Ontario Travel – Peterborough:
Ontario’s Pioneer History Explained at the
Lang Pioneer Village
Day 2 of my Peterborough
adventure started with gorgeous sunshine. Cora
Whittington, my hostess at the Golden Pathways B&B,
and I were talking in the kitchen while she prepared
my breakfast: a healthy fruit salad, decorated with
colourful edible flowers from her garden, and savoury
crepes with Hollandaise sauce. Magnum, the world’s
friendliest beagle, kept us company. When Cora had
finished cooking, she joined me on the veranda for
breakfast and we enjoyed a great chat on a beautiful
morning.
Cora Whittington makes a delicious and colourful
fruit salad
But then I had to get going to embark on my explorations
around Peterborough. Driving on rolling country
roads I headed east to the village of Keene which
is home to the Lang Pioneer Village, a living history
museum dedicated to preserve, promote and authentically
recreate the rural history of Peterborough County.
Joe Corrigan provides me with an overview of Lang
Pioneer Village
To start my educational outing, I met with Joe
Corrigan, the museum’s manager. In his overview
of the museum, he explained that 25 historic and
recreated buildings were brought together from around
Peterborough County for the 1967 Centennial Project.
More than 800,000 people have visited Lang Pioneer
Village over the last 43 years and enjoyed the first-hand
living history lessons available here.
Julia Gregory (on the right) with a few youth interpreters
at Lang Pioneer Village
Joe connected me with Julia Gregory, one of the
historical interpreters at the museum, who was dressed
up in full period costume. Julia started to take
me on a tour of this unique complex and we started
with the Lang Grist Mill, located across the bridge
on the other side of the Indian River. Originally
built in 1846, the Lang Grist Mill burnt down in
1896 with only the exterior stone walls remaining.
The interior of the mill was rebuilt and presents
itself in the 1896 condition.
The Lang Grist Mill originally dates from 1846
Julia explained that the Indian River had tremendous
economic significance for the region. It connects
Stony Lake with Rice Lake and was a major route
of transportation for early settlers. At some point
there were 12 mills along the Indian River, and
even today there are still two active mills: the
Lang Grist Mill, and the Hope Mill, a saw mill that
is still in operation today. But in the times before
the Lang Grist Mill was built, pioneer farmers had
to take their grain all the way to Cobourg to be
milled, a gigantic distance at a time before the
arrival of the railway.
A view over the picturesque mill pond
We went inside the mill and on three levels I was
fascinated by the waterwheel, the belts, the elevators
that moved grain up and down between the different
levels, and the sifters who separate the milled
grains into different grades. To see these complicated
and ingenious mechanisms that dated back over a
hundred years was fascinating. Everything was operated
by pure water power without any electricity at all
and the mill was surprisingly quiet.
Complicated mechanisms operate the Lang Grist Mill,
all without electricity
I also had a chance to meet Francis Cardwell, the
miller, who regularly takes school groups on tours
of the mill and explains the workings of the mill
to children, many of whom have absolutely no idea
how flour is made and where bread actually comes
from. Francis, in her take-charge kind of way, guided
a large group of children through the whole building.
A manual grinder allows visitors to grind wheat
grains to understand and see the milling process
first-hand.
Francis Cardwell, the miller, provides guided tours
of the Lang Grist Mill
My expert guide Julia then took me back to the
main visitor centre which houses the Gift Shop,
the Main and MacKelvie Galleries. Inside there was
a special temporary exhibition by the Kawartha Artists
and Vera Penrose, one of the artists, showed me
around the room which featured a wide variety of
landscape paintings in watercolour, oil and acrylic.
Some of the artists were here today to do some outdoor
painting in the beautiful setting of the Lang Pioneer
Village.
Kawartha Artists hard at work
Then Julia took me into the carpenter’s workshop
where a young man by the name of John Hodson was
demonstrating pioneer woodworking skills. John grew
up in the area and currently attends a mechanical
engineering program at college. But for the last
few years his summer job has been to work at the
Lang Pioneer Village, honing and displaying his
skills as a carpenter. He showed us how to operate
several of the human-powered machines: a scroll
saw, a treadle lathe and a foot-powered vise. He
even pointed out a coffin he had recently made because
during pioneer days carpenters got paid for making
simple wooden coffins for paupers’ graves.
John Hodson is a very skilled pioneer carpenter
Our next stop was the Menie General Store where
historical interpreter Corey showed us the different
types of merchandise that would have been available
for sale in this shop that was restored to its 1899
condition. Corey referred to it as the “Pioneer
Walmart” because it carried everything that
pioneers would have needed: food, tin cans, pots
and pans, brooms, oil lanterns, woodworking tools,
glassware and ceramics, fabrics, children’s
shoes and much more. All the artifacts were authentic
and represented a true time capsule of what people
would have found inside a general store around the
turn of the last century.
Corey shows me around the "Pioneer Walmart"
Steps away we stopped at the Blacksmith Shop, which
was built in 1859, where we connected with John
Hodson again. John is also trained as a blacksmith.
