Fort St. Joseph's Management Plan

Discovering history in Fort St. Joseph’s museum
© Parks Canada

Living history through re-enactments
© Parks Canada

By Jeanette Cowen

When you hear the words management planning, what comes to mind? Be honest! Does it sound complicated? Boring? Maybe you understand it to be an internal exercise without public input. This couldn't be further from the truth!

Management planning is a time to celebrate past successes, re-evaluate goals, and create new strategies for the future. It is a time for Parks Canada to take stock of a site and set a course for its future. We are currently engaged in management planning for Fort St. Joseph National Historic Site. We’ve completed an assessment of the fort’s current situation, including the condition of its cultural resources and contemporary assets, as well as, its visitor experiences, external support, aboriginal engagement, and species at risk.

The evaluation has helped us identify areas for improvement and change. Since Fort St. Joseph is a relatively small national historic site, with a small staff and modest budget, we intend to focus our efforts on three key strategies for the future; (1) “attracting more new and repeat visitors”, (2) “collaborating with external partners to diversify the programs offered on site”, and (3) “maintaining good condition of cultural and contemporary assets”.

Consultations will begin shortly, because we do want to hear from our valued partners and stakeholders, as well as, the general public. We will be soliciting feedback in meetings and focus groups from organizations, who already collaborate with us and/or might want to become more involved. In late Spring we will host two open houses, one on St. Joseph Island and the second in Sault Ste. Marie, to share a draft of Fort St. Joseph’s new management plan.

Public input is an important part of management planning and we would like to hear your thoughts and ideas on the future of Fort St. Joseph, one of our nation's cultural treasures. For more information and updates, please visit the Fort St. Joseph National Historic Site website and select ‘Site Management’ from the menu on the left.

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