Westlock and area residents will have an opportunity this weekend to experience first-hand how the pioneers of this region lived.
The Westlock Pioneer Museum will host its annual Pioneer Days celebration this Saturday from 1 p.m to 4 p.m. to give everyone an idea of what life was like at the turn of the century.
“A lot of the people that live in this town and surrounding area forget what pioneers did,” said Westlock Historical Society president Steve Chodan. “By having Pioneer Days we try to recreate some of the activities that these people did when they were very busy trying to make a living on this land.”
Summer program coordinator Heather Smith said the event will feature a little something for everyone. There will be demonstrations of a wide variety of pioneer activities, such as spinning, quilting, crochet, and rag rug making. The regular museum exhibits will also be on display.
“Lots of our exhibits are about how pioneers would have lived 100 years ago,” she said. “It’s basically just to give people information and an understanding of what people had to go through to get to where we are today.”
To sweeten the deal, Smith said she would also be demonstrating the old-fashioned way of making ice cream, something Chodan said has been a popular activity at past events.
“We’ve been making the ice cream and letting people taste the bought ice cream and taste the one we make on that day, and without exception they agree the old way of making ice cream was much better than what we get in the store today,” he said.
For him, the quality difference between products made the old-fashioned way and what we get today is one of the most significant differences between the modern and pioneer eras.
“Today, we’re spoiled. We have things that are refined. The products that we eat are refined, but they’re not really as good for us as the old stuff,” he said.
He recalled how as he was growing up on the farm, there was always fresh cream and butter, eggs, beef, pork and chicken, which they were able to happily eat without many of the food safety concerns people have today.
“We didn’t worry about E. coli or anything like that,” he said.
Furthermore, the amount of work that went into producing the day-to-day necessities played a large part in building the character of people who lived before the introduction of modern conveniences.
“Those were good old days. We were never rich, but we were happy. It made better people out of us, too, because we appreciated the hard work that we had to do,” he said. “It made better citizens out of us, whereas today we expect a lot and expect to give little in return.”
Chodan said he hopes the experience of the Pioneer Days demonstrations will give people in the Westlock area a greater appreciation for the work done by our forefathers, and help people to realize that although modern conveniences seem indispensable, they’re not.
“Maybe what we need is to show what happened in the pioneer days — that even though they were tough days, they were happy days,” he said.
Admission for the event is $2 for students, $5 for adults and $10 for families.
