All the Cochrane Vintage Riders Snowmobile Club wants for its museum is to continue to coexist with the Polar Bear Habitat.
The museum is at the Polar Bear Habitat. The foundation working on assuming control of the habitat from the municipality wants the building for another use.
Vintage Riders board member Dan Girard acknowledges that the town now owns the building, which was built with government grants secured by the club.
“I mean we understand the town wants to divest themselves out of the Polar Bear Habitat because of the taxpayers and all this,” Girard remarks. “But we just feel that we’re being sold out and nobody cares.”
He says without that location, the museum will close and his club will fold. That, in turn, means
“We’ve raised over $60,000 with our Tom Saul Ride for our chemo room at the Lady Minto Hospital. So that will never happen again.”
Neither would snowmobile oval races on Lake Commando. Girard says they have provided a huge economic spinoff for local businesses in their first two years.