Some of the most interesting parts of the town
were the houses that had been moved from other locations.
According to some of their literature, some of the houses are
reported to be haunted. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we
did not see any ghosts as we made our rounds of the town. Two
rather large houses that we saw were the Prince House (1894) and
the Sandstone House (1891). Inside the homes were some lovely
antiques that showed how the houses might have looked in that
period. Bob wanted to see what I would look like cooking at a
wood stove, so I checked this one out. I have a hard time getting
a
gas stove to behave, let alone trying to get something like this
to work. The story of how they moved some of the buildings was
just amazing. It is hard to believe that they were able to cut
some of the houses in pieces and move them, and then reassemble
them on their present site. You can see from the size of the
Prince House, this would certainly be no easy task. Also in this
same area was a large barn-like building which housed a huge
selection of antique gasoline pumps. From this barn we went to
the farm area where they were having demonstrations in a number
of farm-related activities, such as; roping, making rope, and
making ice cream. After this we decided to go back in time to the
1860s fur trading era.The
1860s
section had a fort with a fur press and several old structures.
Bob decided that the young man needed a little more muscle power
on the fur press so he quickly jumped in to volunteer. They got
those furs pressed in no time. There was even a tent cabin which
is a foundation with a canvas roof and walls. There was an old
school house with a teacher instructing the kids, that wandered
in, on the proper method of forming the letters of the alphabet.
(You remember, when people used to actually write letters by
hand?)
She used one of the old staff makers which held
5 pieces of chalk to make the 5 parallel lines on the board. The
1880 area: which included a stern wheeler river boat that ran up
and down the lake, and many relocated buildings which now were
used by the presenters to show what was made at the time. Leather
shops and blacksmiths barns, hammers sounded, while the horse
drawn carriages carted people from one side to the other. Next, we went through the 1880s pre-railway settlement which included among its buildings a Banff Royal North West Mounted Police Barracks among others.
After starting to wear down we boarded the train
for a nice leisurely trip to where the S.S. Moyle was docked. The
trip on the old paddle wheeler was a very pleasant one and
allowed us to regain some energy for our trip back out to the
main gate.One area I didn't cover was a small amusement park for children that had several very nice rides including a ferris wheel and a merry-go-round.The day was long and the sun hot but the trip was well worth it.
