Clack Museum visitation hit by COVID-19

H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board discussed at its monthly meeting Monday recent museum visitation, potential plans for upcoming events and progress on the museum’s eventual new location.

Museum Manager Emily Mayer said visitation is down due to the recent surge of COVID-19, which she said she’s not surprised by, given the situation.

Mayer said two local school groups have had to cancel visits to the museum recently due to COVID-19, but she’s been told they will try to come back in the spring when the COVID-19 situation is hopefully better.

She also said she recently went to the Charles M. Bair Family Museum in Martinsdale, which gave her some ideas for the Clack Museum.

She said it had a touch screen that allowed visitors to select specific artifacts that it would display information on and she said she thinks that might be an interesting idea for their museum some time in the future.

Mayer also visited Chinook earlier this month to hear Nez Perce elder LeRoy Seth talk about the Nez Perce Flight of 1877 and the Battle of the Bear Paws, which she thought was impressive.

She said she bought some raffle tickets in order to win the limited edition “Hear Me, My Chiefs” Pendleton blanket commemorating the battle, which she hoped to display at the museum, but had no such luck.

She also talked about a few recent fossil donations to the museum including one of unknown origin with a shell fragment embedded in it which she thought was pretty interesting.

After the status update on the museum, H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation President Elaine Morse provided her own update on the museum’s eventual new location at the former Griggs Printing Building on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue.

Morse said the bathrooms are being worked on, but wall preparation and painting has been the main focus recently.

She said there are still places that need to be cleaned up, and she’s still waiting on the windows to be reinserted, which should be happening this week.

The board also discussed the potential for holding their Dinosaur Christmas event. They decided not to make a final decision until next month on whether to hold the event, which they said wouldn’t be a problem since the event can be set up fairly quickly.