It was a week for celebration at the north end ot the Coast as major government grants came through for two major new facilities. In Egmont, the Skookumchuck Heritage Society will build a museum, washroom and 100-car parking lot across the road from Skookumchuck Provincial Park. And down the road in Pender Harbour, the Ruby Lake Lagoon Nature Reserve Society will build an innovative educational facility named the Iris Griffith Field Studies and Interpretive Centre.
Volunteers have been working toward both projects for years. The projects will become reality this year after winning grants from the Softwood Industry Community Economic Adjustment Initiative (SICEAI). The grants are $225,578 for the Skookumchuck museum and $275,000 for the Ruby Lake centre. Those funds must be matched with local contributions of cash, materials and volunteer labour.
The Griffith family of Egmont is involved in both projects. Billy Griffith is president of the Skookumchuck Heritage Society and the widower of Iris Griffith, the naturalist for whom the Ruby Lake centre will be named. The Griffiths were both lifelong community volunteers, a tradition now being continued by their daughter Maureen Parrot, who is also a member of the Skookumchuck Heritage Society. The Griffith family is contributing about $150,000 to the museum, as well as donating two generations' worth of artifact collections. A $3,000 memorial fund in Iris Griffith's name is going to the Ruby Lake project.
Billy Griffith is delighted both projects are going ahead, but he's not sure how Iris would have felt about having the Ruby Lake centre named after her.
"Iris wasn't one to brag herself up. She just worked," he said. "She figured you'd get a lot done if you didn't care who gets the credit."
In that same spirit, Griffith was quick to credit Geoff Craig, vice president of the heritage society, with steering the Skookumchuck museum project to success.
The federal government created the SICEAI fund in response to the softwood lumber trade war with the U.S. It is intended to ease the hardship in forestry-dependent communities by diversifying their economies.
Out of more than 30 applications for SICEAI grants from the Sunshine Coast only the Skookumchuck and Ruby Lake proposals were successful.
