Housed in a relatively small building, the museum houses a collection of artefacts, documents and photographs. They have managed to squeeze an amazing number of interesting displays into the building. They have pictorial and textual displays on the Swiss Guides in Golden, the first Sikh People, Explorer and Cartographer David Thompson, Riverboats on the Columbia River, Red River Carts (with a replica cart), Metis people, Early Settlers and the Stolen church of Windermere. Artefacts include many household items and appliances, gold mining paraphernalia, and, outside, a collection of farm implements.
In the equipment line is this hay tedder. They were used to turn or disperse hay to dry it prior to the grunt work of picking it up with pitch forks and loading onto a hay wagon, then again pitching it off the wagon onto the hay stack. Invented in the mid nineteenth century, several manufacturers made tedders, each with their own idea of how it should be designed. Some had compound cranks creating a motion on the forks described as "the energetic scratching of a hen." This one seems to have a simpler crank imparting a simple circular motion to the forks. I wish I could have found a name plate or mark on this one. Though they look and operate a whole lot differently, hay tedders are still made and used.
I'm young enough that when I was a kid these had long (a few years at least) been out of use, so when I first saw one in a museum it took me quite a while to figure out what it was and what it was intended to accomplish. My first thought was potato digger. Ground driven, these were horse drawn. A relatively small machine, this one was built with six sets of tedding forks but is now missing a couple.