The Shellbrook museum, former home of a CNR station, sits at the end of Main Street. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Community revival

Group proposes plan to buy Shellbrook museum for $1

Apr 9, 2021 | 5:00 PM

A building that once housed a railway station in Shellbrook and, in more recent years, is also the town’s oldest artifacts, may be getting a makeover.

A proposal submitted to and agreed to by town council discusses plans to sell the building to a local non-profit organization, who would use it for artisan events and farmers markets. If the non-profit can form and submit a viable business plan by Sept. 1, they would then be allowed to purchase the building for $1. To provide the non-profit with enough time to become viable, the town would then offer them a tax exemption for one year.

Marlene Fellows is among the two women leading the proposal.

“There are quite a few vendors who are interested. We are going to put out another letter to see what the response is like from the artisans,” she said.

Fellows explained the biggest holdup so far has been all the covid restrictions, making it impossible for people to get together. With a background in business marketing, Fellows said she is confident their plan can work, adding they would essentially pay the utility bills by charging vendors rent.

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“Our ultimate goal is to bring other people into Shellbrook. We’re looking at the surrounding area to have farmers markets and things like that,” she said. “Basically just make enough money to keep that building going.”

“I think there would be a lot of public angst if we just knocked it down” _{– Mayor Amund Otterson}

For the past ten years, Fellows has been among the key volunteers helping run the museum. She agreed to take it over after learning about plans to close the building, due to the volunteers at the time getting too old to do it anymore. Fellows explained one of the biggest issues for them is that small town museums don’t attract the same volume of traffic they once did, no matter how well they are housed.

“We did a lot of work in organizing the artifacts coming into the station but there’s not enough money coming in to maintain the building and the town doesn’t want to be saddled with heating and lighting costs. They want to wash their hands of it,” she said.

The future of the old rail station was first discussed by paNOW in an article on April 13, 2020. At the time, the town’s former mayor, George Toporowski, explained the $500,000 cost needed to bring the building up to code was just no longer feasible for the community. Fellows argued the comments by the former mayor were a bit exaggerated, adding the building is in stable condition with the exception of minor foundational issues that can be fixed with “little cost.”

Citing plans to open May long weekend in 2022, Fellows said one of the big jobs moving forward will be addressing the numerous artifacts currently housed in the museum. The process will include Fellows contacting all the original donors.

“For example, Saturday I’m meeting with a family that wants their mother’s wedding dress back. Not a problem,” she said.

Another plan being explored by the town is to move the neighbouring Rayside school to a new location off highway 3 west, and become the town’s new visitor information centre. Artifacts that have been identified as personal to the town would be moved there. The more redundant items, not claimed by the original donor families, may be sold off and the profits used to help with the museum or the cost of the move.

The Shellbrook museum currently sits at the end of Main St. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

Mayor Amund Otterson told paNOW‘s he is pleased with the plan, and even happier that the town will no longer be paying the utility bills.

“We’ve been paying the power bill and heating for no reason for many years really, to be honest, because it is a seasonal building and we were keeping it heated to protect the artifacts,” he said.

According to the proposal agreement laid out for town council, if on Sept. 1, 2022, the business is not viable, the non-profit would be dissolved and the building would be retuned to the town to do with as they wished. While demolition has been mentioned in the past, Otterson said that’s not being considered.

“I think there would be a lot of public angst if we just knocked it down,” he said. “There are people who have approached [council] about acquiring it and moving it off but we ae not prepared to make that decision at this point.”

One more piece of business for town council to address is a proposed bylaw to repeal the heritage status of the museum building. The bylaw has remained of the council’s agenda for many weeks without discussion.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell