We have been very busy so far this summer. We opened in late June and have had many visitors already; some from as far away as Austria and Curacao, as well as school tours and local visitors. Our hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., staffed by Adam or Riley. We are open on Sundays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., staffed by volunteers.
On July 10th, we had our 2nd Annual Duck Race fundraiser. It was a great evening with 850 ducks participating in the race. The owners of the winning ducks were: 1st Place – Laura Vissure, 2nd Place – Jean Jannick, 3rd Place – Ken Harness, 4th Place – Nancy DeLong and 5th Place – Mack & Robby Keith. We raised about $3000 for the Museum Renovation fund.
We would like to thank the following organizations and businesses for assisting us with the duck race and for selling tickets for us: Carman Dufferin Fire Department – for flooding the street; Town of Carman for allowing us to close the street and hold the race; Carman Homestead Co-op for allowing us to set up and sell ducks at their site on two occasions and the residents of 1st avenue N. W. for the inconvenience of having their street closed for a couple of hours. The following businesses sold tickets on our behalf: Newman Hand Agency, Wes’s Tire, Toew’s Printing, Janzen’s, Greenland John Deere, and Natina’s Massage and Reflexology.
We would also like to thank our volunteers who helped out. George Friesen for building our own duck catcher so we didn’t have to borrow one this year; Irene & Larry Stevenson, Dennis Bell, Stanley Reitsma, Clayton Morgan, Karen Maxwell, Cheynne Keith, Karine Keith, Gabrielle MacLellan, Edwin Pritchard, and Shirley Snider who helped at the race and all the kids who helped pick up the ducks at the end of the race.
We also want to thank all of the Museum board members who sold tickets and most of all, we want to thank everyone who purchased a duck ticket, supported our fundraising efforts and came out and watched.
We participated in the Bale Decorating competition with the 65th Anniversary theme and had a float in the parade.
Thanks to the Carman Area Foundation, we will have a new sign built this summer. This sign will also have a bulletin board for us to post information about the various artifacts that are on the Museum grounds.
We have also published our latest souvenir book. It is called Dufferin Historical Museum, Memorable Stories Carman and Area Part Two. This book continues on from the Memorable Stories that was published in 2017 for Canada’s 150th. It is for sale at the museum for $30 as well as other souvenirs.
For our 65th Anniversary, we are highlighting artifacts throughout the museum that were donated to the Dufferin Historical Society in the early years and were the beginning of the museum. Come and see what we started with and how we have now grown to over 6000 artifacts. We look forward to seeing you in 2024.
