"We're the Fort la Reine Museum. So, without our Fort, what really are we?"

That's Fort la Reine Museum Executive Director Madison Connolly in reference to applications for funding going out to upgrade the Museum's deteriorating structures.

"This past fall we undertook a massive initiative here just to try and get a better idea for what we need to do to upgrade our heritage buildings," explains Connolly. "The major initiative we took was hiring some building inspectors to come in and do a massive inspection for all of our buildings."

She notes 25 buildings were assessed to provide an idea of where their priorities in fundraising should be, and the costs that will be involved. Connolly says safety is the most important factor, covering visitors, artifacts, and the buildings themselves.

"The Fort alone will cost a quarter of $1-million to restore," she continues, "but we did decide that a major upgrade we needed to do was for our Quonset building. This is not a public building, but it is kind of our storage facility where we store all of our artifacts and donations not on display. Our next priority that the inspectors did outline was, of course, the Fort complex. The bastions, or the wooden towers on each side of the Fort, are completely falling over. It poses a risk for our visitors, but we've had to move our collection out of there. There's nothing being stored in those towers right now."

Connolly adds they applied for a major grant already, and are working on a second one to fund-raise for the project. She explains, once the first grant is provided, they can begin work on the project this summer. She adds, however, there's a lot of competition out there for these kinds of grants. So, she notes, they'll continue with their fundraising initiative and look for other sources of funding during the application process in case they fall through.