Rocky View County's Pioneer Acres Museum ready to welcome back visitors
Two years of pandemic protocols have been hard on the Pioneer Acres Museum.
The historic farm, located just north of Irricana, was restricted on how many visitors it could host and had to cancel any event involving large gatherings.
Curator Shelly McElroy is excited for the 2022 season that started May 14 with the official opening of the Grain Academy that moved to the site from Stampede Park in 2019.
"It was here and it was where it needed to be but the timing was just off," McElroy told CTV News in an interview. "So we have had two years of waiting for this special place to finally be able to promote it, tell the story and see it come to life."
The exhibit features a 1906 box car in the centre of the space that visitors can walk through and see pictures of harvest decades ago. Bob Swanson is a fourth generation farmer and the president of Pioneer Acres along with being a volunteer for 11 years.
"This actual car that we're standing in came from a neighbor of mine and he phoned me up one day and says, do you think pioneer acres got use for an old rail car and I said maybe, I'll check it out, well yes we did have a use," said Swanson. "It actually became the focal point of the Grain Academy here than what it was sitting out on the prairie."
McElroy says visitors come from all over the world and most don't realize how much food is grown in Alberta and Canadian farmers help feed people all over the world.
"Every day we get to take people on tour through that building and watch them fall in love with their own home," she said. "Realizing how amazing Alberta is so it's super rewarding and we're looking forward to doing that all summer long."
Josh Wade is 18 years old and grew up on a farm. He's a museum technician who takes people for guided tours and is excited about visitors returning.
"What I really love about this place is the community," he said. "There's no other place like it to just be able to come out somewhere, to see people, to interact with them day after day, it's just really special."
Wade has a close tie to the museum because his family donated their original farm house in 1994. It was built in 1911 and has many original furnishings inside.
"My father lived in the house, my grandmother, great-grandmother so there were many generations of my family that lived in that place and they all had very fond memories," he said.
He enjoys taking people through the house to see how people lived in Alberta's early days.
"Every single day without fail I walk in that building and I go, 'Wow, I cannot believe that this was ours,'" said Wade. "Not only that it was ours but now that it's here and that other people can see and feel what it might have been like to live in a house like that so long ago."
The property has all kinds of machinery on it celebrating Alberta's farming community. But one massive vintage tractor is close to McElroy's heart.
"This is a Canadian tractor built in Calgary where the East Hills development is today," she said.
"It was built by the Pioneer Tractor Company, they're an American company from Minnesota and during Alberta's first boom they opened up a building in 1913 and they started manufacturing these tractors, maybe there's 10 of them left in the world, we think this is the oldest one."
Learn more about Pioneer Acres here.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Video shows suspect setting Toronto-area barbershop on fire
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
The kids from 'Mrs. Doubtfire' are all SUPER grown up now, and we're not OK
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
Canadian doctor concerned new weight-loss drug Wegovy may be used inappropriately
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
Police officer hit by driver of fleeing vehicle in Toronto
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
TD worst-case scenario more likely after drug money laundering allegations: analyst
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
Premier Legault reiterates that McGill pro-Palestinian camp must be dismantled
Quebec Premier François Legault reiterated that the pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University must be dismantled while police remain 'on the lookout for new developments.'
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
'I have the will to live': N.B. woman needs double lung transplant
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
Hulk Hogan, hurricanes and a blockbuster recording: A week in review of the Trump hush money trial
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.