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Tag Archives Manitoba Agricultural Museum

Tommy the Turtle at Boissevain.
Country Crossroads, Other

Roadside statues have a story to tell

Some represent history, geography or legends, others are just plain quirky

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Are you interested in exploring Manitoba’s rural areas, and want an educational summer project for your children? Why not research and visit some of the province’s many roadside statues. Often the monuments represent something important in the history of a town, such as the giant Viking at Gimli (which has the largest population of Icelanders
Tobogganing at Spruce Woods Provincial Park.

Country Crossroads, Local news, Other

Where to celebrate Louis Riel Day

With a variety of activities to choose from there’s sure to be something to interest you on this long weekend


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Do you have plans for the Louis Riel Day long weekend? Are you getting a little tired of winter? Why not use the holiday to do something different, choosing from the many activities happening. A February holiday was originally started in Alberta in 1990 to celebrate the family life of the early pioneers and to
An 1890 photo of a Great North West Central (GNWC) passenger train pulling into the GNWC’s station at Forrest, Manitoba. A large crowd can be seen on the station platform. Given the crowd appears to be very well dressed and the date of the photo is given as 1890, it is likely the image shows the inaugural run of passenger service.
Country Crossroads, Other

The Great North West Central Railway

This colonization railway has a colourful history but is all but forgotten today

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In the early 1880s, the Government of Canada put in place a policy of granting land subsidies to small railway companies in the hope these companies would build rail lines into areas of the Prairies distant from the Canadian Pacific main line and so open these areas to homesteaders. One of these so-called “colonization” railways
This photo is one of several in the Manitoba Agricultural Museum collection taken of the CPR yard in Brandon.
Country Crossroads, Other

Brandon CPR yard a snapshot of history

Close examination of this photo reveals much of early life in the Wheat City


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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
The Peter and Duncan Henderson threshing outfit in the field, near Boissevain.
Country Crossroads, Other

The Peter and Duncan Henderson outfit

These early Boissevain-area settlers were noted threshermen of their day

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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
A steam shovel loading fill onto Manitoba and North Western flatcars. Steam shovels were capable of swinging the boom from side to side but the boom was fixed in position and only the bucket or dipper and the “dipper stick” could be raised and lowered. However, the dipper stick can be moved in and out. One can make out the rack bolted to the bottom of the dipper stick over the shoulder of the man in the bowler hat and vest. The large gear on the side of the boom worked a pinion which ran the rack back and forth. A small steam engine mounted on the boom worked this gear. The movable dipper stick made the steam shovel more effective. Other steam engines on the shovel swung the boom from side to side as required and worked the winch which raised and lowered the dipper.
Country Crossroads, Local news, Other

The Manitoba and North Western Railway

The now-forgotten railway was one of the region’s ‘colonization railways’

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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 Model N tractor donated by the estate of August Eliason of the Gimli area. Waterloo used a two-cylinder engine design as it was cheaper to manufacture than a multi-cylinder engine. Being a shorter engine block, the two-cylinder design could be more easily mounted crosswise on the chassis, simplifying the transmission and mounting the clutch out on the side of the tractor where it could be more easily serviced if necessary. One further advantage claimed for a two-cylinder engine was that intake/exhaust manifold was relatively short with a corresponding short distance between the carburetor and the cylinders. So when burning kerosene there was a reduced possibility of vaporized fuel re-forming as a liquid as it travelled to the cylinder for combustion.
Country Crossroads, Other

The Waterloo Boy Model N tractor

This tractor company pioneered the use of gasoline engines

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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
Today the former Fairchild Building is now a residential building featuring loft apartments.
Country Crossroads, Other

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

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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 First Nations agricultural history isn’t well known.
Local news

Manitoba’s earliest agriculture

Canada 150: First Nations, fur traders and the Selkirk settlers all grew 
some of the earliest harvests in Manitoba

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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

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