Even as the museum’s director, Laural Kurta says it’s beyond her what attracts people to the hamlet of Torrington to walk through a darkened room and peer into lit-up holes that display taxidermied Richardson’s ground squirrels.
“Something about this little place has captured the hearts and imaginations of thousands and thousands of people. And I think that’s really special. I personally don’t get it.”
For someone who says she doesn’t get it, Kurta has a lot of ideas — you might call them dreams — for the one-room museum.
She’s keen to take the space into a new era — one that looks beyond depicting the life and times of Torrington and peers into the lives of Albertans and Canadians, maybe even exploring popular culture themes like Star Trek and Harry Potter.
Kurta didn’t just grow up in Torrington, which is 85 kilometres northeast of Calgary. Her parents established the Gopher Hole Museum and took care of the space from the beginning, in the ’90s. Now, it’s her turn, and she’s a few years into the role.
So far, she’s facing two challenges, one big and one small. To shift the museum’s focus, she needs new dioramas, and taxidermied gophers are expensive. She’s also tight on space, and the historic buildings that house the current exhibit are failing.
The first challenge: stuffed rodents.
“This one I did myself,” she said, showing off one of the museum’s newest dioramas. It’s a work in progress, a piece that commemorates Alberta’s wildland firefighters.
“My husband and I … we went to Toronto to take a class on how to stuff rats,” she said. “We’ve never done that on a date night before.”
For years, visitors have been asking for new displays. Now, she’s ready to get to work on them.
“I got a message from a woman who said, ‘Hey, I have a weird question.’ I get a lot of those. The truth is, we run a gopher museum, there’s no weird questions.”
The woman, who works for Alberta Wildfire, wondered if the museum would ever consider making a wildland firefighter display.
The Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington Alta. will soon feature a new display that honours the brave work of wildland firefighters.
The answer?
Of course!
Soon she was opening a care package. The box was filled with items to help outfit Alberta Wildfire’s newest furry employee, second only to the organization’s Forest Protection Special Agent Bertie Beaver.
“Bertie will always be No. 1 in our hearts, absolutely, but I think they can work together well,” said Alberta Wildfire spokesperson Christie Tucker.
She visited the museum to see the progress on the diorama and delivered a mini water bomber. It was her first time at the museum. Tucker said she’d always wanted to visit, but on road trips between Calgary and Edmonton she never managed to pull off the highway and make the trip.
“It’s a little off the beaten track, you know,” she said. “It was fantastic to actually have a great excuse to go meet the family who runs it.”
The rodent is kitted out in fireproof PPE (personal protective equipment) just like the province’s other firefighters. Tucker said the gopher has a serious, determined, little look on his face like it has been through a couple of wildfire seasons.
“I think it’s an incredible honour to be chosen to be one of those pillars of Alberta life,” she said. “I think a lot of wildland firefighters have a great sense of humour and they enjoy some of the aspects of small-town Alberta life. And this is certainly a treat for many people.”
Kurta hopes to finish up the diorama in time for the museum’s season, which starts in May, but she’s working on more displays over the winter.
Big dreams, shy on space
But the big challenge, she stresses, is space. The current buildings — one that houses the museum and the other the gift shop — are old and failing.
Kurta said she’d almost secured a new building to plop onto the existing property but discovered too late that the land was zoned residential and she’d need to jump through hoops before taking that next step.
For now, she said, she’s just making new gophers and waiting to see what happens next, determined to keep the museum alive.
“It’s been here for almost 30 years. It has a firm place in Alberta’s image itself. Quirky, weird. Going to do it anyway,” she said. “Just the determination and ingenuity of a group of people who were trying desperately to save their town. And that’s what this museum is about … the people that come here.”