He was just operating the state-of-the-art double-action
bellows to stoke the fire when we entered and demonstrated
the making of a miniature horseshoe, one of the
600 horseshoes that he has already produced for
the gift shop this year. With his skilled hands
he easily shaped the hot metal and had to reheat
it once to finish his work. That’s where the
expression “strike while the iron is hot”
comes from.
John Hodson shows us how he makes a miniature horseshoe
At the northern end of the Lang Pioneer Village
is the Glen Alda Church, a simple unadorned Methodist
church that was built in 1898 and brought here from
the village of Glen Alda. Here Julia explained some
of the social paramaters of pioneer life. Churches
were extremely important to early settlers. A division
of labour between men and women dictated that men
would plough the fields, tend the horses, do the
planting and take the grain to the mill. Women would
take care of the house and garden, the washing and
spinning. Girls would make soap and candles from
animal fat and men would handle the weaving during
the winter.
The historic Glen Alda Church at the Lang Pioneer
Village
Winter was generally an less arduous time with
less work responsibilities on the field and an easier
way to travel by sleigh over frozen lakes. Marriages
would also usually take place during the less busy
winter months. Julia explained that pioneer life
was all about work and not about leisure. Even young
children had to pitch in wherever they could.
Interior of the David Fife cabin
Life on a pioneer farm was also quite solitary,
where the closest neighbour might often be 20 miles
away. Settlers would be given a plot of land and
would have to clear it from trees and rocks. Their
initial settlement would usually have been a simple
shack or lean-to. The next stage would be a small
cabin which is illustrated by the Fife Cabin which
was built in 1825. David Fife came to Canada as
a young man from Scotland and lived in this small
cabin with his wife and their three young children.
He is also renowned for introducing Red Fife wheat
to Canada, a hardy wheat variety that his family
started to grow in 1842.
The Fitzpatrick House illustrates the second stage
of pioneer settlement during the 1840s
Across the street is the Fitzpatrick House which
represents a settler’s second home and was
built in the 1840s. This house is already much more
elaborate than the Fife Cabin and has a fairly spacious
kitchen, a bedroom and a parlour on the main floor.
Meals were cooked in the hearth over the open fire,
even cookies were baked in this manner, and a simple
metal rotisserie would roast the meat. The historical
interpreter in this house showed us a variety of
heritage vegetables that would have been grown by
the settlers: pumpkins, applies, squash, potatoes,
tomatoes and corn, as well as a variety of herbs
that would be dried for use during the winter.
Heirloom vegetables at the Fitzpatrick House
She also showed us a yoke that was used by children
for carrying two pales of water, since the house
had no running water and no plumbing. The upstairs
of the Fitzpatrick House has a main room with several
spinning wheels, as well as a trundle bed that was
shared by six girls. Three boys shared a bedroom
while grandmother had her own room on the second
floor. While the Fitzpatrick house is much more
elaborate than the Fife Cabin, it illustrates that
the life of the early settlers offered no luxuries.
Audrey Caryi showed me around the special exhibit
"From Eatons to Ebay"
Now it was back to the main visitor building where
I was going to see a special exhibition: “From
Eaton’s to Ebay: Shopping from Home”
examines how home shopping has changed in Canada
since its inception in 1884 following the introduction
of the Eaton’s Catalogue. Museum specialist
Audrey Caryi provided me with a history of the Eatons
Company. During the second half of the 19th century,
Timothy Eaton had introduced some revolutionary
concepts to Canadian retail: fixed prices –
an unsual concept in an economy still dominated
by haggling and negotiation, cash only transactions
as opposed to barter deals, and a money-back guarantee.
Catalogue shopping was ground-breaking in that it
made up-to-date fashions and styles available to
people in remote farming communities.
The Eatons catalogue brought fashion into remote
communities
Victorian-era fashion and housewares were on display
as well as a furniture set and a pump organ that
would have been set up in homes more than 100 years
ago. Labour-saving devices were on display to illustrate
the progress that was being made in terms of household
chores: foot- pedal-operated sewing machines, manual
carpet sweepers, non-electrical washing machines
and wringers all made the lives of women so much
easier more than 100 years ago. A horse fly net
would protect draft horses from annoying flies and
mosquitoes, and a 1915 wartime bicycle was on display
with its historical price tag of $15. Audrey added
that bicycles were extremely important in giving
women more mobility and in also radically changing
female fashions with the introduction of trousers
for women.
A horse fly-swatter could also be purchased from
the Eatons catalogue
A collection of cameras showed the evolution of
photographic equipment and several photos illustrated
the progress in women’s bathing fashion, from
the conservative Victorian neck-to-knee bathing
suits to 2010’s mini bikinis. Finally a display
called “Babies as Big Business” illustrated
baby carriages in the early 1900s and compared them
to the all-terrain capable multi-functional baby
carriers of today.
Cover of the Eatons catalogue from 1915
I had originally allocated about an hour and a
half for the Lang Pioneer Village, but with all
these interesting exhibits, buildings and the knowledgeable
interpreters I had spent almost three hours here
and could have still spent more time. It was the
perfect place to learn about early pioneer life
in Ontario and to get an understanding of how home
shopping has been shaping people’s lives for
more than 120 years now.
Country serenity and education at the Lang Pioneer
Village
