An expanded settler's village was one of the highlights of summer for the Melfort Museum. (File photo/northeastNOW)

By Cam Lee

Melfort Museum

Busy summer giving way to Christmas prep at the Melfort Museum

Oct 20, 2025 | 12:32 PM

The summer weather is a memory, but the Melfort Museum has fond memories of a very successful summer season.

Curator Brenda Mellon told northeastNOW their busy season was filled with school tours and guided tours led by the museum’s summer students, who were also responsible for the Time Warp program.

Sixty-five kids signed up for that youth program, and another summer student helped with a treaty walk research project.

The museum’s weekly barbecues during the summer were also well attended, with an average of 150 people attending the event, which features food and entertainment at the museum grounds.

They also held a cornhole tournament for the first time this year, and Mellon said they are looking to make that an annual event. The Canada Day celebrations were held at the museum this year and Mellon said they had 1,700 people through that day alone.

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“All in all, it was a very busy summer,” Mellon said. “Just in the months of July and August, we had close to four thousand visitors.”

The expansion of the museum continued in 2025, and the grand opening of the dentist office at the settler’s village was a sign that progress continues at the museum grounds. Two new buildings were brought to the village in the spring, and the three new storefronts will be a newspaper, a telephone office and a bank.

“The exterior and some of the interior finishings have been completed, and we’ll finish the interior in the spring, with plans to hopefully have those buildings open for the public by late summer next year.”

The museum has over 44,000 items in its collection, with many of them in storage. Mellon said the museum’s expansion project will allow them to display more of their historical items.

They acquired additional land to the west of their property from the Melfort Agricultural Society, and the two new buildings brought in this past spring are on that side. Mellon said they have a lengthy list of potential new buildings to accommodate items in their collection.

Now that summer is over, the museum is in Christmas mode. Mellon said they’ve had staff and volunteers preparing for the Christmas season since the start of September. They have already begun the process of hanging Christmas lights ahead of the expanded Christmas Village display that will be featured throughout the month of December.

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cam.lee@pattisonmedia.com