Having abandoned its original site beside the Peterborough Lift Lock due to soil contamination, the Canadian Canoe Museum now wants to build its new facility at Johnson Park — just north of Beavermead Park and beside Parks Canada’s Trent-Severn Waterway head office.
The municipally owned property is located at 2077 Ashburnham Drive, between Maria Street and Marsdale Drive and across from Eastgate Memorial Park. The property is adjacent to the Trans Canada Trail that connects Rogers Cover with Beavermead Park.
The museum made the announcement in a media release issued on Thursday (November 26).
“The Canadian Canoe Museum is extremely hopeful that the Johnson Park location will emerge as a viable site for the new museum build project,” says the museum’s executive director Carolyn Hyslop. “We are bolstered by the support of the City of Peterborough and the Otonabee Region Conservation Authority who are involved in the feasibility exploration.”
The museum states that, as part of the overall due diligence exploration and feasibility studies, environmental assessment and testing is scheduled to take place on the property from November 30th to December 2nd, with test results expected by the end of the year.
On October 28th, the museum announced it had terminated its lease agreement with Parks Canada for the originally planned site of the new museum — land located alongside the Peterborough Lift Lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway at 353 Hunter Street East.
In May, an independent investigation by the museum determined the site, owned by Parks Canada, contains the chemical compound trichloroethylene (TCE), along with a variety of other chemicals.
