A recent study through the American Alliance of Museums, the organization that oversees museums of all sizes in the South, suggests that a third of U.S. museums may close due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Manitoba’s local museums may not suffer as much as their southern neighbors, the stage remains terrible, many administrators and curators say.
“All nonprofits are on the hunt for a year, and Dalnavert is not the only one to do so,” museum director Thomas McLeod told 680 CJOB.
“We have been eligible for a number of government wage subsidies and investment programs … and we were lucky enough to be eligible. These were so that we could reopen the museum once provincial regulations allowed it.
McLeod said the museum was closed for months due to coronavirus, construction, a national historic site built in the 1890s, still needed maintenance, as did the collections inside.
The museum paid for a minimum arrangement, but received no money from visitors. Once museums were allowed to reopen in Manitoba, McLeod said, Dalnavert also had to invest in non-public protective devices for his volunteers.
“Admissions have gone down and down for a number of reasons: other people don’t necessarily feel comfortable coming to places like museums, galleries and cinemas… and with social distance, we probably couldn’t accommodate the same number of visitors at once,” he says.
Dalnavert is known for large events, particularly around holidays, which are unlikely to happen in 2020, at least not for the foreseeable future.
McLeod said the museum encouraged others to conduct guided tours safely, planning guided tours in advance, to ensure that the social distance can be followed and that the teams of tourists feel comfortable.
“In fact, it’s a scary time for small museums that have this seasonal assistance or participation in special events,” he said.
Eric Napier Strong, curator of Seven Oaks House Museum, said the lack of public and government assistance was a saving grace for museums like his during the pandemic, but due to the nature of the building, some of the other security measures were a challenge.
“Seven Oaks House is the oldest space in all of Winnipeg, and those old spaces are built precisely for social estrangement or sanitation,” he says.
“All that’s out there is 150 … two hundred years, even in very small rooms, so it’s hard for us to join teams. We had to be a little creative.”
Strong said the museum had organized walking and biking tours around and even swapped the windows of the house for storefronts.
“I think other people are interested in … However, other people are looking for anything they feel comfortable with. You can take a walking tour, you can ride a motorcycle around the city and you can still live an old delight as cold. “
The danger, he said, of the final museums is that they cannot be reopened once the pandemic has subsided.
“Once he’s gone, he’s lost forever. That is our legacy; it’s our unusual story.”