The history of Carlyle and the surrounding area is rich and insightful into the daily lives of the pioneers of the province. A detailed record of it can be found right within Carlyle at the Rusty Relics Museum.
The Museum was started as a student project in 1973. Students would set up their exhibits in the Royal Canadian Legion building at the time and dismantle it all in the summer and repeat the process all over again. It wasn’t until the 1980s when an old station was donated by CN Rail, designated solely for the purpose of being able to keep the museum set up year round.
The museum now has a generous assortment of buildings at its disposal that were all donated by the community. The buildings include a caboose, a one-room schoolhouse, a shed that is used to showcase pieces of old farm equipment, a station agent’s office, a bunkhouse that was once used to house railway workers, and a motorized jigger train that can be demonstrated on a small bit of track that had been previously donated by CP Rail.
The main focus of the museum is to showcase the history of the area starting around 1882, when European settlers first came to the area.
The museum features not only many outbuildings that either house or are original heritage buildings that are set up in a way that show what they looked like in their prime but also consists of two floors within the main building. Altogether, the museum has around 12,000 artifacts, photographs, and fossils that are catalogued and set up to be displayed to and enjoyed by the public.
The museum, from the very beginning, has been a labour of love and dedication, not only for those who have been responsible for the museum, but also by the community itself.
“Absolutely everything in the place is donated. The response, if there's something that's happened or there's something we need, it's amazing how people will step up and help,” says Lauren Hume, the executive director of the museum who’s family originates from the first group of settlers who arrived in the area all the way back in 1882.
The museum is a home to artifacts of all shapes and sizes as its objective is to express the history of the community and what better way to do that then by showcasing family artifacts that would otherwise be without a home?
“I know that we’re getting a donation of a plaque that says 100 years of the farm has been homesteaded and the family, but the family is selling and what happens to the plaque? Nobody in the family wants it so we’re going to put it up in our shed that has all our farm equipment.”
While the museum would be nothing without its exhibits that have been so generously donated by the community, it would not be able to stay afloat if it wasn’t supported by a committed group of individuals.
“We have a really good board of directors, an active board of directors and that's so important.”
The Rusty Relics Museum, as its name has been since its birth in 1973, is surely a place to visit if one is interested in knowing the history of Carlyle and area and the people who made it the way it is today.
