More restoration work is underway at the Nordegg National Historic Site thanks to a Parks Canada cost-sharing agreement.

Parks Canada announced on Thursday that it will put $125,000 into the $250,000 project, with an additional $60,000-plus coming from the Alberta Historic Resources Fund and a little more than $60,000 coming from Clearwater County and the Nordegg Historic Society.

Joe Baker, West Country manager of Clearwater County, said the largest amount of money will go to the boiler house, with around $120,000 going to fix up the brick work and also put a steel roof over the boilers that will provide protection from sun and moisture.

Baker said one of the houses on site will receive close to $40,000 in restoration work, with new roofing and siding going on the 70-to-80-year-old building.

A dynamite shed will also be worked on, with around $20,000 in restoration being done to it. A number of other smaller restoration projects will also be done around the site.

“We were very, very happy to get the money,” said Tom Clark, chair of the Nordegg Historic Society. Clark said it is a continual operation to maintain and restore the buildings. He said the biggest thing is deterioration so if they can keep a good roof or cover on things it will last a long time.

“It’s a big site and there is an awful lot to do and we hope some day to have it complete, but it will take an awful lot of money,” Clark said.

In its heyday in the 1940s, there were 5,000 people in the community. The mine shut down in 1955, but in the 1980s tours of the site started up. Now around 2,000 people visit the site each year and 12,000 to 15,000 visit Nordegg’s Brazeau Collieries Minesite Industrial Museum each year.

A tendering process has already taken place for the $250,000 restoration project and work is underway.

Baker said it’s important to keep the mine site up so that it can continue to represent what a coal mining facility looked like. He said it’s the best kept site of this kind in this part of the country because so much of the site is left, with some 50 structures remaining. He said the funding makes all the difference in the restoration.

“It’s just a good shot in the arm. It lets us finish things that have been on the back burner,” Baker said.

The site became a Provincial Historic Resource in 1993 and a National Historic Site in 2002. It is run by the Nordegg Historic Society.

“Even though Parks Canada does not administer it directly, it is very interested in making sure that important people, places and events of cultural significance are remembered,” said Susan Kennard, the heritage program manager for the Banff Field Unit with Parks Canada. Kennard said the Nordegg National Historic Site is important because it is both a culturally significant place and is representative of the people in the community who both developed the mine and are still there today keeping the memories alive.

sobrien@reddeeradvocate.com