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An exciting opportunity Paul Bickford Northern News Services Published Monday, February 13, 2012
"It struck me as a very beautiful museum the first time I saw it and I've seen museums all over the place," he said, noting it was his family's passion to visit museums when he was growing up.
He is now the Northern Life Museum's executive director, having been hired for that position in late October.
"It's a very exciting opportunity," he said, noting he is just 27 but already the executive director of an organization.
Despite his relatively young age, Doucet, who is originally from New Brunswick, has the educational background and work experience which seem tailor-made for his new role.
While in Grade 12, he worked as an unpaid intern at the Moncton Museum, near his hometown of Dieppe. In that role, he was involved in such things as organizing summer camps and creating educational kits for schools.
"So that was my first step into museums," he recalled.
Doucet went on to earn a bachelor's degree in leisure studies and a master's degree in public administration, both from the University of Moncton.
Later, he worked for a year at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, focusing on education and programming.
Doucet said he has been in museums almost his whole life. "For some reason, I always came back to it."
As executive director of Northern Life Museum, he works under the overall guidance of a board of directors, which sets the tone and orientation of the museum.
"We want to build more interest towards the actual collection, towards the actual history and the culture that surrounds us here," he said, explaining one way to create more interest in the collection is to build educational kits and bring in younger children.
"We also want to make interactive areas inside this museum so that it becomes more of a hands-on experience," Doucet said. "We don't want to say that it's hands-on at the museum, but we do want to bring in reproductions and things like that. We want to bring the museum to life."
In essence, he said the museum wants its facilities - its cultural centre, galleries and exhibits - to be utilized by all different groups in the community.
At the same time, Doucet said the aim is to continue offering public programming, such as workshops.
"In terms of our events calendar, we do as much or even more than most museums," he noted. "We have an extremely active events calendar."
Doucet is one of two employees at the museum - along with administration and events co-ordinator Diane Seals - and that means he does a variety of work.
"It's an extremely nice learning curve," he said. "You get to go hands-on and get all that experience, and this is what I really enjoy here."
Along with obtaining funding and other management duties, he is also the acting curator, along with the assistance of volunteer Ray Currie. However, he said the goal is to eventually hire a curator.
His journey North to Fort Smith started last February when he was hired as a development agent with the Fort Smith Francophone Association.
"I'd never been in the North so I definitely wanted to see what it was all about," he said, noting he had previously only been as far west in Canada as Ottawa and Toronto.
Doucet is also a reserve member of the Canadian Armed Forces. He still goes for training and is attached to an infantry company in Yellowknife, even though he is trained in armoured reconnaissance.
"You're kind of like a consultant, because myself I'm an officer," he said, noting he has the rank of second lieutenant.
However, his full-time position is at Northern Life Museum.
Doucet said the people of Fort Smith are extremely fortunate to have the museum in their community. "The value here is beyond amazing."
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