Community ready for Grand Re-opening of Taghum Hall
By Nelson Daily Staff
When it was built in the 1950s, the Taghum Hall served as a meeting and place of worship for the Russian Doukhobor community.
However, 60 years later the hall that was constructed from salvaged materials was in desperate need of renovations.
In 2010, there was a desire to keep the Taghum Hall community owned.
After four years of locating funds from sources such as the Community Initiatives Program, Federal Gas Tax/Community Works Funding, Columbia Basin Trust and the Regional District of Central Kootenay, construction started and the community is now ready to show off the new-and-improved Taghum Hall with a Grand Re-Opening on Saturday, February 14 from 1-4 p.m.
“We’re pretty excited,” Taghum Hall vice president Gareth Kernaghan told The Nelson Daily.
“It’s been a pretty long road and were excited to get it done.”
The project, costing approximately $275,000, saw a significant upgrades to the walls along with a re-engineered roof.
There is a new handicap ramp entrance complete with new bathrooms along with new windows the project, under the direction of Peter Gozney Construction and Thomas Loh architects, started in August of 2014.
“A lot of people to have memories of hall and everyone is very excited to see hall and upgrades,” Kernaghan said.
Located 10 kilometers west of Nelson along the shores of the Kootenay River, the Taghum Hall is an independent community-based society with members and volunteers.
Kernaghan said the hall was built back in the 1950s as a place to worship for local Russian Doukhobor community, who formed a society and obtained the present plot of land near the old Taghum Bridge, on the site of a former sawmill.
With lots of volunteer labour and little money, they built the hall from salvaged buildings from the Lemon Creek Japanese Internment Camp.
The original building was wood-heated and had no indoor plumbing.
Over the years, the hall has served as a weekly place for Doukhobor worship, plus as a venue for weddings, funerals, meetings, voting, dinners, and dances for both the Russian community and the community at large.
The strong volunteer base has kept the hall as a vital part of the community.
Improvements were made gradually on shoestring budgets over time. The hardwood floor was salvaged from the fire-damaged Trafalgar Junior High in 1967.
Indoor washrooms and an expanded kitchen were added as a BC Centennial Project in 1971 and a propane heater replaced the wood furnace.
Now the Taghum Hall, which can hold up to 200 people for bookings, begins a new chapter with upgrades to today’s strict building code standards.
The Taghum Community Hall Society welcomes everyone to the grand re-opening, with a ribbon cutting at 1:30 p.m.
There is cake, light snacks complete with live entertainment.
“We’ve been planning this for about six years . . . getting the funding together and other stuff,” Kernaghan said. “It’s been a long road but we’re happy we’ve been able to get where we are today.”
For more information on the Taghum Hall contact info@taghumhall.ca or leave a message at 777-463-1114.
