Military vehicle restoration group aims to start new museum
CBC
An antique engine rumbles to life in a St. Albert garage filled to the brim with old jeeps, trucks, and even armoured vehicles.
Sitting at the wheel of the GMC six-by-six is 82-year-old Reg Hodgson, demonstrating that the mass-produced truck — like all the vehicles there — actually works. The former NAIT dean has amassed a large collection of rare Second World War vehicles over the decades.
He's allied himself with a burgeoning effort to get them into a new museum.
"I think it's very important that somebody looks after and preserves this for future generations," said Hodgson.
"We have had a number of youth groups here … where the teachers would like to bring them to a facility like this and show them what some of the Canadian contributions were in World War II."
The non-profit Valour Park Association started about 1½ years ago, made up of a group of collectors who want to share Canadian military history. They say the country's war-time contributions — from past to present — have too often been left out of schools and pop culture.
Part of the association's work is buying or taking donated vehicles and having members restore them back to original use.
"It's taken a while to be able to do that because there's a lot of licensing that has to go along with it," said president Scott Collacutt, a 21-year veteran mechanic of the Canadian Armed Forces. The group's 18-tonne Staghound armoured car, for instance, required licences to be able to restore its armour and armament.
Members have also attended events in the Edmonton region, vehicles in tow, to share their knowledge and spread awareness of the educational effort.
"Myself and several other members of the association were friends for years," Collacutt said. "And we decided to put this together to save our history and, and to tell our history, and to bring the younger generation on."
A large aim of the organization is the creation of a museum to display the intricately restored hardware. Collacutt envisions a space where visitors can interact with the vehicles — fully operational and replete with period-accurate accoutrements like marker tags or even gas cans — and the use of virtual reality.
"We also want to bring this museum into the 21st century, it's not going to be just static display."
WATCH | Restorers of military vehicles want to open museum:
Collacutt estimates the association will be able to break ground in just a few years.
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.