Come and Explore Salmon Arm's Past

Pioneer School Program

Haney Heritage Village & Museum is delighted to offer teachers and educators one of the most innovative and memorable field trip experiences available in Salmon Arm. Let the sights and smells of the Broadview School House carry your students back in time. Pioneer school day offers teachers and students a chance to dress for the part and role-play a school day from a century ago. You and your students will step back to a different way of life and a unique day away from the classroom. This adventure in education has been popular with students, teachers, and parents for over twenty years.

Our school programming takes you right into our heritage buildings to introduce Salmon Arm's pioneers' captivating and intriguing lives. Explore, discover, and learn how people lived off the land and how families grew and prospered. Understand how humble and hearty settlers created the city where we live.

Your class will be guided through a wholesome fun and charming program by our experienced schoolmarm Miss Halpenny. Miss Halpenny brings out excitement and imagination in children of all ages. With storytelling, learning the three R's, and traditional songs taking centre stage, you'll see why the local schoolhouse was the social centre of every community.

Discover what the western frontier was like before paved roads and power! A visit to the Newnes Blacksmith Shop will acquaint your class with old-time trades. Explore the legendary Haney House to see how Salmon Arm's first pioneers lived.

Your day at Haney Heritage Village and Museum

The program is made up of a variety of guided heritage learning experiences targeted at Grades 1 through 5. These experiences have been planned around a four-and-a-half-hour day, but modules can be adapted to your class's needs.

Part of the day is spent in the classroom under the supervision of "schoolmarm," Miss Vera Halpenny. The rest of the time is organized into period games, a tour through Haney House, the Village and Children's Museum, a walk along our nature trail, a gold panning demonstration, games, ice cream making, and a blacksmith demonstration.

Dress-up day

We encourage you to have your class dress up in period costumes. The "dress up and pretend" aspect of this activity makes the experience more real for students.

Costumes can be as simple as a bonnet and apron, or a pair of shortened, knee-length pants, a white shirt with its collar removed, and a pair of suspenders. Please consider keeping these costumes as a resource and saving them for future class visits.

Period Games and Other Activities

. The Haney Heritage experience is visiting the Children's Museum and Discovery Centre, and walking on old-fashioned stilts is always a hit with students.

Other activities that we offer are:

~A nature trail guided tour that wanders through four climatic zones with good examples of plants the First Nations and pioneers used for food and medicine.

~A "good as gold" experience with prospector Pete, who gives a brief history of the search for gold through the Columbia Shuswap region. Lucky panners will walk away with a piece of "real" Haney gold!

~A blacksmith demonstration in a scale replica of the Newnes Blacksmith Shop.

~Ice Cream making demonstration. Children make ice cream the way Great-Great-Grandma did, and the best part is everyone gets to eat the results!

A Little History

The Salmon Arm Museum and Archives Association was formed in 1963. By 1967 the association had built the community's first Museum located next to the cenotaph in Salmon Arm. For the next seventeen years, the Museum collected Salmon Arm's history both in artifact and archival form. By 1984 the Museum was bursting at the seams. So when the forty acres R.J. Haney property was offered to the association by the District, the Museum leapt at the opportunity. What better way to show the history of the community than in the context of a pioneer farm?

Since 1984, the Museum Association has slowly expanded its operations at the R.J. Haney Heritage Village. We now have:

• A fully restored, heritage–designated farmhouse
• Two log houses
• A fully restored church and school
• A modern museum and archives
• A replicated Blacksmith Shop, Garage, and Fire Hall
• The relocated Queest Fire Tower
• Salmon Arms First Filling Station
• The Beemish Sound Studio
• The Montebello Museum was constructed to look like many buildings set in Salmon Arm from 1907-1914 and tells nine other stories.