Museum, visitor information centre busy this summer

By Rob Vogt Local Press Writer
The summer staff at the Claresholm and District Museum have been busy in the museum and visitor information centre all season long.
Jordyn Wallace, who is the museum’s communications and public relations assistant, looks after the visitor information centre which is located in the station building on Highway 2 going through town.
She welcomes visitors and answers a wide variety of questions.
“I can help them plan their trips, plan where to go,” she said.
She graduated from Willow Creek Composite High School in 2020 and will be going into her third year at the University of Lethbridge where she is studying public health.
This is Wallace’s second year at the museum. Last year she was the education program assistant.
Although they are two completely different roles, she has liked them both, and enjoys what she is currently doing.
“I love meeting new people every day from all over the world,” she said. “I get to influence people’s opinion not only of Claresholm but Canada.
“Hopefully they leave with a positive opinion.”
She has observed tourism has really picked up this year as well.
“We’re getting a lot more people,” she noted, adding tour buses have started coming back and there have been a lot of people from Calgary which she finds surprising.
“It’s nice to see local people and from the States (too) now that the border is open,” she said.
Paige Van Dellen, who has been the education program assistant since the beginning of summer, is based at the exhibit hall.
She started by doing school tours where she saw more than 160 students.
“They went really well, they were phenomenal,” Van Dellen said. “They were so fun, the kids were amazing.”
Moreover, being an education assistant was what Van Dellen studied in her first year at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C. this past school year, after graduating from Willow Creek Composite High School in 2021.
She noted it is nice to use what she learned in her job.
Now, she is fulfilling various functions around the museum until her last day on Aug. 26, after which she will return to college in Abbotsford.