They have a fun assortment of 1800's and early 1900's houses, shops, barns, churches etc. It sounds as though this place was originally put together by some school teachers who wanted a real life history lesson. Now, it seems to have taken on a life of its own with about 40 buildings on site. It was pretty impressive, everyone there were volunteers and most were dressed up in period costumes and most were pretty informative..although a few were a little over-chatty!Cost was $19 total for 2 adults + $1 more for a sweet, sweet maple syrup candy.
Most of their buildings were sold to the place for $1 and moved onto the site on flat-beds. They even had a church that was chopped in half, moved and re-assembled!
They were celebrating maple syrup season and had three demonstrations going on. Here's the pics in the order that we saw them (tried to get lots of food and kitchen related stuff). Check out the end for the 3 ways of making syrup (aside from buying the president's choice stuff):
French Canadian House. Dude with funny red hair!
Their kitchen stuff.
A settler/pioneer house. Had some tasty potato pancake with maple syrup.
Some pots for sale at the trading post. A hudson's bay blanket will cost ya 3.5 beaver pelts. Too bad we didn't check the trap line before heading out.
A washer and wringer for sale down at the local hardware store. Good thing technology has improved or there is NO WAY Ian would ever do laundry.
Who am I kidding, I wouldn't be doing laundry either!
Some cooking pots and pans.
Some baking tins. Some good stuff like baking powder, cocoa and oxo cubes. Mmm...wonder if there's still product in them???
Another stove. Probably saw about 10 cool stoves. This ones was really neat with a front burner section and a back oven part. We were about 1/2 hour too early for apple upside down cake :(
Turn of the century butter churner.
Maple syrup molds for turning syrup into sugar candy. Heard that "maple syrup does not keep" about a 100 times!
Me weaving a sash. Some lucky person may be getting a really really cool Christmas present this year!
The guy here made some comment about how, "the kids really love this little weaver, it amuses them for hours" and then had to back-track and say that adults like it too! Ha ha!
Very odd sign down at the train station. Historical interpreter guy didn't seem to be able to explain to Ian why they just wouldn't change the clock to the correct time???
Mark, this ones for you! A very old lumber mill!
Maple syrup method #1 - Native way prior to pots. They would slash diagonally on trees and collect syrup. Then would put hot rocks into a dug-out log. Would take 7-10 days to make maple sugar.
Now that's commitment!
Method #2. Boiling in a series of pots. Early settler/pioneer way of doing things.
Finally, the "modern" evaporator.
The guy here told us that the sap likes to run at a temperature of 4 C, with the sun shining and a slight breeze in the air.
1 comment:
Sweet mill pics, very impressive.
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