Western Development Museum evacuees respond to Sunday incident

On Sunday, the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon was evacuated because of a burning smell after a power outage.

The museum was full of people who had their visits cut short. But not many of them saw this as a negative.

Janis McNutt is from Fredericton, NB. She was in Saskatoon visiting her nieces.

She went to the museum to check out Saskatchewan history. While she didn’t get to do much of that, she says it was still an enjoyable experience.

“We’ll be talking about this in the future. We’ll remember when I came to Saskatoon, and we went to the museum, and we weren’t able to stay in,” she said.

She wasn’t worried or scared when the fire department was called. “It just smelled bad,” she said.

Elaine Sandberg was there celebrating her 75th birthday with her family.

She said it made the celebration more exciting.

“It’s not going according to plan, but it’s wonderful, everything unexpectedly happening. The firetrucks added to the excitement and the festivity … we’ve had a chance to enjoy the inside and now the outside,” she said. “It’s great.”

Sandberg didn’t have too many fears or worries when she heard they had to leave the building.

“I was most concerned about the table with all the items I had set out for our fun gift exchange,” she said.

Nobody was injured in the incident. The source of the burning smell was a blown out engine on an air-handling unit.