Removal of Cowboy Hall of Fame in Williams Lake Being Considered

The B.C Cowboy Heritage Society is contemplating of pulling the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame from the Museum of the Cariboo-Chilcotin in Williams Lake.

President Mark McMillan says what they see at the Museum at this point and its’ new location at the Tourism Discovery Centre they are not happy.

He says they believe that that they do not have the room or the security.

“So in our eyes, the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame is being buried although I’d hate to see it leave Williams Lake because I think Williams Lake in the heart of cowboy country is the ideal spot for it,” he explains.

“I do want the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame to be recognized and to be enjoyed by the public…Ashcroft, Clinton or even Kamloops I’m sure would be happy to have the B.C Cowboy Hall of Fame in their venue.”

McMillan says that hopefully, the City will be looking at a future home for the Museum because then in that respect there will be no changes.

“Our ideal thoughts and I’ve expressed this in a letter to Mayor and Council in the form of a question as to can they foresee a home for the museum somewhere. Our ideal thoughts would be if they did come up with a building for the museum that it could display the Hall of Fame,” he says.

“The old building even though it was old there was people that I spoke to that spent hours in that Museum going through all the artifacts and memorabilia from different cowboys and the ranching industry whereas now a person goes into that Museum and they’re in there for maybe 15 minutes and then they’re done.”

The BC Cowboy Hall of Fame according to the BBHS website was started by the Society in 1998 to capture the memories and share the stories of ‘hardworking and often forgotten’ cowboys that carved B.C’s history out of the wilderness.

“Is the TDC a viable site for the Museum?” CAO Milo MacDonald asked at a Tuesday committee whole meeting in which Museum Board members expressed similar concerns to Mayor and Council and also discussed the move to the TDC.

“I think for the time being it’s certainly the best site that we have,” he said.

“I think that in the long run I know there’s the appetite on the part of the Museum Society to have a permanent home and I think that permanent home is an achievable goal but that’s an achievable goal once we’ve figured out a funding mechanism for that. I think there’s a good chance that will involve a referendum potentially and fairly large amounts of public funding so in the interim I think this is a good opportunity to increase the visibility of the Museum.”