Visitation up at H. Earl Clack Museum

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board discussed the traffic at the museum, the roof on the homestead shack, a special meeting held with the Great Northern Fair Board a week ago and business regarding the board’s annual meeting coming up in October during its monthly meeting Monday.

Clack Museum Director Emily Mayer said Thursday through Saturday was filled with people at the museum.

“It was amazing,” Mayer said.

She added that attendance at the museum for August 2019 alone was 619 people. In comparison, August of 2018 had 336.

In August 2017 the museum had a total of 699 visitors.

Mayer also said she spoke with Helen Kerakudas, who works with Meredith Corporation which prepares tourism guides for the Montana Office of Tourism, giving her updated information about the museum and Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump. Mayer said Kerakudas told her those guides should be coming out in early spring or summer, adding she will be in touch again when the time gets closer and to double check the information.

Board Chair Lela Patera said the roof on the homestead shack has been completed by board member Eli Salapich, who was excused from Monday’s meeting, and his crew. The next project will be replacing the door on the west wall in the homestead shack.

“A door that is 86 by 32 (inches) is needed,” Clack Museum Chair Lela Patera said.

The board discussed a report prepared by H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation Board President Elaine Morse of a meeting held with the Great Northern Fair Board about responsibilities for museum items on the Great Northern Fairgrounds.

The report updated a list of what items belong to the fair board and which to the museum, provided details about the items explored and the possibility of relocating these items was done, including that the Faber schoolhouse and homestead shack are the property and responsibility of the museum board.

The Great Northern Railway caboose and its contents are owned by the museum and its maintenance and upkeep will be the responsibility of the board, although grounds maintenance and upkeep around the caboose are the responsibility of the fair board.

A green and white covered chuckwagon with a hitch and a two-seat buggy now in the fairgrounds horse barn is planned — pending approval of the Fort Assinniboine Preservation Association Board — to be moved Saturday, Oct. 12, to Fort Assinniboine because that is when the fairgrounds winterizes its horse barn and will begin indoor storage.

The agreement discusses farm equipment stored at the fairgrounds by the museum, saying the equipment will be the responsibility of the museum to organize and display but grounds maintenance will remain the responsibility of the fair board. The agreement also discusses a variety of details, including items in the building that housed the museum until the late 1990s and was partially remodeled this year to house the fairgrounds office. The agreement also includes a plan to move the items now or in the future to the future home of the museum on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue.

As members of both boards said at the end of the joint meeting last week, Morse said the discussion of responsibilities went well.

“I thought it was a very positive meeting,” she said. “I thought the reception was good and thought everybody voiced a concern about working together, being cooperative, and we work in the county, so we all need to work together.”

The annual meeting for the museum foundation, date yet to be determined, will feature Montana State University-Northern Assistant Professor Vicki Clouse giving a presentation on local dinosaurs.

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board will hold its next regular meeting Monday, Oct. 14, at 6 p.m. in Havre Inn and Suites.