Established 2000 Website [1] | Type planned mining museum Founded 2000 | |
Location Giant Mine Northwest Territories, Canada Similar Giant Mine, The Wildcat Cafe, Yellowknife River, Prince of Wales Northern, Great Slave Lake | ||
The N.W.T. Mining Heritage Society, in the Northwest Territories, Canada, was first formed in early 2000 as the Giant Mine Heritage Group to rescue items from the Giant Mine site after its owner, Royal Oak Mines Incorporated, went bankrupt.
By 2001 the group had changed its name to the NWT Mining Heritage Group and began planning for the creation of a mining museum for Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut as a whole. The museum will be located at the old Giant Mine site and will include the old 'A'-shaft powerhouse and headframe, a warehouse, recreation hall, a portion of the old townsite, and an outdoor display area that includes mining machinery and an old log cabin from Con Mine. In July 2002, the group formed a registered society.
Work in 2006 was focused on constructing a length of mine rail, placing old machinery on the rail, renovating the small log cabin, and beginning renovations of the recreation hall. In the summer of 2007, the old recreation hall roof was replaced with a new metal roof and a fundraising campaign was started to help pay for future renovations. In 2010 $60,000 was raised for repairs to the foundation wall and more work is planned in the future dependent on new sources of funds. One of the major causes of construction delays has been the environmental assessment process for the Giant Mine. Land use planning in the Giant Mine Townsite area is dependent on the completion of remediation at Giant Mine as a whole.
Affiliations
The Museum is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada.