“We want to start telling our story,” said Rod Webb, a member of the Lakeland Interpretive Society, about a recent $100,000 donation from the group to help rebuild a 98-year old ship model.
The society, whose members share an interest in preserving Lac La Biche’s archives and historical items, recruited a ship model expert in Vancouver to take the 14 foot long and almost four feet wide ship model apart and make it new again.
The Empress of France ship model’s history in Lac La Biche has been one of neglect over the past few years, when it was left without proper casing and became exposed to cigarette smoke, garbage and sunlight. But the local group is trying to restore the ship to its original look when it came to Lac La Biche in 1948.
According to historical documents compiled by members of the Lakeland Interpretive Society, Father J.E. McGrane requested a ship model be built to help the local sea cadets that were established here more than 70 years ago. McGrane called upon the help of J.E. March, an assistant manager at Canadian Pacific Railway in Montreal at the time to get a ship model sent to Lac La Biche and a few months later, the model arrived.
Although there isn’t much information available on where the ship was built, members of the society do know that the ship is built to a 1:48 scale of the original Empress of France and was made in 1912. The ship model is only one of two in the world and the other model sits in a nautical museum in New Orleans, which makes the Lac La Biche model that much more important to local interpretive society members.
“It is one of the few remaining artifacts from his [Father McGrane] time in our community and it is a very valuable piece of Lac La Biche’s history,” said Webb.
The ship builder in Vancouver is still rebuilding the model and Webb anticipates the ship will be finished in about a year’s time. The group is hoping by then the Empress of France model and its protective casing will be able to come home to a specific place dedicated to local historical items so that it can be properly taken care of. The group is meeting with Lac La Biche County Council at this week’s council meeting in hopes of getting approval to manage the archives and to get a room where they can properly store the historical items and documents.
“We would like to see a museum or a proper place to store our archives,” said Webb, adding they want to pass the area’s history on to the youth in the community and the ship model project is a great educational item.
“The ship was brought to our community as an educational tool and once restored, it will continue to educate the youth of our society.”
