Lac Cardinal Regional Pioneer Village Museum

Synopsis & Main Exhibits

Narrative:

Wheat sold for $1.00 per bushel in 1916, $3.70 per bushel in 1920 and $0.22 per bushel in 1934

Homesteaders arrived in the Peace River Country from across Canada, the United States, and Europe from the 1900’s onward, drawn by the promise of 160 acres of land for $10.00.

Visit authentic, furnished homes of the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s in a pioneer village setting.

Just west of Grimshaw, next to Lac Cardinal and Queen Elizabeth Provincial Park, rests an opportunity for you to stick your nose into a representation of the Peace region’s pioneer era.

Lac Cardinal Regional Pioneer Village Museum (yes, it’s a mouthful) is a visitor-friendly replica of what a town in Alberta’s northwest might have looked like between the 1920s and the end of the 1940s. It includes a community hall (originally from the Strong Creek area near the Peace River Airport), the original Municipal District of Peace office, two fully-furnished log homes, church (which began life in Northstar), UFA petroleum and grain office, and a school (the Hasell School, from the Clearhills area) complete with a teacherage. You will also find a reproduction bakery, blacksmith shop, a train station (a blue-print faithful reproduction of one in Grimshaw), carpentry shop, fire hall and general store. Much of the wood for the reproductions was milled onsite, using a belt-driven sawmill and planer located in the farmyard.

The farmyard gives a more rustic vision of the pioneer era, with a one-bedroom cabin complete with outhouse. It is in the farmyard that you will find representations of the early industries in the region – agriculture and forestry. There is a log barn, chicken coop and well-house alongside pole sheds housing a collection of tractors and threshing equipment. Our timber exhibit is also at this end of the site, with a shingle mill, edger and chop saw joining the sawmill and planer.

Managed and operated by a non-profit society comprised entirely of volunteers, Lac Cardinal Regional Pioneer Village Museum is open from mid-May through to the September long weekend. It hosts monthly pancake breakfasts at the site during that period. August is a big month for the museum, as its annual Lac Cardinal Regional Pioneer Village Museum Society Demonstration Day (more commonly called Pioneer Day) is held the second Saturday in August. During Pioneer Day, you will encounter dozens of volunteers demonstrating how many of the site’s exhibits were meant to be used. Butter is churned, clothes are washed, horseshoes are hammered, limber is cut, and grain is threshed.

Permanent Collections and Exhibits
3 furnished houses
Church
School/teacherage
Blacksmith Shop
General Store/post office/barber shop
Bakery
Railway Station/caboose
Community Hall
Barn
Farm equipment/tractors/threshing machines/ploughs
Road building equipment
Shingle mill, over 100 years old and still used
Sawmill