It’s the 40th Anniversary for Killarney’s Prairie Pioneer Days hosted by the Turtle Mountain Flywheel Club this coming weekend July 9th and 10th. The annual show promises to be fun for the entire family as old machinery is dusted off, fueled-up and primed to run once again.

This year’s list of events starts off with setting up machinery for the displays and demonstrations. Gates open at 11 am for folks to come out and be part of the setting up, to see how it once was, back in the day. The Antique Tractor Pull begins at 2:30 with a wonderful supper being served in the museum at 5:30.

Sunday includes Breakfast from 7-10am, a Car & Truck Show, Parade at 1:30 and demonstrations throughout the day.

Did I mention that the Turtle Mountain Flywheel Club Museum boasts having the largest collection of stationary engines in Manitoba? And their array of tractors, machinery and trucks has a story attached to each piece.

The club started in 1976 when a handful of enthusiastic antique tractor-lovers decided to share their treasures with their community. Their passion was to put on a family-oriented show with the desire to share the early history of agriculture, and its progression, with the younger generation. Their collection date from the early 1900’s to the 1960’s and track changes from the horse and plow, to steam-powered machinery, to the kerosene and gasoline powered.

Club President, Stuard Hall, says they’re celebrating Case equipment by featuring two 100-year-old Case tractors this year, his favourite being the 20-40. The 20-40 Tractor is a favourite for the Flywheel Club, as is the 3-wheel Case Tractor. Both were donated by the Gordon and Margaret Cramm family from Manitou.



After being a member of the Flywheel Club for just over 22 years, and running the 20-40 Tractor for approximately 20 of those years, Mr. Hall is retiring from operating the 20-40, saying he is passing that job on to his son-in-law, Jason McClennan.

Stuard Hall shares the history of the Universal Tractor, and how it was purchased in 1912 from John Lawrence’s Hardware Store in Killarney, by Richard Oliver, who was the first pharmacist in Killarney, and who farmed in the Pelican Lake area. It was only within the past 10 years that it came back to the community, to settle in Killarney’s agricultural museum.



An added piece of archival history is that the Universal Tractor and the world’s first Rotary Thresher, both displayed at the museum, were presented on the Prairie Farm Report back in 2012 (Prairie Farm Report #10 Machinery of the Past 2 2012/13). Stuard Hall is featured speaking with Neil Hathaway, whose great uncle, Bruce Hathaway, invented the Rotary Thresher in Deloraine in the early 1920’s. It was a threshing machine well before its time.

“I’ve seen a lot of change in our own club in the past 20 plus years,” Hall says. “We started out as a club with no property. We had only member-owned tractors. And then people came to us where they wanted their tractors looked after. So we came up with a program where they could donate them or loan them to us. We have many units here on loan from many different members, and families. It just makes our collection that much nicer. Both of those 100 year old Case tractors were donated to us.”

Hall guess that there are some 45 tractors, 7 threshing machines and many plows and other pieces of machinery.

The 20-40 Tractor is a favourite for the Flywheel Club, as is the 3-wheel Case Tractor. Both were donated by the Gordon and Margaret Cramm family from Manitou.



As the Prairie Pioneer Days commemorates Agriculture and its progress over the past 100 years, Hall gives us a brief summary of its drastic change in a relatively short time.



The 40th Annual Prairie Pioneer Days will be held at the Turtle Mountain Flywheel Club Museum on the outskirts of Killarney, south side, July 9-10.

The museum will be opened during summer hours. Visit their website at www.tmflywheelclub.ca for more information.