it wasn’t for the canoe and the Indigenous people, a lot of these non-Indigenous people would not have been able to settle here the way they did. I’m looking forward to seeing the national outreach we can do.”
Grant also said that one of her main goals is to have the story of the canoe in Canada be told in a way that is respectful of the Indigenous people in the country and the relationship that built this country.
The Canadian Canoe Museum’s artifacts range from the dugouts of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest to the singular bark canoes of the Beothuk of Newfoundland.
From the skin-on-frame kayaks of northern people from Baffin Island in the east to the Mackenzie River Delta in the northwest to the all-wood and canvas-covered craft manufactured by companies with names like Herald, Peterborough, Chestnut, Lakefield and Canadian.