The Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum is among a dozen historical organizations from across Canada up for a $50,000 prize in a national competition — which the museum plans to use to turn a 115-year-old house into its own research centre.
The Next Great Save, an annual competition held by the National Trust of Canada, aims to help restore cherished historic places in the country.
Public voting is set to begin April 7 — the organization that receives the most votes will win $50,000, while the second and third-place winners will get $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.
If it wins, the museum has big plans for this money: it’s looking to transform the historic home of Janet Carnochan, the woman who brought the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum to life, into a research and archival centre.
Shawna Jarman, interim curator at the museum, said the museum honoured to have placed as a finalist in the competition.
“I think it’s really great, no matter what, we’re bringing recognition to the amazing programs and the amazing sites that we have across Canada,” she said.
Carnochan founded the Niagara Historical Society and led the construction of Memorial Hall, the museum’s main building, which opened in 1907 and was the first building erected as a museum in Ontario.
A few years later, in 1911, her new home was built next door to the museum, at 25 Castlereagh St., where she would live out the remainder of her days until her death in 1926.
In May 2024, the museum bought the house for $1.425 million.
The museum applied for the competition with hopes of furthering plans to renovate the house into a space for people to access archival and research materials. It would be for those interested to learn more about the area’s history, be they academics, students, artists or visitors, she said.
“Our archives are bursting right now. We don’t have a lot of space left to continue to collect the Niagara-on-the-Lake community’s amazing history that we have here, but there’s a lot of space next door in Janet’s house,” she said.
The house has three levels: two above-ground floors and one basement. Jarman said the upper level would host staff offices, the main level would be a research centre for people to access secondary source information and history books in a library and the basement would house its archives.
The rest of the museum’s archived materials will remain in the Niagara High School building and large artifacts will be moved to the basement of a new building behind Memorial Hall the museum plans to erect as part of its ongoing $10-million expansion project.
Winning the National Trust of Canada’s competition would be significant for the museum, Jarman said: not just in being able to transform Carnochan’s home and further her legacy, but also seeing the community rally together to support its local museum.
“We know we’re heading in the right direction with our vision and our mandate and our outreach within the community and we really want that support as we go forward into this new, expanded, renovated and vibrant museum space,” she said.
Public voting for the competition opens April 7 at 1 p.m. and closes April 24 at 1 p.m. The winner and two runner-ups will be announced later that day at 5 p.m.
To cast your vote, visit nextgreatsave.ca.
