Canora’s CN Station House Museum and Visitor Centre is preparing for the upcoming summer season.
Joy Stusek, one of the volunteers involved in running the Museum and Visitor Centre, said they will be open weekdays beginning July 3 through to the end of August. Two volunteers will be working from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and one volunteer and a summer student employee will share duties from 1 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The story of the Museum and Visitor Centre goes back to 1904 when the Station House was built, the railroad was completed and the first train came through Canora.
Stusek said about 20 years ago, Canora received a notice from CN northern that the aging Station House would be demolished unless something was done with it.
Stusek was one of a group of about eight to ten volunteers who took it upon themselves to restore and preserve this historic facility. Calling themselves the All Aboard Committee, the group completed the project over several years through hard work and diligent fundraising.
The group’s official name later became the Society for the Preservation of Canora Heritage Sites. Stusek said they had plenty of help with the undertaking from Canora groups such as the firefighters, the boy scouts and the air cadets. One of the projects was converting the original storage shed into what is now the Visitor Centre.
Fundraising events included bake sales, raffles, and tours of the facility.
Stusek said the group continues to receive submissions of items for possible display in the Museum.
The Museum’s collection policy is to incorporate, “artifacts from 1960 and earlier that depict the impact of the railroad on the settlement of Canora and area as well as pioneers who settled the area.”
As seen in the Museum, the earliest known settlements in the Canora area were a pair of forts built north of Canora, on either side of the Assiniboine River in the late 1700s. Fort Hibernia was on the north side, while Fort Alexandria was on the south side. A painting by Cecil Machnee of Canora on display at the Museum is a depiction of what a typical fort of that period would look like. Each fort would usually have a large meat house where they could hang up to 80 buffalo carcasses.
In the spring of each year, the forts would generally ship furs to Pelly, from where they would be transported to Fort Garry, which is now Winnipeg.
Displays in the Museum show that ranchers arrived in the Canora area later on in the 1800s. A group of about 30 families were squatters, since they didn’t take out homesteads. Indications are that grass and water were abundant for ranching in the area during that time. Ranchers followed the long-standing tradition of branding cattle in spring and rounding them up in fall.
Museum information indicates that the first settlers, the majority of which were English, arrived in the Canora area after the ranchers, starting in 1883. The settlers included the Buchanan family, which had the village of Buchanan eventually named after them. Around the same time, Queen Victoria invited the Doukhobors, who were being persecuted in Russia, to immigrate to western Canada. During those years, the Canadian government was encouraging migration to western Canada in order to prevent annexation by the United States.
On display at the Museum is a quilt made during the First World War which has the names of early settlers on it. The quilt was made as a fundraiser for the Red Cross. Settlers could have their names included on the quilt for a nickel. The quilt was donated to the museum by the granddaughter of the gentleman who won it in the original Red Cross raffle.
After the Station House was completed and the railroad arrived in 1904, Canora became a hamlet. The first Ukrainian settlers in the region arrived in the Gorlitz area. But other settlers came to the Canora region with origins such as German, Jewish, English, Romanian and Scandinavian.
Information at the Museum indicates the changes in Canora in the early 1900s.
The Northwest Mounted Police were stationed in Canora in 1906.
Canora became a village in 1908 and was incorporated into a town in 1910, the same year that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad came to Canora. A station was built on Eighth Avenue West.
In 1920 the Canadian Government took over Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern, and merged the two railroads into one, which is now CN (Canadian National.)
Canora gained local telephone service in 1911. On display at the museum is a long distance switchboard which was used in Canora in the 1950s.
Displays at the museum indicate that a growing number of businesses were active in Canora in the early 1900’s. A list of Canora businesses from 1913 includes, cafés, stables, banks, a Deering Harvest Machinery dealer, and a dealer in “fruit, bread, cakes, tobacco, all sorts of drinks, all kinds of fish and confectionery.”
The Canora Beverages Plant was active during the 1950’s, and used a giant Orange Crush bottle, which is on display at the Museum, to promote one of their most important products.
The Museum includes an equipped station master’s office and a waiting room, which look much the same as they did in the early days of train service to Canora. The waiting room is original from 1904, the only one in Saskatchewan.
Stusek said she thoroughly enjoys working at the Museum, especially when visitors share stories regarding various museum displays.
She said more volunteers are always needed to help out at the Museum during the summer. Those who are interested in the history of Canora and enjoy meeting people are encouraged to contact Stusek or the town office
