The Town of Wadena will be a busy place during the Wadena and District Museum and Nature Centre Vintage Days on July 22.
Wadena museum buildings will be open for people to step into, including one of curator Louise Yakowec’s favourite, the Bryce house.
While the most interesting pieces of history are hard to rate, Yakowec gets a warm homey feeling when she is in the Bryce house.
“I can imagine living in that house in the 1920s to 1940s. It would have been a wonderful place to live in.”
People lived in that house and experienced joys and sorrows in that house, says Yakowec. Whatever happened in the community, the Bryce family experienced it all.
Helena Bryce, a former resident of the house in the later part of her life, visited the house in 2008 shortly before she passed away. Yakowec made her tea in her kitchen and they spoke about all the things she remembered about living in the house.
With all the history in the Wadena area, Yakowec says there were so many stories that Bryce had to tell.
Other buildings include the Elfros blacksmith shop that was built sometime in the late 1800s, the Wadena railway station that was built in 1904, and the teacherage and school built between 1914-1916.
The number of artifacts on display within the buildings is too numerous to count, says Yakowec, which includes sheds full of pioneering equipment, including tractors and threshing machines.
The Wadena and District Museum is in the railway station. Yakowec says she is overwhelmed thinking about all the people who came through the station from the pioneering times to now, as well as all the people who left Wadena through the station, like men who went off to fight during World War I and II.
“It’s almost mind blowing when you stop and think about it.”
Previous years have seen 150 to 300 people stop in for their Vintage Days, and Yakowec hopes people take an opportunity to stop and enjoy the day.
Activities will include demonstrations, kids fun, music, and food.
