Last month, the newly-rebranded Tank 77 Museum in Taber hired a new manager, Taia DeBona. She immediately got to work sorting through old boxes in the archives — a daunting task for such a small organization.
“We have a lot in collections and because I’m new, I’m not really familiar with everything that we have and I’m trying to work on reorganizing everything,” said DeBona.
About a month after she was hired, her first real test arrived. She had her first group tour of the southern Alberta museum.
“I was kind of nervous because it was a bunch of teenagers and I was like, how am I going to occupy a bunch of teenagers?”
However, the group was from a single demographic — air cadets. This gave her an idea to make the tour more interesting.
“I thought, well, I should get all of our war stuff because I thought they might be interested in it,” said DeBona.
It was at this point, one week ago, when things got interesting at the museum. Buried in a plastic box was a baseball-sized object.
“There, sitting in one of the boxes was the grenade. At the time, I just thought, oh it’s just a prop because in the same box there were tons of props and kids toys.”
Without really paying too much attention, DeBona closed the box and put it back on the shelf. She hosted the tour and everything carried on as usual for another seven days.
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But then, on Thursday, she and her partner were digging through all the boxes again when they opened the very same one as before.
“We opened up the box and kind of got a better look at it and went, that’s metal — that’s not plastic. Then, I picked it up and you hear the pin kind of rattle and it’s heavy in your hand. I’m looking at it and I go, this looks really real,” said DeBona.
Her partner, having learned the appearance of various Second World War weapons from video games, believed it looked like a Mk. 2 grenade, also called a pineapple grenade.
“So, this is when we kind of start panicking. Our brains were not working and it’s funny because there was, like, an hour where we just had it set on the ground.”
DeBona says they told another co-worker who was amazed they hadn’t already called the police.
“The first thing, she was like, ‘Call the police, obviously!’ But for some reason, I didn’t want them to show up and (it turn out to be fake).”
When they did contact Taber police, she says officers took it seriously and evacuated the area.
On the Taber Police Service’s Facebook page, they directed the public to stay away.
“In an abundance of caution, the museum and the Aquafun Centre were closed. Taber Police will remain on scene until bomb disposal experts can deal with the grenade.”
This was enough for ‘the Peter Parker of Taber’ to make his way to the site.
“I saw the police had put out a post on their Facebook page saying there is an intact grenade found at the Taber museum, so I basically rushed down here on my bike,” said Jordan White, the creator and publisher of the popular Fire_man_2017 social media account.
White regularly listens on a scanner for the activities of the fire departments in the area and he says it’s important to keep those in his community informed whenever something happens.
“I have a hobbyist interest in the fire department. So, I’ll go around with my handheld scanner, which I purchased for over $1,000 and I’ll film and take pictures of the fire department and publish anything that’s going on on the scanner.”
He was on scene for a few hours as the police shut down the area and the military arrived from Suffield to collect the device.
“It’s awesome to know that people in this community support and appreciate my page because not a lot of small towns, or even cities, get this kind of support or recognition of things that are going on in certain areas of town,” said White.
The whole ordeal was rather surreal for DeBona.
“Nobody goes to work and thinks, ‘I’m going to find a real grenade today!’”
She says the Tank 77 Museum may just need to dedicate a space to display this story, preferably with an actual prop grenade included.
“Every day is a surprise, the things that I find or the things that people bring in. So, it’s really cool because every day is different, it doesn’t stagnate. I just hope I don’t get as big of a surprise as a grenade again.”
She also thanked the Taber Police Service for their professionalism and drive to keep everyone safe during what could have been a much more explosive situation.
The museum was open again by Friday.
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