District Museums Tell Interesting Stories About Communities
By preserving local history, people in the Moose Jaw district have built interesting museums to tell the story of their communities. Located in a former CNR station, the Avonlea Heritage Museum is packed with pioneer lifestyle items. A second building focuses on displays of old-time businesses, farm equipment and local archeology. A diorama pictures the buffalo. The museum conducts tours of the nearby Avonlea badlands on weekends. For information on museum hours or the tours call (306) 8682101. On the way to Avonlea, you will drive by Briercrest. Pop in and see the Briercrest and District Museum, located in the old school. The museum chose heritage themes for rooms in the school with a general store, school, ice cream parlour, doctor’s office, farm implements, military and household rooms. The tiny home of poet Edna Jacques is next to the museum.
The cafe sells home-made pie and ice cream on the annual Heritage Day.
For more information on hours call (306) 799-4951 or hoterrafarms@ sasktel.net. The Mossbank and District Museum Ambroz blacksmith shop is the only heritage blacksmith shop on its original site. The shop is next to the Ambroz cottage, which is full of household items that Ambroz hand built, and other artifacts. Adjacent buildings display pioneer life, the wartime RCAF training school and farm equipment. For more information call (306)
345-2811 The Mortlach Museum is located in the old fire hall that once served as the town jail and court house. The cell is one of few town jails still existing in Saskatchewan. Have your photo taken in jail. The museum displays art from well-known artist Casey Jones who painted various chiefs, as well as arrowheads and a mural. Among the upstairs artifacts, visitors can see the bar separating the judge and others in the court room. For information call (306) 3552319. The FT Hill Museum at Riverhurst takes up half the old school with displays of local fossils and rocks, pioneer items like the bed with a rope mattress, tools, and copies of FT Hill’s weekly newspaper. A highlight is the extensive gun collection also featuring firearms made by a local pioneer gunsmith. For information call (306) 3532112.
Visiting Grasslands National Park East Block Like Time Travel
The awing sweep of wilderness the first pioneers must have felt comes to mind when driving into the east block of Grasslands National Park. Developed from ranch lands in the 1980s, this wilderness park offers visitors less of the usual home comforts but with the challenge of outdoor hiking. The park has several short hikes around the ranch house turned into park office, plus longer hikes such as the one to Zahursky’s Point from which you can see far into the Killdeer Badlands. The first dinosaur fossil found in Western Canada was dug up in the Killdeer Badlands. Fossil digs still happen every year with the fossil dig becoming the theme of an annual mid-August festival in the east block. Visitors can stay at the campsite, one of the two teepees or the wood66
en TENTik structures overlooking Rock Creek. Chief Sitting Bull and his 5,000 tribes people used the creek as a guide point when they fled the United States Cavalry for a five-year stay in these parts. Recent developments include the construction of a 10.7 kilometre paved road meandering along the Rock Creek Valley and the Killdeer Badlands. 2020 ExploreMooseJaw.com
The route allows visitors to stop and see the spectacular sights without hiking for miles. The east bloc is about two hours drive south of Moose Jaw on Highway Two, west on Highway13 to Limerick and south on Highway 18. For information about hours call ahead to (306) 476-2018.
