The Way To Celebrate Canada Day

FTLComm - Tisdale - Monday, July 2, 2001

For the second year running the Tisdale Museum has taken over the celebration of Canada's national holiday and it has done so with a fabulous community spirit and established a tradition for this community. Beginning with the breakfast down town and ending with the barbecue supper the whole day was laid out and there was an excellent crowd at the museum and grounds to enjoy the day and savour the heritage that is a source of Canadian pride and a resource for our future. We began out tour of the site at the village and in the chapel there was music.

Over at the general store there was penny candy and as with all of the building sites someone on hand to greet and fill in the atmosphere. The buildings in the village are very well done and loaded with artifacts of the past that evoke not only memories but preserve a time by holding the things that were part of that world in a time warp that transports you back to see and experience things as they were. The station had two lads playing cards by the stove amidst luggage and it seemed like you could expect to hear the whistle and shunt of a locomotive at any minute.

The teacherage is one of the simplest and purest displays on the site with great clothing displays and the atmosphere that so many teachers lived with as they were largely responsible for creating this world we all now enjoy. The simple way of life is preserved in this little building and was one of the main highlights of our visit. The Tisdale has so many outstanding artifacts that a display like this one offers a perfect setting to have these articles set out in the context of their regular use and gives meaning and sense to things which by themselves seem hard to fathom from today's perspective.

The gem of the museum village is the complete house with its verandah and all of its rooms completely fitted out as it would have been more than half a century ago. But home made ice cream on the verandah that brought a smile to every visitor was the total highlight of the day. These two volunteers cranked the ice cream churn, filled to cones and dished out smiles with every serving. Inside the house are the most detailed and appropriate articles on display that takes you directly to that time.

In the living room a perfect example of a Booker coal heater. These heaters were found in almost every home in the fifties when Estevan's bitumen coal was so inexpensive and these efficient heaters provided excellent heat for a house. Bitumen coal is brown, rather than black and came to your door crushed into egg sized pieces that you put in a scuttle and poured into the hopper on the top of the Booker stove. The coal burned in the bottom firebox and heated up the separate heat exchanger at the back. These things were efficient and inexpensive to operate. The main feature of them, besides being easy to fuel and lasting for the night was that they were extremely safe. Almost impossible to overheat and maintained a clean soot free chimney. The car collection of the Tisdale Museum is one of the best you will see anywhere mainly because of the wide range and variety of vehicles in the collection. Very rare and limited number vehicles are to been seen here

Essex, Overland, Star, Willies, MacLaughlin are only some along with steel wheel Chevies and this outstanding Model T Ford. Few auto exhibits anywhere have such a remarkable collection and these have to be seen first hand to be appreciated. After we toured the main building itself which is truly a great series of displays we enjoyed coffee and the live music show as a very light baptism was taking place. No one seemed to mind the very light rain as we were leaving more people were just arriving in time for the children's races and games in the village site. A perfect way to celebrate Canada, see you there next year.