WESTLOCK – The Canadian Tractor Museum had its 20-year anniversary in 2024 with a celebration in May with renovations completed this year.
Barb Kostiw, executive director said, “we renovated a big storage room and everything is on casters so that gives us all flexibility or many types of events and we can make space.”
The Canadian Tractor Museum recently hosted the North Freemo Miniature Train Display in December.
The museum is gaining celebrity status, being featured in a story about the 20th anniversary in the Better Farms Magazine and on Farms.com.
Kostiw said they were contacted by the producers of the Discovery Channel.
They were doing a program on tractors and contacted the Canadian Tractor Museum to speak to tractor experts that will talk about tractor pulls and tractors.
The museum came to be when local residents realized that vintage tractors and farm equipment were leaving the area, along with all the history that went with them, according to their website.
The Westlock and District Tractor Museum Foundation was formed in 1998 as a registered charity to preserve the history and agriculture stories told through equipment collections.
The collection includes antique tractors and farming equipment, along with stationary engines and a vintage sawmill.
They have built the largest restored antique tractor collection in Canada along with the largest stationary engine collection in Canada.
Private collectors have donated almost 100 vintage tractors to the museum to date. A 1918 Titan tractor is the oldest tractor in the museum collection.
June 1 was 20 years from the first day the Canadian Tractor Museum opened.
There is more than just vintage agriculture equipment onsite, with a 20,000-square-foot building on eight acres.
The museum has a replica of the Pickerville grain elevator to scale with a miniature train that runs a track around the elevator and an assortment of town buildings, vehicles, animals and surprises. John Gibbons is the volunteer who takes care of the train set up and is always adding to the collection.
The Green train car is a replica of the carriages that used to bring the US soldiers up to build the Alaska highway.
The caboose is similar to the one that used to be in front of the arena and is now over at the railway museum in Namao.
The museum also has small pedal tractors for kids to ride around on while adults have a good long look at all the antiques.
