Interpretive Centre
Our Interpretive Centre was built for the museum in the early 1970s and showcases tools and equipment used outside the pioneer home. It explores transportation, butter-making, blacksmithing and agriculture.
Blacksmithing
Blacksmiths played a vital role in the development of the pioneer economy in Assiniboia. During the frugal and thrifty lifestyle of the settlement era, the blacksmith was gainfully employed mending occupational equipment such as plows, pitchforks, butterchurns, vehicle parts and fittings.
The Interpretive Centre contains an original blacksmith’s forge, anvil, bellows and various tools. As the blacksmith works, the coals are kept hot in the forge to heat the metal which is then shaped on the anvil.
The blacksmith display also includes a branding iron from the Honourable John Taylor, who was William Brown’s (original owner of the 1856 Red River Frame House) son-in-law. John Taylor was the first Minister of Agriculture for Manitoba.
Transportation
The Interpretive Centre is home to both a Buggy and a Cutter. The Buggy was used in spring, summer and fall. It is a one-horse buggy. The Cutter was used in winter. The cutter, also drawn by one horse, cuts through ice and snow whereas a sleigh would easily get stuck.
Agriculture
Work in the fields in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s was hard, backbreaking work without the modern machinery of today. Our display includes many of the tools that would have been used to do this work including a horse or ox drawn plow, corn seeder, cradle scythe, sickle, hay knife, and wet-stone.
Buttermaking
Inside the Interpretive Centre you can see the entire process of buttermaking.
