Boomtown! Saskaboom? Saskabush!

Boomtown! Saskatoon, 1910.
Saskaboom! Saskatoon, 2009.
Saskabush! A website with no content, or maybe just if you're on chrome. But more importantly, the here and now, 2011.

Yesterday afternoon I took a trip to the Western Development Museum with my roommate. Thanks UBC student card! I got myself $1.75 off the regular admission price.

When you walk into the museum, they've set up a replica of the old Boomtown, probably the way it looked back in 1910, complete with bleached blonde ladies of the night and their portly male patrons. They were all called, "settlers."

it's blurry for your own good

We didn't realize we were coming in on the last day of their Christmas Tree festival, so the place was pretty packed (for Saskatoon), but lucky for us, it meant that with the extended business hours, we would have longer than the anticipated 45 minutes to spend there! We were very glad. At the end of the recreated street, there was a man with an orange tan and heavy stage make-up singing, "O Holy Night" and a woman in a beaded black wrap (AND THAT'S ALL!) using the instrumental breaks in her songs to talk to the audience of 8 senior citizens in 60 fold-up chairs. I didn't take any pictures of the performers though since I'm genuine and welcoming and not rude.

 The museum reminded me a bit of Taiwan Storyland, although obviously, lamer. 

Let's look at some photos!

A smithy! He is a real person. Or, an excellent robot.

In the general store, the local setllers would come to discuss...

Probably how terrible their lives were.

Children ran the post office.

No child labour laws in the days of Dr. Quinn!

Old-timey candies shaped as mice. And LSD. 

The mice look more appetizing if you drop the acid first.

Tinned goods and bananas. Bananas help you plow better.

Medicine including  baby laxatives. Probably just made of bananas.

How exciting! One of the original RCMP, before they were even known as the RCMP!
He's hard at work, about to arrest some outlaw - oh wait, let's read the provided description - 

 

Fair enough.

This, I actually did like. ANNE SHIRLEY COULD HAVE SMASHED
HER SLATE OVER GILBERT BLYTHE'S HEAD IN A CLASSROOM LIKE THIS!

I went inside expecting to see some long braids coming out from underneath round caps and was severely disappointed. All they had was an abacus. Time WASTED.

Not trains, not cars, but TRACTORS! The true heroes of the prairies!

Blogger is making me upset and I'm getting bored so you probably are too. I'm going to go puree a pumpkin now.