The Ashern Pioneer Museum is gearing up for its annual threshermen’s reunion on Sunday, Aug. 11.
The annual two-day event happened every weekend before Labour Day when it started 34 years ago. Still, with the rodeo happening around the same time, it became too much for organizers and attendees. So, the reunion went to a one-day event on the same weekend as the local rodeo. After a few years of doing it like that, the Ashern Pioneer Museum decided to branch out again and hold the threshermen’s reunion the weekend before the rodeo. So now, every second weekend in August, the mini thresherman’s reunion brings people from all corners of Manitoba to Ashern.
At the Ashern Pioneer Museum’s mini threshermen’s reunion, people can take in threshing and binding on the same day. Threshing is loosening the edible part of grain from the rest of the plant. Threshing is typically done by rubbing, stripping, or beating the plant, which a combine does nowadays during harvest. Binding cuts the grain and binds it into bundles. The binder, invented in 1872, improved upon the reaper, and the original machine used wire to tie the bundles.
For the reunion, the museum board has sheaths from the previous years’ harvest to run through the thrasher, and they’ve tilled up a field at the museum where they grow grain to bind during the reunion.
“People like to reminisce,” said Rick Ebbers, chairman of the museum board. “It’s a thing of the past. It’s the years that started and made this town, so it’s a lot of hard work they put in, and it’s just great to see people who come out and appreciate it.”
The reunion will start with a church service in the Anglican Church on the museum site, followed by a barbecue lunch lasting all day. There will be popcorn, a bouncy castle, a dog show, chainsaw carving, and live entertainment by local artists. Entry is $5 a person and free for children 12 and under.
The Ashern Pioneer Museum has seven buildings on-site, including the original CNR station, St. Michael’s Anglican Church, the Hoffman log house, the former post office, the former municipality office, the Darwin school, and a storage building for machinery. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, each week throughout the summer, and phone calls with special appointments are often accommodated.
The museum has artifacts from different times in Ashern’s history. Ebbers encourages everyone who hasn’t been there yet to see what the museum has to offer. Each of the seven buildings will be open for people to tour during the reunion on Aug. 11.
