The museum is housed primarily in Pouce Coupe's (pronounced Pouce Coupee) one time railway station, built in 1931 about three blocks west of its current location and moved here in 1972. The museum itself opened in 1973 and has grown constantly since.
Not only does the museum have an authentic railway station, it also has a
Northern Alberta Railway caboose parked behind that station. Naturally, it was that selfsame railway which built the station. As well as the caboose the museum has four buildings packed with artefacts, Heritage House, the Trapper's Cabin, a tool shed and the original NAR Train Station. Artefacts in the collection depict each and every aspect of life in the Peace Country, including domestic life, agriculture, transportation, business and industry, medicine, even the effects of war on the people of the Peace Country.
Out back of the railway station, beside the heritage house, is what we learned to be a turnip chopper. We were clueless as to exactly what material this implement was made to cut/chop when a local, who was doing some construction work at the museum, came to the rescue, and enlightened us. Apparently turnips were a major crop in the peace country, being used as both animal and human food. Turned by a hand crank, a steel wheel of about a metre in diameter was spun up. Square cutter teeth on one side chopped turnips into fine pieces to be used as a winter cattle feed supplement. Turnips were poured into a hopper formed by the cutting wheel on one side and a cast iron frame on the other, with the chopped turnips simply falling out the bottom.
By its appearance, this machine was either homemade or manufactured, possibly locally, in small quantities. The cutting wheel, handle and axle may have been made for another purpose and repurposed for this machine.