source: Farm and Food Report
It could well be described as the showpiece of Hague’s Saskatchewan River Valley Museum: a rare standing Mennonite House-Barn.
Dating back to 1908, the wood-frame gabled-roof structure consisting of two distinctly separate but adjoining buildings clearly contrast with the farmyards one usually encounters across Saskatchewan.
Gerry Kuehn is one of the volunteers who is responsible for its preservation.
“It was actually built on the townsite of Hochfeld, about five miles northwest of Hague. In 1994 we moved it to the museum site in two sections. The house and the barn sections share a wall. At one time there were many house-barns like this all around the area. This is one of the few that was preserved, likely because someone lived and kept stock in it well into the 1970s.”
In a way, this type of structure is symbolic of another view of the world. It was devised by the Mennonites in seventeenth-century Poland where farmland was more scarce and restricted to small, narrow parcels of land.
It was designed specifically to house a farm family, agricultural livestock, and produce in one structure. The unique design of house-barns allowed them to use land to its fullest capacity by containing farm buildings within a limited space.
This also contributed to and reinforced the Mennonites' closely-knit communities since the structures were built within very close proximity to one another in communities of 20 to 60 family units.
When the Mennonites immigrated to Canada, they retained this unique style of architecture because it allowed them to preserve their agricultural way of life as well as their religious and cultural beliefs.
“The family members went straight from the kitchen to the barn by a shared door,” explains Kuehn. “Some of these houses had some kind of transition room between the two areas, a bit like we would have a mud room today—one that would lead into the barn and the house at each end.
“The bedroom closest to the barn would likely have been that of the older boys who would be called upon to do the chores. Cow stalls were closest to the house; there were horse stalls and likely pigs as well. Small windows installed side-by-side near the barn’s roof line provided basic natural lighting.
Farthest from the house lies an open area with access to the loft, with a widera shed-like extension, likely where smaller implements would be stored. Heavy doors allowed access to heavier equipment or feed loads that could be hoisted up into a modest loft.
“We restored the house to what it looked like in 1908 with Mennonite furniture. It is all very humble. In the living room, a long wooden sitting bench sits where a chesterfield might have been in a non-Mennonite family. This is likely the room where the grandparents might have slept. There was also a distinctive wood fired central heating system housed in a cement casing, which we had to leave behind when we moved the house because of its weight.”
To enter the house directly, visitors first entered an enclosed front porch attached to the middle of the house and equipped with a window on each side of the door.
“We were fortunate enough that a founding member of the Museum left us his entire estate when he passed away with the stipulation that a building be constructed to house the entire museum collection. Thanks to this gift, we were able to restore the house in 1997 and build a museum facility; and to acquire an old Mennonite country school and a church we moved onto the site as well.”
The Saskatchewan River Valley Museum folks had the building designated a Municipal Heritage Property in March 1996.
“It is open to the public. We get so many people who come and visit our museum in the summer. They always tell us just how impressed they are with the heritage we have managed to preserve. Even our local history is chronicled like nowhere else, thanks to the efforts of dedicated volunteers like me,” Kuehn points out. “We call our museum: Saskatchewan’s small secret.”
Gerry Kuehn
Saskatchewan River Valley Museum
Hague
(306) 225-2112
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