Here in The Garage, we are taking a couple of weeks vacation. But this isn’t your regular vacation, as we are really doing next to nothing for a change. We have been hanging around the house, saw a movie and are doing the usual holiday season stuff. Beyond that, we are taking the odd day trip here and there. Today we visited Toronto’s Black Creek Pioneer Village, which has been preserving heritage buildings and lifestyle since the middle of the last century. The village is similar in concept if not scale to the Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village neat Detroit except that the setting is in the mid 1800’s, well before the automobile took over from the horseless carriage.

So why do readers of The Garage care? Well, it is a pretty cool place to take the kids, but garage like activities played a bit part of life in those early days of Canadian life. You might even see some clues of what was to come. The Dominion Carriage Works that you see above may have indeed played a part in the early days of General Motors. It seems that W.C. Durant may have owned shares in DCW at some point. This carriage works stayed in operation until 1972 on a limited basis and was moved to Black Creek in 1973 along with all the tools and original carriage patterns.

Where there are buildings, there are fire fighters. This unassuming little shed plays home to a wonderful fire fighting tool.

This 1837 fire pumper was given to the City of Toronto by the British America Assurance Company and was manned by volunteer fire fighters for 40 years.

I can’t find information on it, so I would assume that this cider wagon is a replica. No matter though, it is housed in a drive shed that is adjacent to an 1850’s cider mill.

In town, even the horse drawn carriages needed some light to guide the way.