Powell Baswick started at the museum in 1998 as the assistant curator. The week she took the "captain's seat" at the museum as the new director curator. Virginia Anger, who served at the helm of the museum for 20 years, retired last month.

"I'm captain of the ship now," said Powell Baswick, who is eager to get into her new role. She is even looking forward to filing invoices. "I'm really looking forward to doing some of the things I haven't done before."

Powell Baswick started her career in the museum field as a university graduate. After graduating from McMaster University, she wanted a fun summer job before finding a career.

She got a job working at the Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum.

"I loved it," said Powell Baswick, who worked for a couple other Niagara Parks Commission museums before settling in at the Port Colborne museum. "It was such a fun job I just knew I wanted to work in a museum. It's never boring."

When Powell Baswick planned the latest exhibit for the museum, "odd ball artifacts," she knew it may have been her last. So she wanted to do something unique, something that hadn't been done before. So she gathered up some the strangest of the 16,000 artifacts in the museum's collection and put them all together.

"It's a very unique exhibit," said Powell Baswick. "It was a really good opportunity for me to really look at the artifacts in depth. It was a good exhibit to go out on."

While Powell Baswick has been planning the museum's exhibits and events since 1998, she is looking forward to stepping up and leaving her old job to a trusted colleague, former education programmer Lynn van Dillen.

Van Dillen started volunteering at the museum 20 years ago. She started off cataloguing articles and really had an interest in artifacts. She tried her hand at assistant curator a few years ago when Powell Baswick was on maternity leave.

"I got my feet wet a few years ago and really enjoyed it," said van Dillen who is already planning her first exhibit, which will open in May 2009. "I've had some exposure to planning exhibits but I am really looking forward to making my mark."

The new assistant curator will be showing off her work earlier with the annual Christmas celebrations that take place at the museum. The museum celebrates its Christmas festival Dec. 7.

While Powell Baswick is looking forward to getting into her new role, she said she won't be filling Anger's shoes.

"I don't want to think of it as filling her shoes," she said. "I'd like to try to walk my own path and make my own mark. Virginia did such a good job that it has made the transition easier, but I'm not trying to fill her shoes."