Ron & Anne in Canada; 2016: Old time Saskatchewan

A SOD dwelling which the first settlers built.

Its been a good couple of days in Saskatoon, the weather has been generally favourable, and we have been to a couple of interesting places. Firstly we visited an Indian reservation, well we are not strictly allowed to call them Indians now, its" Indigenous peoples". There we learned how they lived before the Europeans came here, and how they live now.

Originally they lived in Tipis most of the year as they travelled, migrating north with the bison during the summer, and south in the winter. Although we tend to call these animals buffalo strictly speaking there are none here, they inhabit Asia. So Bison and buffalo are one and the same animal here.

We were entertained to a dance routine by a native indigenous person, (herinafter called Indian!), who did a dance he made up on the spot to drums and a continuous wail from Indian ladies,(well a recording of anyway).

He was good, and afterwards got all the kids up to learn the dance style and dance with him. We left at that point!

But today we have been to the 1910 Boomtown Museum, and that has been excellent, keeping us amused for more than four hours.

The museum contains the longest indoor street scene in the world, and certainly some of the finest exhibits and presentation we have seen, covering the Saskatchewan scene from pre-european times almost to the present day. Boomtown itself however is a streetscene from 1910 or thereabouts, covering buildings such as a livery stables and blacksmiths, dentist and doctors offices, RCMP offices, a school, as well as numerous stores. We even found a branch of J. Balchin & Son, (well similar) a general store that included a post office. ( See far corner).

Another exhibit in the museum shows how the settlers first came to Saskatchewan in the late1800's, they were granted around 160 acres of land, and had to cultivate 30 acres and make some kind of a home in the first 12 months or they were evicted. Many didn't make it. Most who did built sod houses as above, which were warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Unfortunately when it rained it became very damp. There were few forests in the south of the province, however, further north, where the weather was not so good for farming, there was plenty, and some settlers.did import timber for building and heating.

Meantime the local natives were resettled in reserves, and given a small stipend and one acre of land and taught subsistence farming. In this diorama it is autumn and their crops are being harvested.

Another gallery had a display of vehicles as good as any I have seen, this restored Indian motorcycle could do 0-60 in 30 seconds! There were some very early American cars, some steam, even some electric from the twenties, up to many from the 50's and 60's. An excellent collection.

In addition a couple of railway engines were shown in the back of the main hall, the railway came to Saskatchewan in the 1890's, and were instrumental in opening up the prairies for farming.
Yet another hall had a display of early farm machinery, horse drawn implements, steam engines, and early tractors. By the 20th century some farms had grown very large, and required large machinery to manage them, we saw some of the largest and most peculiar tractors we had ever seen, but they still only generated between 30 and 60 horsepower.