Every small-town museum displays one unique exhibit

The drive to a farm auction near Vanguard was less boring with two sightings of deer.

The one sighting was unusual. A doe crossed the road ahead of us. As she bounded into a nice stand of durum wheat, her baby crossed the road, forcing the driver to slow down and avoid hitting it.

My friend and I commented on the variable crop conditions, with mostly short stands in the southwest, the occasional tall crop, and plenty of sparse parched fields.

The auction had little of interest to us other than a slice of homemade blueberry pie, so we headed into Vanguard with the intention of visiting the museum. But the museum and library branch aren’t open on Monday.

The Hodgeville Museum was our next stop. We just made it as the volunteer attendant Terry Scheitel was about to close for the morning.

The museum is located in a former Mossbank air training base hospital which moved in 1948 to Hodgeville as a hospital.

I found it ironic that entry to the building was 11 steps up. What happened if you had trouble walking? Every small-town museum has one exhibit not found anywhere else. In Hodgeville the unique exhibit is a replica of a meteorite found by local farmer Waldemar Senft in the 1990s.

The 16-pound original is stored in

Ottawa.

He sold the unusual rock to an

American collector not knowing what it was. The rock was later retrieved. It was only the 50th meteorite found in

Canada.

The exhibits featured a cool threshing scale model scene with horses, a model of nearby Shamrock in 1925 and displays of clothes, household items, tools and other things.

Of course, a mounted coyote observed the Coyote Capital of Canada.

Scheitel told us of the difficulty keeping the doors open. From a core of four volunteers, there are only two left in the community.

A coffee club in the museum dining room helps keep the place running. The museum is open 9 a.m. to noon Monday to Friday.

Heading home, we stopped at the Elkhorn Hotel in Morse for a late lunch of home-made sausage and later, for commercially-baked pie at Caronport.

Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net