In the photo collection of the Manitoba Agricultural Museum there are several photos of the CPR’s Brandon rail yards taken around 1912. The photo of the Brandon yard you see here appears to have been taken off the First Street Bridge looking to the west. On the left side of the photo, the first building
Brandon CPR yard a snapshot of history
Close examination of this photo reveals much of early life in the Wheat City
The Peter and Duncan Henderson outfit
These early Boissevain-area settlers were noted threshermen of their day
While the image you see above is not of the best quality, it is worthy of an article, as it was taken sometime around 1890 and shows a Cornell portable steam engine powering a “Wide Awake” separator. The outfit belonged to Duncan and Peter Henderson who were early settlers in the Boissevain area. Peter Henderson
The Manitoba and North Western Railway
The now-forgotten railway was one of the region’s ‘colonization railways’
In the photo collection of the Manitoba Agricultural Museum, there is photo of several railway flatcars marked Manitoba and North Western. These cars belonged to a railway operating in Manitoba between 1881 and 1900. The Government of Canada in the early 1880s embarked upon a policy of granting land subsidies to small railway companies in
The Waterloo Boy Model N tractor
This tractor company pioneered the use of gasoline engines
The Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company was the first company to manufacture and sell gasoline tractors. The company was formed in 1893 by John Froelich and a group of Iowa businessmen. Froelich built the first successful gasoline tractor in 1892 using a VanDuzen engine, mounted on a chassis built by the Robinson Company. This tractor completed
John Deere during the pioneer days in Manitoba
Deere’s Prairie distribution was performed by a local company in the early years of the wheat boom
The John Deere Company’s involvement with Manitoba agriculture began with an initial shipment of plows and other cultivation tools to Winnipeg in April of 1878. However, it is suspected that previous to 1878, homesteaders in Manitoba had bought implements in the U.S., including John Deere implements and brought the equipment to Canada. At the time
Manitoba’s golden years for agriculture
Canada 150: The two decades following the Second World War saw massive changes to Manitoba farms, and the following years those changes continued unabated
The Second World War ushered in an era of challenge, change and growth for the Manitoba agriculture sector. One development of the war years was the construction of a vegetable oil-crushing plant, Co-operative Vegetable Oils Ltd., in Altona, Manitoba in 1943. This plant was the beginning of the crush industry in Western Canada. The war
Between the wars
Canada 150: A postwar bust, political activism, the Great Depression and the formation of the Canadian Wheat Board marked the interwar years in Manitoba agriculture
As the smoke cleared from the battlefields of Europe, the landscape had changed dramatically for Winnipeg, Manitoba and Prairie agriculture generally, particularly in the area of grain marketing. While the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and the wheat futures market reopened in August 1920, the experience of farmers with the 1919 wheat board was positive and led
Manitoba’s earliest agriculture
Canada 150: First Nations, fur traders and the Selkirk settlers all grew some of the earliest harvests in Manitoba
As part of our celebration of Canada 150, the Manitoba Agricultural Museum’s Alex Campbell has written a historical review of agriculture in Manitoba. The Manitoba Co-operator will be printing it as an ongoing serial over the next several weeks. While Canada dates from 1867, the history of agriculture in Manitoba stretches much further back into
The John Deere ‘spoker’ Model D tractor
This tractor had an epic production run of nearly 30 years and is the first tractor of many farms
The Manitoba Agricultural Museum has a number of John Deere Model D tractors in its collection ranging from a “spoker” Model D to late-model-styled Ds. John Deere built Model Ds over an astonishing production run of almost 30 years, beginning in 1924 and ending in 1953. After assembly line production had ceased, there were still
The Bergen Cut-Off
A long-abandoned rail bridge is one of the few remaining artifacts of a forgotten grain line
While crossing over the Kildonan Settlers Bridge in Winnipeg, if you look south, you catch a glimpse of a disused railway swing bridge perched on its pier in the middle of the Red River. At this point, many readers will be thinking, “My sainted aunt! Writing an article about an abandoned bridge in Winnipeg! How
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
