Grenfell Museum
Grenfell - Tuesday August 27, 2013
by:Timothy W. Shire
This summer, using both pictures from my wife’s camera and my own, we have shared with you our visits to various museums. Up until now, they have been large communities and extensive collections. Most Saskatchewan communities like our own here in Tisdale, have a museum where they have attempted to preserve some of the past, so that present and future generations will have something tangible that tells the story of the community. On Saturday, August 24, 2013, with three grand children and their parents we toured the Grenfell Museum.
Though it sits on an outstanding large lot, the museum is in fact a very well preserved house, that had actually been built by a businessman to act as a show home for products he sold. But, first impressions can be really off base, this house, now a museum, is a treasure. Carefully displayed, it houses the artefacts of what life in this mainline town was like just at the turn of the twentieth century.
Since the house and its contents are completely open, the museum is staffed with many volunteers and everything looks exactly like it would have in the time depicted. The furnishings, decorations, wall paper, the bits and pieces of everyday life, are all right there to see. As a family, we were astonished at what we were seeing and really happy to be able to share this place and all its wonders with our grand children, just as it has been intended to do.
Now, were the Grenfell Museum to only be the house and its wondrous contents, that would indeed be well worth paying a visit to Grenfell just to see, but there is more, so much more.
Beside the house is the museum annex which is brim full of artifacts. Some familiar and common, while some completely rare and perhaps the only place you might see these things. By the way, it was very hot during our visit to the annex and the camera I was using had been in my pocket and it got a little steamed up, so I must apologise for the poor picture quality in many of the images, as the focus is not good. However, I want to share these pictures with you because I am certain many readers of this web site will never get a chance to go to Grenfell Saskatchewan.
The annex is so non-assuming, one would just not expect to find such a trove of things that you might only have caught a glimpse of in a movie, or a film documentary. A large room in the annex houses a truly remarkable collection of military uniforms from the past to the present. The military display is really extensive and the quality of what is one display is shocking in its quality.
The reason we went to see this museum is that my father recommended it, explaining that he had been there twice, because there was to much to see in a single visit. He is absolutely right, this visit of ours was just a skim through, a picture taking exploration to give us some idea of what we were seeing and next time we will set aside enough time to really get into the details and savour the extent of both the house and the annex.
For now, I am sharing with you 109 pictures of this marvellous treasure just as a sample for you to get an idea about the remarkable history of one of Saskatchewan’s small towns, located on the CP mainline, just west of the time meridian between central and mountain standard time, a community established with the coming of the railroad in 1885 and much of its original buildings like those in its neighbouring mainline towns, made of stone.