The North American Game Warden Museum is located on the grounds of the International Peace Garden and is dedicated to celebrating natural resource protection through educating the public and honoring the profession of Game Wardens and Conservation Officers on both sides of the Canada/US border. 

The North American Game Warden Museum Fund is a permanent endowment fund established to support the programs of the museum.  They have recently launched a campaign to build their endowment fund, through the Winnipeg Foundation, to provide continuous funding for the museum in perpetuity.

The museum's endowment fund was set up by the Manitoba government through the Manitoba Heritage Trust Program, which is facilitated by the Boissevain and Morton Foundation with which to minister the fund through.

Musuem Board President, Blake Patterson, says the endowment fund was opened close to 10 years ago and the growth they saw was very beneficial to the museum for the long-term sustainability.

"Currently, a lot of our funding comes through out board members' fundraising efforts which we felt that long term that it's a difficult thing to sustain," explains Patterson," and so we looked to the endowment fund as a way to grow the funds to the point where we can operate the museum in perpetuity off the interest that's earned from the fund each year."

"Our 10-year goal is to build that fund to where we can operate through the fund, on its own, without a whole bunch of fundraising efforts," he adds.

Their target amount is $750,000 to which they already have secured close to $200,000.00.  They are working with granting opportunities to grow their fund, as well as reach out to folks and organizations during tax time for people to consider donating to their endowment fund.

Sargent Blake Patterson has been a Conservation Officer in the Swan River region of Manitoba for 17 years. Patterson's fellow CO's were on the Board of Directors for the North American Game Warden Museum and had approached him in 2010 to join the Board.  Patterson joined at that time and has held the title of Board President now for 7 years. 

The International Peace Garden will be holding their Santa Day event and the opening of the newly constructed Conservatory which houses the cacti and succulent collection on Saturday, December 9th.  The Game Warden Museum will also be open on December 9th from 11am - 4pm. 

Please listen to more with Blake Patterson below!

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