The Post Road Heritage Group is constructing a new building at Fort Dufferin near Emerson.
Chairperson Marlyn Empson gave an update on the new Officers' Mess Kitchen.
"We've got a good start on it. The studding is all up, the rafters, the roof is on and we're just in the process of getting it sheathed in right now. We've come to realize that when we first got quotes and began this process, we didn't realize we'd run into a shortage of lumber and price hikes. Right now, we're scrambling trying to find cedar shingles that went from, would have cost us about $3,000 for the roof, to now over $14,000."
She says they had budgeted a total of about $63,000 dollars for the project, however with the cost of lumber, that price has soared to about $85,000. The project has received a Building Sustainable Communities Program Grant of $31,500 from the Government of Manitoba. Further fundraising efforts continue.
Empson explained how the mess kitchen would have been used by the International Boundary Commission, whose mandate was to mark the Canada/U.S. border from the Lake of the Woods up to the Rocky Mountains.
"It was built so it was four or five feet away from the officers' quarters, which means that's where the food was cooked and served and it was actually a short little walk over to their quarters for the officers, so the food would be taken over to them to eat in their rooms. It was one one of the remaining buildings from 1872 until we dismantled it, along with our Interpretive Centre, which used to be a storage shed and one of the original latrines that is still there."
Empson says they were able to save a lot of the lumber from that original building. She notes there were 25 buildings originally located at Fort Dufferin.
A grand opening is planned to take place at Heritage Days on September 25th.