A small team of volunteers was busy setting up Christmas light displays at the Central B.C. Railway and Forestry Museum on Saturday to keep a Prince George holiday tradition alive.
The museum will hold its annual Celebration of Lights from Dec. 18 to Dec. 24, using many of the displays previously part of the city's Northern Lights Festival. Earlier this month the city canceled the annual event at Connaught Hill Park after Tourism Prince George backed away from coordinating the event.
Museum park maintenance supervisor Brian Wich said it has been a last-minute scramble to get the lights set up, but the results should be spectacular.
"We just found out about it last week. They [the city] very generously said we can borrow [the displays] for a year," Wich said. "Normally the city staff start setting up in October, when the ground is soft. They spike them in. We're trying to find places where we can lean it up safely. It's going to be quite a learning curve."
Eight volunteers were at the museum helping set up on Saturday morning, despite the frigid cold weather. Wich said he was expecting more in the afternoon.
"We don't even know if it all works. Apparently vandalism was quite a problem up on Connaught Hill," Wich said. "We'll be tweaking it and working on it right up to the eighteenth."
Once it is all set up, visitors will be able to tour the animated light displays on foot or on the museum's mini train, he said.
"There is going to be Christmas carolers. Santa will be here... and a big bonfire with smores and hot chocolate -you can't do that on Connaught Hill," he said. "There is lots to see and lots to do."
Volunteers are still needed between Dec. 18 and Dec. 24 to help host the event, which will run to 8 p.m. nightly and until 6 p.m. on Dec. 24. Admission on Dec. 18 will be free with a donation of a nonperishable food item to local food banks.
Some of the museum's exhibits will be open to view on the grounds, and inside a massive model Christmas village will be on display.
Lisa Smith has been displaying her private collection of Christmas model houses and miniatures at the museum for four years.
"I've got well over 500 [model] houses. They all light up and some of them move. There are trees and figurines and [model] train running through," Smith said.
This year the display will fill two rooms upstairs at the museum. Smith began collecting around 2000, mostly looking for secondhand pieces, and eventually her collection filled her entire living room over Christmas.
She approached the museum four years ago hoping to share her collection with more than the people she knows in town.
"This is my obsession," Smith said with a laugh. "The kids just love it. They come up and see it and are just like, 'wow.'"
