Mayor Bill Powalinsky and President Michael Gagne of the Prince Albert Historical Society signed a 10 year funding deal on Monday. (Susan McNeil/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

New deals

Museum looks forward to future with new city funding deal

Nov 17, 2025 | 4:19 PM

Preserving the past will be simpler in the future for Prince Albert’s Historical Society after signing a long-term agreement with the city.

President Michael Gagne said the society can now plan for bigger things, like improving accessibility, because the deal covers their annual budgetary needs for things like staffing and operations.

“When I first joined the society, we were having struggles with funding. You get grants, you try to have visitors pay but I mean, we’re a museum. I’d rather have us free for people to come and see things,” he said.

Their most iconic building, the old fire hall on River Street and Central Avenue, could soon see an addition to make it more accessible.

“You can’t get to all three floors if you’re in a wheelchair or you’re having difficulty with mobility,” Gagne said. “Our archives, which are one of the largest archives in Western Canada, are in a dingy basement of a 1912 fire hall so we’ve got to get them out of there for safety’s sake.”

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The last deal they could find was signed in 2009 but it had fell by the wayside over the years so two years ago, they started negotiating with the city.

Their new agreement signed at the historic firehall on River Street on November 17, has an annual cost of living increase, which was a key factor for Society members.

“We don’t need to go hat in hand every year to be able to keep our employees on our roll and secondly, the city has a system where external agencies go every December basically requesting what they want in their budgets. We don’t have to do that now. We’re now part of the city budget.”

The new agreement is worth about $100,000 annually and helps pay for the city’s four museums. It has a 10-year term but does not have an ending date so at the end of the decade, they can just re-negotiate the deal.

Having a negotiated funding agreement is also a welcome move for the city.

Mayor Bill Powalinsky said the city sees its responsibility and the importance of services beyond roads, water and sewer.

“The things that we’re doing today will become the history of tomorrow and the future. Down the road we’ll look back and say today were the good old days that we need to record,” he said.

The previous council began the work of transitioning the organizations they fund to longer term agreements and the current council is continuing that.

“There’s always things that we need to work out in terms of longer-term agreements, but it does help the sustainability of these excellent organizations and services that are provided.”

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com