The Assiniboia & District Historical Museum has spent the better part of half a century collecting the story of a Prairie town — the boardwalk storefronts of 1912, the calendars from businesses that no longer exist, the threshing machines and the antique tractors parked out back. On Sept. 19, it will roll that story out onto the lawn and invite the whole community to walk through it.
The museum's fall fundraiser and community fun day, held at 506 Third Avenue West, once again pairs the institution with the Southern Cruisers Car Club for the club's annual fall show and shine. Admission is free. The day brings a vendor market, a barbecue, draws and other activities, with local sellers offering homegrown and handmade goods — baking, fresh honey, handmade soaps and the like. Some vendor spaces were still available as the event approached.
It is, on its face, a pleasant autumn Saturday: classic cars gleaming in the lot, burgers on the grill, neighbours catching up after a summer apart. But the gathering sits on top of a much longer history, and it exists for a reason that has little to do with chrome and polish.
The museum began not with a building but with a handful of people who simply wanted to keep things from being thrown away. In 1974, a group of 34 residents formed the Assiniboia Museum Group, driven by a desire to preserve the artifacts of their corner of southern Saskatchewan. The same year, the group became a registered non-profit charity. A couple of those original members were still active decades later. The grand opening of the museum itself came on June 12, 1980 — the culmination of six years of collecting, cataloguing and fundraising by volunteers who had no permanent home for what they had gathered.
As donations kept arriving, the collection outgrew its space. With help from the Town of Assiniboia, a new building was begun in 1994 and completed the following year, giving the museum its current home on Third Avenue West. Today the collection includes a vintage car display that volunteers have compared, given the size of the community, to the Henry Ford Museum in the United States — a striking claim for a town of Assiniboia's scale, and one the museum's supporters make without much hesitation. The museum also holds the Prentice Safari Exhibit, a wall of business calendars dating back to 1890, and photographs and records of the surrounding communities, including villages that have since disappeared from the map. Outside, in a Quonset and a pole shed, sit antique tractors and a threshing machine. There is a gazebo, a picnic area, and a nine-hole mini golf course that opened in 2024.
The museum's coordinator, Sally Svenson, has been the public face of much of this activity. In 2024, the institution marked its 50th anniversary with an open house featuring music, scavenger hunts, word-puzzle hunts and the debut season of the mini golf course. The 2024 executive included Leora Martin, in her fourth year as president, treasurer Walter Hutchinson and secretary Saskia Koetterle. Around 25 volunteers typically give their time through the season, guided by a committee of six.
The Southern Cruisers partnership has become a fixture of the museum's fall calendar. In 2023, the club and the museum teamed up for a show and shine that drew what organizers described as an amazing turnout, with free museum tours that included the automobile display. The partnership has continued since, with the car show serving as the anchor of the museum's end-of-summer event. The pairing is a natural one: the museum's own collection is built around machines and the people who drove, farmed and repaired them, and the Southern Cruisers bring a living, running version of that same story onto the grounds.
For the museum committee, the point of the day goes beyond the fundraiser. Community events are how the institution stays visible and relevant — how it reaches residents and visitors who might never otherwise think to walk through its doors. Throughout the summer, the museum runs seasonal programming, including guest speakers and community celebrations, and the fall gathering is the last big push before the season winds down.
That matters because the museum, like most small Prairie institutions, runs on participation. Fundraisers, event fees, vendor rentals and sales all feed into the ongoing costs of maintaining the building, the exhibits and the property. Just as important, a well-attended event demonstrates that preserving local history is something the community actually values. In a town like Assiniboia — known across the region as the Heart of the Golden South — a museum is more than a warehouse of old things. It is a meeting place between past and present, where the stories of the families, farms and businesses that built the district get handed to the next generation.
The Sept. 19 event runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the museum grounds, 506 Third Avenue West. It is free to attend, family-friendly, and open to anyone who wants to browse the vendor tables, eat a burger, admire a line of classic cars, or simply step inside and see what five decades of volunteer effort have preserved. More information is available through the museum at 306-642-5353 or [email protected].