By Wayne Brown
Exec. Chair, Marketing
Frenchman Butte Heritage Center
A series of extensive renovation works recently concluded at the Frenchman Butte Heritage Centre. Teams of workers have re-roofed their famous Log Cabin Tea-house, they fully replaced the Mini-Golf Course, re-painted the exterior of the Canadian National Railways Station, re-organized and upgraded the machine shed’s collection of early farm implements, re-landscaped the entire facility and improved a number of exhibits which are on display. The centre’s executive invite you to examine their much improved facility during Museum Festival Day on Sunday, Aug. 14.
Being a Sunday, the day begins with an open tent church service at 10:30 a.m. and at 11 a.m. the doors open to you for browsing the exhibits displayed in the complex’s buildings while pioneer skills, including a working telegraph, are demonstrated and a huge Silent Auction opens for bidding on nearly a hundred items. Visitors in need of a rest can lounge in the shade under a large tent and enjoy stage entertainment throughout the day.
At 1 p.m., the Street Parade will pass down main street and all other activities will cease to allow you to witness one of the best small town parades in Saskatchewan, after which the activities will resume.
At 5 p.m., a scrumptious roast beef supper will be served up to fast flowing lines, costing only $10 per adult, $5 children six to 10 and free to kids under six.
The Heritage Centre also invites you to visit the nearby Historic Sites of Fort Pitt with its extensive fur trade era history and the National Historic Site of Frenchman Butte Battle between Cree Warriors and the Alberta Field Force on May 28, 1885 in the evening on the way home. You’ll be amazed at the exciting stories in our western Canadian history!
The Frenchman Butte Heritage Centre is well known to tourists, voted the “Best Small Town Museum” in the Province in a popular magazine readers’ survey in 2013. It has shown great improvement every year as their collection is continually enhanced. This year the new Mini-Golf will be open to all, but focusing on the kids, there’s also a playground nearby as well as face-painting artists to keep them occupied through the afternoon.
Food is always a necessity at functions such as the Heritage Centre promotes. Hot dogs are noon fare, coffee is free, pop and bottled water is available, oh, and top your lunch off with a piece of the “best pie ever” with a dollop of cool ice cream on top – yummy!
The Frenchman Butte Heritage Centre is located right in the Hamlet of Frenchman Butte and has its own 10 site R.V. Park with full hook-ups and there are free shuttles running between the parking areas and the main street. The admission is by your generous donation, not a fee. This event is only 45 minutes drive from Lloydminster, to the north-east. Come and join us for the day; we have “sooo much history!”
Check out the web-site www.frenchmanbuttemuseum.ca or give us a phone call at 306-344-4448.
