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Thieves hit tractor museum twice

The Canadian Tractor Museum was broken into twice over the Dec. 15-17 weekend as thieves stole keys, but took nothing of significant value. On Dec. 15 vandals damaged the back fence, broke into the shed and rifled through a truck in the yard.
Canadian Tractor Museum secretary/treasurer and administrator Annette Schwab poses in front of the empty key cabinet thieves pilfered over the weekend.
Canadian Tractor Museum secretary/treasurer and administrator Annette Schwab poses in front of the empty key cabinet thieves pilfered over the weekend.

The Canadian Tractor Museum was broken into twice over the Dec. 15-17 weekend as thieves stole keys, but took nothing of significant value.

On Dec. 15 vandals damaged the back fence, broke into the shed and rifled through a truck in the yard. Then on Dec. 17, thieves broke into the museum and stole all the keys from a cabinet and a few garbage bins. Nothing was damaged except for some garbage tossed on the floor.

Secretary/treasurer and administrator Annette Schwab said it’ll cost $1,000 to replace all the locks — a bill they can’t afford — not including the gate lock and labour. She said the specially-designed keys are numbered and can’t be replicated.

This recent round is the third time since the fall that the museum has been targeted.

“If they want to break into the museum, there’s nothing for them to take,” she said. “We have no money, no valuables. Our computer is so outdated. We have nothing of value in this museum. Why do you want to steal? There are souvenirs and if you’re so hard up, we’ll give you one. You don’t have to break in. They’ve caused a lot of trouble for us.”

She added that thieves wouldn’t be able to steal tractor parts and sell them because the antique parts are well documented.

The RCMP is investigating the crimes and it is not known how many people were involved or whether they were the same individuals.

Although she said some thought the two incidents may have been related, Schwab didn’t think so and wondered if the people from Sunday were spooked and grabbed the keys with a plan to come back.

“Friday’s guys were vandals,” she said. “They were breaking stuff and throwing stuff all over the place. In the museum they left us intact. They weren’t destroying stuff, they weren’t stealing stuff, they weren’t breaking things. They could have vandalized that whole gift shop.”

Schwab first learned of the Friday break-in from a passerby the next day.

Normally working during the week, she decided to come in on Saturday to catch up. At noon she heard a knock on the door and a woman told her that while jogging on the Rotary Trail she noticed there had been a break-in at the fence by the shed.

“She told me she had called the police herself over 45 minutes ago, and she came in here and she was trying to call and 911 had put her on hold,” Schwab recalled.

The woman also happened to notice the museum was broken into last fall in the same area at the same shed. Tools had been strewn on the path and she returned them to their rightful owner.

“I went out back for myself to see and the fence was ripped, the shed had a broken window, the truck passenger side door was open, the toolbox in the back of the truck was wide open and there was stuff — rags, tools — lying around. It looked more like vandalism than it did theft.”

Then on Sunday night, the vandals struck again, this time in the museum. Schwab said the vandals ripped open the same fence that had been repaired the day before.

“They came back to the shed and did more damage to the shed,” she said. “They literally broke windows but there’s nothing to steal. I think there was an empty jerry can. What they’re doing I have no idea. They just did more damage.”

Then the thieves headed for the museum and took the screen off one of the south boardroom’s windows but couldn’t open the window. Schwab said the locksmith found a utility knife that was used but didn’t work.

When that plan failed, the thieves tried and successfully broke through the emergency exit door on the south side. Heavy-duty bolts have since been added.

“I actually double checked that door because I knew we had a problem,” Schwab said, noting the warped door is prone to come unlocked.

Once inside, all the thieves took were garbage bags (empty bags and some filled with leftover carpet) and keys from the kitchen cabinet. Every cabinet was open but nothing else was taken.

The mischief-makers also pried open two filing cabinets, an empty but locked cabinet and an unlocked cabinet with papers that didn’t contain any confidential information.

They also went into the storage room and emptied out the garbage on the floor and took the garbage can. Schwab said it didn’t look like they were rifling through it, just took it and dumped it. They did the same thing in the janitorial room but left the can and took two boxes of garbage bags.

“It looks like when they broke-in they went up to our mezzanine,” she continued. “We have a storage room up there that has an open ceiling. It looks like they jumped over (the storage door). They had to be pretty agile to do that.”

The thieves never came into the office or gift shop and didn’t damage anything inside the museum. A volunteer found a handful of keys on the Rotary Trail behind the museum, including the key to the gift shop.

However, a vintage chainsaw was left conspicuously between the railings of the mezzanine.

“I’ve been told by the police that these kinds of criminals are in and out like in four, five minutes,” Schwab said. “They don’t spend a lot of time here so I wonder if they were out of time. They had the keys; they wouldn’t have had to break in. They could have used one of the keys to get into here.”

The museum is now in the process of updating its alarm system, including alarm buzzers on each door, and grants will be applied for and donations solicited to cover the cost.

On Tuesday, volunteers installed dowels in the window sills, deadbolts on all three back doors, changed locks and padlocks, re-threaded keys, cleaned, boarded up windows and repaired the fence.

One volunteer put in almost 20 hours from Saturday to Tuesday.

Schwab said she would also like to petition the town to put up pillars or some roadblock along the Rotary Trail to prevent vehicles from using it.

“They can drive on that path and that’s what it looks like they do,” she said. “They just drive back up there.”

The Westlock Soccer Association was another victim in the rash of thefts and break and enters over the weekend.

The association’s storage locker in a gated, enclosed area was broken into and vandalized.

Tanya Pollard, president of the Westlock Soccer Association, said nothing of value was stolen and the association will not be filing an insurance claim as they are only out a lock.

“One hockey bag that we use to tote balls around is missing, probably used as a carry-all for the vandal’s items,” she said.

“Poor thief likely found out it had a broken zipper and is worthless.”

The locker only contained leftover toddler-sized jerseys from the Tim Hortons league, some well-used soccer balls and line-painting gear.

“Useless to your average, quick-cash thief,” she added.

Social media also reported thefts of garbage cans in the Town of Westlock that same weekend.

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