The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

ontario metros pioneer village by cheryl freedman drive 29 kilometres 18 miles northwest from toronto city hall and slip 100 years into the past before downtown skyscrapers and bumpertobumper traffic it is the world of black creek pioneer village a living museum of rural life in south ern ontario during the 75 years before canadian confederation 1867 here history is more than a col lection of old buildings and artifacts its homespunclad villagers per forming the daily tasks of a 19th century crossroads farm community you stroll into the past along the wooden sidewalks of queen street past the boom town facade of the laskay emporium and post office the emporium is crammed with foodstuffs tools patent medicines hardware china glass and what must be the largest meat cleaver in the world you can buy horehound candies or oldfashioned creamy fudge out of heavy square glass candy jars across the street is the daniel stong farm on its original site the six buildings and their furnishings reflect the thrift of a pennsylvania german who arrived in canada as a child in 1800 his first home built in 1816 is a crudelyfurnished three- room hewntimber cabin with only an open fireplace for cooking and heating to this he added a smoke house piggery and chicken house and grain barn in 1832 he built a twostorey sevenroom house with an indoor brick bake oven in the kitchen this house secondlargest in the village boasts curtains rugs and fine furniture including a box stove imported from scotland if youre lucky you may be offered a piece of spice cake baked in a five- second oven the fiveseconds refers to the length of time a pioneer wo man could hold her hand in the hardwoodheated oven to ensure that it was hot enough for baking cake the smell of baking bread draws you back across the street to the halfway house inn a former stagecoach stop upstairs servants and guests go about their daily business baking cleaning playing cards downstairs is the licensed dining room where serving girls dressed in homespun will bring you a fullcourse meal or a light snack on oldstyle crockery or if youd rather you can picnic up mill road is the oneroom schoolhouse with its castiron stove in the back and its dunce cap at the front further along can be heard the splashing of the water wheel as it moves the grindstones of roblins mill where grain is still ground to day to produce the flour used in village baking a former temperance hall now houses the printing office and weavers shop at the corner of mill road and maple avenue in the printing office are the presses that were used to print weekly newspa pers for many small ontario com munities two of the presses are still used today to turn out notices and posters in back the weavers shop is filled with the soft hums and clicks of spinning wheel and weaving loom producing carpets and coverlets for the village although the village is open seven days a week there are special weekend events reminiscent of farm activities of the last century in april these centre around building with railsplitting squaring logs shinglemaking and broommaking may is devoted to sheep shearing and spinning to harrowing and seeding and gunsmithing in june you can see how our ancestors used to cook and bake before the time of confederation the village smithy is featured in july activities and the printing office in august september is the time for putting up and pre serving and for dyeing wool october and november feature demonstra- tontinutit pay 2 21