The Britannia Mine Museum has been transformed, and museum staff showed off its many new exhibits and features during a grand reopening Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 18 and 19).
The two days attracted over 500 visitors, according to executive director Kirstin Clausen.
Its been a very good weekend and weve exceeded our expectations as far as attendance, she said. The parking lot has been full both days and its just an amazing site now.
Some of the new additions to the museum include the Beaty-Lundin visitor centre, a new gift shop, the A-Z administration building and a new station for the popular gold panning exhibit.
Clausen said the most popular new exhibit seems to vary by age.
A lot of our long-time members really enjoyed the administration building which houses a number of interesting artifacts representing each letter of the alphabet, she said.
Kids and families love the new gold panning station but I think everyone loves the dynamite blower.
The dynamite blower is located in the visitor centre, which also boasts a theatre showing a 15-minute film on the history of mining in British Columbia as well as a number of valuable rock samples and other artifacts.
Elisabeth Sherlock and her two sons Sam and George spent a lot of time at the new gold panning exhibit and were impressed by the improvements.
Its awesome, Sherlock said as her children panned for gold. Were members of the museums so were really happy with the changes theyve made.
She said she was pleasantly surprised by the attention to detail in each exhibits, such as the heated water in the gold panning station and the fantastic movie shown at the visitors centre.
Karen Johnson made the trek from Vancouver and brought along her husband Sid and their grandchild Lukas Dowsett. The gold panning and the antique drills were among their favourite exhibits, and all three said they plan to return.
This whole day today was very well done, said Johnson. I think everyone working here did an amazing job and we will definitely be back.
Clausen said the project couldnt have been completed without the support of the people of Squamish.
I think this is a museum that Squamish can really be proud of, she said. We realize that were here because people in Squamish wanted this museum and supported it.
The Britannia Beach Mine Museum is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information on the museum, visit www.bcmm.ca.
