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New military history museum to open soon in central Alberta

Veterans Voices of Canada History Interest and Learning Centre to open in Sylvan Lake
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The new micro museum in Sylvan Lake will showcase a wide range of historical artifacts, uniforms and veteran videos. (Contributed photo)

Veterans Voices of Canada will be making veteran’s stories available at a micro museum in Sylvan Lake scheduled to open on April 1.

Al Cameron, Veterans Voices founder, said the Veterans Voices of Canada History Interest and Learning Centre, located at 202-5015 50th St., is still a work in progress, but it will be open ready or not.

“There’s going to be some amazing things in here right off the top to see,” Cameron said.

“It’s not a big space, about 2,000 square feet. But it’s going to be a packed full of history space.”

The centre will make available some of the over 2,000 on-camera interviews with veterans that Cameron has done over the years, as well as artifacts from those veterans on display.

“A good majority of the artifacts here have a story attached to it, a person attached to it, and that’s what I want to focus on, the individuals.

“We will have some in-your-face true history and artifacts here. There’s not going to be censorship here. It’s going to be exactly what history was. That’s what I like about what we’re doing here.”

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He said there’s also a plan to bring in history and military speakers, and tours will be available for schools, community groups, and anyone else who wants to learn about Canada’s military history.

A local high school is building displays for the museum, and community businesses are donating building materials, Cameron said.

“It’s going to be an amazing community initiative.”

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Cameron has been collecting veterans’ stories for two decades. Most of them served in the 1939-45 war. But a new project, called The 158, has also been underway to interview 158 Canadian servicemen and women who served in Afghanistan to honour the lives of those who died in the war.

Each year, Veterans Voices has organized flag ceremonies with 128 flags representing Canada’s 128,000 wartime killed and missing. The first ceremony was held in Sylvan Lake in 2014 and it has now spread to communities across Canada.



szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com

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