Jamie examines our 1882 Martini Enfield lever action single shot Northwest Rebellion and Boer War rifle to see it it has been modified to accept 303 cartridges which takes it from an antique to a restricted category with full registration.
Since our inception as a museum in 1947, the collecting of firearms has been an ongoing activity of our collections program. Over the years, our generous donors have given us about 125 rifles and hand guns that run from about 1760 to 1960 or two hundred years of Huronia’s history.
In 2001, the Federal Government implemented a gun registration program and since that time, Nicole Henderson and Jamie have been working with volunteers, Ernie Reid and Brent Hicks to register all our firearms and conform to the new federal legislation. As part of this process the Office of the Chief of Firearms for Ontario periodically reviews museums and firearms retail establishments to check up on registrations.
We have gone through an audit process with Mark Sharp of the Ontario Provincial Police who is the central Ontario Firearms Inspector. He has made recommendations which we are carrying out pertaining to the Firearms regulations. Mark has made a number of suggestions on how to better secure our firearms and to make it more difficult for someone to remove our firearms from the exhibits. In Jamie’s 28 years of museum work, only two thefts have occurred at the museum and both involved hand guns.
Our thanks to Mark, our Firearms Officer, and to Sheryl, our Firearms Verifier, who have helped us to improve our registration, storage and documentation of the museums firearms collections.
Huronia Museum 