Late Historian Honoured With $250,000 Gift to Canadian Canoe Museum

The Canadian Canoe Museum (CCM) is celebrating a $250,000 gift to honour late local historian and avid canoer Shelagh Grant announced on Thursday.

File Photo.

The gift came from Grant’s family to celebrate her 25 years as a volunteer and member since the museum’s inception. The Grant family's gift will be recognized in the Loft of the new museum, a central community gathering space on the second floor just outside the Knowledge and Research Centre in the Atrium.

Grant passed away in 2020 and is known for her love of the North and passion for canoeing according to a press release. She was known as an internationally acclaimed expert, historian and author on the Arctic. She with her husband Jon, paddled many of Canada's northern rivers together.

"The Grant family honours Shelagh Grant's love of the North, its land, peoples, rivers, and rapids with this $250,000 gift. Shelagh's vision and committee work helped to guide The Canadian Canoe Museum in its early stages," said Jon. "This gift recognizes the canoe as a unifying legacy, from the First People's travel to today's recreation, which is an important part of our rich and unique heritage."

In the 1980s, through her work as an adjunct professor of Canadian Studies at Trent University. Shelagh became part of an instrumental Advisory Committee that helped establish the CCM and bring Kirk Wipper's Kanawa canoe collection to Peterborough.

"Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast are engaged and giving to the campaign – but to see such strong local support here in our community is heartening,” said Kevin Malone, campaign chair.

The CCM has raised 93 per cent of the $40 million capital costs for the new museum which is scheduled to open next summer. The community is invited to donate to the new museum or to support the move of more than 600 canoes and kayaks and small artifacts.

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