Port Chalmers Historical Society president Kaye Henderson and committee member Shirley Jack have been hard at work alongside a team of volunteers in recent weeks, putting the finishing touches to the museum’s many displays.
Mrs Henderson said it had been a major logistical challenge to store and protect tens of thousands of artefacts in the museum’s collection and move others around as the work proceeded.
"We are a repository for the local community — particularly of photographs and items of social history," she said.
"So we really needed to keep all those important things safe."
As part of the project, the category 1-listed stone museum building, which has stood at the bottom of George St, Port Chalmers, since 1877, was extended and linked to the steel-and-glass Port Otago administration building.
The two buildings are linked by a glass extension and internal laneway, and include an elevated viewing space where members of the public can look out over the port.
The extension allowed space for a wall of ship models and the creation of an "ABCDarium", which features artefacts and information based on each letter of the alphabet.
The museum displays in the new areas were refreshed with the help of a plan designed by Rose Evans of museum consultants ObjectLab.
"We are a much more text-oriented museum than we were before — our walls really contain the distilled history of Port Chalmers," Mrs Henderson said.
Miss Jack said in creating the new displays, the historical society had accessed a lot of good advice and help from Port Otago project manager Jodi Taylor, Toitū Otago Settlers Museum and Tūhura Otago Museum, as well as getting community input from many local volunteers and businesses.
"People have been very keen to get stuck in and help, and we are very grateful to all of them — it made a big job much easier," she said.
She paid particular tribute to DigiArt for its text designs and Pete Densem of Harbour Fabrication, who came up with solutions for mounting many displays.
The museum’s collections cover a very broad range of subjects, including the early days of settlement, the changing face of the port and its ships, the industries that surrounded it and the social history of the township’s people.
Among its features is the history of the Union Steamship Company, which ran ships, airlines, a hotel and other businesses, and was a major employer.
The Port Chalmers Historical Society also fitted out a social history room, displaying images and artefacts of day-to-day life.
• The redeveloped Port Chalmers Maritime Museum will open to the public at noon on Saturday, October 19.
