NORTH BATTLEFORD, Sask. -ÊIt’s one of the sad truths of the Western Development Museum that, in these days of budget cuts and retrenchment, there’s little more than a thin grey line of old men working hard to save and rebuild the machines that broke the West – machines most younger generations know little about.
But the aging men are forging ahead with their work, volunteering thousands of hours to save the artifacts left scattered by the chaotic surge of settlement and technological revolution that marked the last century in Saskatchewan.
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“These only operate because of the volunteers,” said museum technician Wally Mills about the gas and steam-powered tractors in the shop around him in North Battleford.
Mills is the only full-time paid technician at the North Battleford branch of the Western Development Museum. But all around him on this morning in the shop, men are working on aging machinery.
Cliff Carson is working on a 1928 Rugby farm truck. Charlie Baker is polishing up the giant 28-85 George White steam tractor. Edwin Wells and Bill Lloyd are working on a 12-20 Twin City tractor.
The dozens of volunteers at the North Battleford museum are broken into a number of clubs. Baker is in the steam club. Lloyd and Wells are in the machine club. Carson is in the car club.
The first Western Development Museum was built in 1949, making this year the 50th anniversary. There are branches in Saskatoon, Yorkton, Moose Jaw and North Battleford – each with a different theme.
All four are holding an open house for seniors on April 14 and for families on April 18.
The North Battleford museum is dedicated to “The Story of Agriculture.” It contains a big spread of farm displays inside the museum building, and outside, a small-town main street and a farm.
Preserve the past
But the museum’s most popular attractions are the old tractors, farm trucks and cars. It’s these machines the volunteers are saving, something they hope they can pass on to future generations.
“It takes a special type of person to do this,” said Wells, a 70-year-old retired farmer who spends most days working at the museum.
“Some people golf. I come in here.”
Lloyd, a working farmer and the only non-senior volunteer, said working on these tractors gives him something to do in the winter. Lloyd paints most of the gas tractors because Wells and some of the other volunteers don’t have good enough eyesight for that task.
But Wells has other talents. He can make many a tractor surge to life again by building spare parts that no longer exist.
“I just like to fix things,” he said, blowing his nose into a red speckled handkerchief that seems itself an artifact from another age.
Sixty-five-year-old volunteer Baker had the sad task two years ago of decommissioning the 20,000 pound steam tractor that was his pride. Volunteers who were stripping down the 1910 machine found defects in the boiler and decided it was too dangerous to drive among crowds.
The tractor was stripped down, painted and rebuilt so it can stand as a static display in the museum. Still, Baker dreams of one day refiring the boiler and taking the George White out once more.
“It’s a great feeling when you’re running it and you have all that power,” he said.
Mills said there are more volunteers now than in the past and there’s lots of interest from other people to help out. It gives the museum hope that more of Western Canada’s farm machinery history can be saved.
“These guys really want to make these machines work,” said Mills.
