Hello Keewatin Supporters,

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of the Rally to Keep Keewatin Home. So what has changed in 12 months? The answer: not a lot...and this is both a good thing and bad.

Skyline Investments is still intent on sending the ship to a museum in Kingston which has no natural connection to the vessel's history. We argue that the ship is not in a safe state to travel, and this is especially true after three years of neglect at the hands of Skyline: qualified curators and engineers have been denied access to the ship, and Skyline maintain that any issues are being dealt with 'in house' (whatever that means).

The Minister for Canadian Heritage has approved Kingston's category B heritage designation, which would theoretically allow them to take possession of the ship. However, Skyline is only interested if they receive a tax windfall in excess of $10M from Canadian taxpayers. We do not believe that the Government of Canada would be foolish enough to finance such a move, and both our former MP Bruce Stanton and current MP Adam Chambers have made this exceptionally clear in Ottawa.

In the meantime, the new Canadian Museum of Water is quickly developing, with a team of experts from the tourism, heritage, finance, and business worlds. At present we are the only Canadian member of the UNESCO-endorsed Water Museums Global Network. Check us out at www.canadianmuseumofwater.org . We expect to have charity status by the New Year, and an aggressive fundraising campaign is about to begin. We believe the new national museum is the logical choice for the long-term preservation of this one-of-a-kind vessel. We have the connections, the expertise, and the ambition to keep the Keewatin home.

Keep those signs in the ground until the snow flies, everyone! We will be in touch again if there are any further developments in the near future. 

Dan and the team at #KeepKeewatinHome