A learning centre for a working farm museum in western Nova Scotia is $1 million in public funding closer to construction, the federal government announced Friday.
Funding will run through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s (ACOA) Innovative Communities Fund for the Ross Farm Museum project at New Ross, about 85 km west of Halifax.
Pending environmental review, the ACOA funding will go toward design and construction of the foundation and main level making up the first 9,600 square feet of the new facility. It will also support upgrades to the museum’s parking lot.
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“The learning centre project at Ross Farm Museum will result in new community infrastructure that will benefit this region in key sectors such as tourism and agriculture and create local economic spinoffs,” Nova Scotia MP Gerard Keddy said in a release Friday.
Once completed, the building’s main level will include a foyer, programming rooms, washrooms, meeting rooms, an “open hearth” room, a commercial kitchen, a gift shop, an office for the local historical society, research space and controlled storage for artifacts.
The building’s upper level, meanwhile, is expected to include administrative space, a staff kitchen, a first aid room and space for production and storage of period costumes.
The Ross Farm Museum, operated by the New Ross District Museum Society since 1970, is meant to depict the experience of a “typical 19th and early 20th century working upland family farm in Nova Scotia.”
The society aims to preserve the “physical fabric” of the farm and to “interpret the stories, practices and values of farm life,” the government said in its release.
The society “encourages an understanding of the contemporary relevance of traditional agriculture by demonstrating sustainable agricultural practices.”
“Through the new learning centre, Ross Farm Museum will continue to preserve and promote the local history and culture upon which the museum was built,” society president Valerie White said in the federal release.
