Mid-summer celebration held at Kamsack’s Powerhouse Museum

KAMSACK — A special welcome to the Powerhouse Museum was extended July 27 to the community and visitors alike by the board of the Kamsack and District Historical Society.

The welcome, which included a barbecue lunch with pie and ice cream, musical entertainment and a tour of the museum, its grounds and outbuildings, was a postponement of the event which had been planned for the museum’s season opening in May, but had been cancelled due to rain.

Visitors gathered in the Events Building, also known as the NPC Building, where members of the board, accompanied by volunteers, cooked and served the luncheon, sold memberships and 50/50 lottery tickets and where Rachel and Darwin Dancsok of Esterhazy entertained.

“Raised in the community, I was blown away with this museum,” said Kelsey Rauckman, who this spring was elected chair of the society which operates the museum, succeeding Lydia Cherkas, who had stepped down after having led the board since 2008.

“This is not what one would expect of a community of only about 1,200 residents,” Rauckman said. The amount of work that has gone into creating and maintaining the museum is “fantastic,” especially considering that there has never been a huge volunteer base to do much of the work.

Rauckman admits to always having had “a love for older things, artifacts,” and his Number One reason for joining the board was to help inject a younger perspective that reflects a strong passion for the facility.

Asked what the board has adopted as immediate priorities, Rauckman said the biggest concern is to maintain the facilities in good working order and to that end, recent work included installing new eaves on the Events Building, repairing gable ends and fixing a steel roof that had developed leaks. He said plans are to have the schoolhouse building painted shortly.

Marvin McKay, a longtime board member, explained how work had been completed on the old CNR caboose located adjacent to the NPC Building and how efforts were made to ensure the finished coat of paint was kept as close to the caboose’s original colour as possible.

“When you keep it looking good, it shows a pride in the facility,” Rauckman said.

Lydia Cherkas, who remains on the executive as past president, explained how the board is now planning an event for mid-to-late August to celebrate the 40^th anniversary since former Kamsack Mayor Arnold Becker had cut a ribbon to mark the museum’s official opening.

The event will recognize the work required to establish the historical society and convert the Powerhouse, which had provided electric power to the community, into the remarkable museum it now is, Cherkas said.

On a tour of the Powerhouse, Cherkas immediately went to one of the museum’s newest displays: a collection of show harness accessories made of leather, pewter, brass and ivory and had been used on horses only for showing in competition.

“These show accessories were brought from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Canada by Phil Hern’s great-grandfather in 1850 and came to Togo in 1903,” says information attached to the display. A trophy contained in the display said that it had been donated by the Kamsack Times for the Togo Fair in 1930, “for the best four-horse hitch to a wagon competition. The winner of three consecutive years was to retain the trophy. Phil Hern won in 1931, 1933 and 1934.”

Next to the display is a single-horse buggy donated by the Harper family of Togo and after having been meticulously cleaned, it looks like “new,” Cherkas said, pointing to an antique grain wagon nearby that was donated by Ralph Hilderman of Togo.

Cherkas explained how another set of dinnerware replaced a set that was previously used in the kitchen diorama and recalled the work involved in creating the workshop that displays a huge collection of the tools that were used before gasoline engines and electrical power replaced them.

Cherkas commented on the work required to create a display on one large wall of sports memorabilia, including the community’s history of baseball, while next to it is a display of musical entertainment, including old instruments and antique cylinder recordings. She was pleased to show the milliner’s room where women’s and men’s hats of various descriptions and styles are on display.

On a walk through the “store,” Cherkas pointed to the many now-empty cans and packages that once were stocked on shelves in the area’s stores waiting to be purchased, and at the front desk where this summer Nikki Connell is working at the registration desk, she is shown recent baskets of materials, still not catalogued or displayed, that have been dropped off by area residents.

It is very important that descriptions of the material are included with such donations, as well as the names of the persons leaving the artifacts, she said.

Working on the executive committee with Rauckman, Cherkas and McKay are Connie McKay, the secretary, Diane Smutt, treasurer, and Vern Bowes, vice-president. Other board members include: Armando Morenos, Fran Bowes, Ken Thompson and Darlene Brown.

“Everyone will be welcome to come to our museum for our 40^th anniversary celebration in August,” board members agreed.