The arrival of Victoria Day means the openings of Westlock’s two museums.
The Westlock Pioneer Museum will hold its annual opening day pancake breakfast May 21 and is hoping the community will come out to join them for another summer of stepping back in time.
The pancake breakfast will be held from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. May 21 and following the museum will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until the Labour Day weekend in September.
While there are no new displays or collections planned for the coming year, Westlock and District Historical Society president Art Avery says there is still plenty to see and do at the museum.
“We still have, in my opinion, one of the best museums you’ll find in Western Canada,” said Avery.
“For one, we have the largest collection of Aladdin kerosene lamps in Canada. We have a large collection of electric Aladdin lamps, which a lot of people don’t even know was made,” he said, listing off some of the attractions at the museum.
There are more than 140 mint-condition lamps in the Max and Mary Wiese Aladdin Lamp Collection for patrons to view.
“We also have the best collection of gramophones. From all I can find it’s the largest collection in Canada,” said Avery of the nearly 200 old-style music machines located in their own room at the museum.
The museum also boasts a large collection of dolls and guns from the past.
“We also have a gun collection, which you don’t see in too many museums nowadays,” said Avery
“I think we’re pretty well off.”
The Trueblood Gun Collection was donated to the museum in the name of Del Trueblood, whose father homesteaded near Dapp in 1911.
Trueblood started collecting shell casings and cartridges as a boy and eventually began collecting rifles.
There are several rare rifles included in the collection along with artifacts like musket balls, a wad cutter, a powder horn and numerous shells.
The Mildred Hay Doll Collection is also available for viewing and includes a variety of dolls from the past including Kewpies, Barbies and porcelain collectables. Athabasca’s Mildred Hay donated this collection in late 2009.
For a look into the past and a great way to spend the day, the Pioneer Museum has all you’re looking for, said Avery.
“We hope for a lot of visitors,” he said.
Canadian Tractor Museum
At 15 metres, the Canadian Tractor Museum has the largest functioning weather vane in the world, but that’s far from the only attraction at the facility, which opens May 18 for the season.
The museum provides an opportunity to look back into our agricultural heritage, said museum administrator Annette Schwab, who also sits on the board as secretary-treasurer.
Since opening its doors in 2002 the museum has been acquiring and preserving new displays showing the evolution of tractors and other agricultural implements used by homesteaders.
If there’s an event happening in Westlock, you can be sure the Canadian Tractor Museum is open and ready for visitors of all ages.
Whether it’s the Vintage Tractor Show, organized by the Vintage Tractor Club, which falls on the first weekend of June, or Fair Days on the third weekend in August, the museum isn’t just for the older crowd.
“We have lots of children’s activities, we have an interactive farm board, which they just love. We have the toy tractors, which they race. We’ve got puzzles, we’ve got books and we’ve got games. We’re really focusing on trying to be involved more with the community and the youth in particular,” said Schwab.
“We’re really working on our children’s programming and the children’s activities and games.”
The museum is also open for birthday parties this year, the first of which was celebrated last week.
The museum is also really making an effort to establish Tractor Talk as well, she said of the monthly event, held the first Tuesday of the month, which presents a speaker who tells a story about a piece of machinery or something otherwise agriculture related to an assembled group.
Tractor Talk is an opportunity for interested parties to gather, listen to stories, ask questions and tell stories of their own.
“For people who like combines and tractors, it’s really interesting,” said Schwab.
There will also be a couple new displays available for viewing.
Keith Sterling is donating a combine that will be refurbished by Art Purdy, who will replace much of the outer material with a clear material that will make the machinery inside visible to patrons.
“It’s going to be an exciting display,” said Schwab.
The museum is also boasting a new exhibit in the form of Leo Page’s miniature farm creations.
“Leo Page was a local resident around here who passed away and he used to take this collection of miniature towns and elevators and barns and farms and display them at the local shows and fairs. When he passed away his family put it on loan to us,” said Schwab.
“We plan on having a really fun-filled summer.”
