After over three decades the doors to the Canadian Fire Fighter’s Museum will close this week.
Since Christmas members have been cleaning the museum, returning items on loan and storing away items.
Chair of the Board, Will Lambert has been with the Canadian Fire Fighters Museum for approximately eight years and is a member of the Toronto Fire Department said the museum has to be cleared out of the location on Mill Street South in Port Hope by March 31.
“We’ve been really putting a hard press on it for the last month.”
There have been approximately 20 volunteers helping out, but there is a core group of approximately five people that help out daily.
The Canadian Fire Fighters Museum has been at the location for 34-years, but since the area will be remediated as part of the Port Hope Area Initiative, they’ve had to vacate the property which the town has loaned to them for that period of time.
“It’s understandable, but it’s heart breaking,” said Lambert.
The museum has been looking for a “bigger and better home” for several years, but concentrating hard on it for the last three years. When plans for a nearby location fell through it was the end for the current location.
The Canadian Fire Fighters Museum has “a ton” of history from the apparatus to the equipment.
There were 12 vintage firetrucks with the oldest motorized piece a 1921 Lafrance. The horse and hand drawn firefighting equipment dates back to the 1850’s.
“There is stuff here from the 1800’s, hand drawn and horse drawn stuff. And it’s from all over the country, not just local. It’s not only from municipal fire fighting, but also from forest fire fighting, military fire fighting, airport, industrial, anybody that considered themselves a firefighter, we wanted to collect their history and honour them.”
Lambert said they are storing items and equipment at various locations in Port Hope and given themselves two years to find a home for the museum.
The members are hopeful of finding a location that is local to the area, but there is also the possibility the museum could locate to another area, or even province.
But given most of the Board, advisory group and volunteers are local, their hope is they can find a home in Northumberland County area.
“But the most important thing is that the museum survive. So if it has to relocate somewhere, that’s the priority.”
“The dream is not dead,” emphasizes Lambert.
“When we find a suitable site we will launch a national fundraising campaign to raise the money to do it with.”
“But we don’t think we can run a fundraising campaign when we don’t know where we are going, what it’s going to be in, and what it’s going to look like.”
Given the popularity of the museum in a “inappropriate building” attracting 5,000 people over the course of the six months that it is open, it wouldn’t be out of the question to have 15,000 visitors if the museum were in a proper home.
“Firefighting is extremely interesting to a lot of people. Firefighters are revered. They always wind up at the very top of the pole in terms of trustworthy professions.”
“Kids love fire trucks. There is a huge attraction.”
There are 198 lots of items of firefighting memorabilia and office furniture on maxsold.com for bidding which ends on March 29.
Everything from extinguishers, life safety nets, air packs, helmets, Elmer The Safety Elephant constume and office furniture is on the site with bidding starting at $1.
For those interested about information at the Canadina Fire Fighters Museum, Facebook is Canadian Fire Fighters Museum and website is firemuseumcanada.com.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
