The model of a Melville district farmstead has found a home at the Sukanen Ship Pioneer Village and Museum.
The one-half inch scale size model of nine buildings on the Miller homestead 10 miles southeast of Melville was painstakingly built over decades by Walter Miller.
Several museums wouldn’t take the model for display but Sukanen Ship Museum displays it in the Kampen Hall concession building.
The model replicates nine buildings erected over the years on the 1903 homestead settled by Miller’s father George.
Farm buildings include a stone-walled barn, house in two parts, blacksmith shop, grain bins, ice house, chop house, smoke house and chicken coop.
The barn was 72 feet long, 32 feet wide and 32 feet high. An addition was put on the original house.
“They moved the second part of the house in from somewhere else,” Walter Miller said.
One of the outbuildings was also made of stone.
“I don't know how long it took me,” said Miller, 88, who was visiting the museum for Family Day.
Shingles and wood siding were made from three-quarter inch wood pieces he cut from wood plugs used on railway ties.
The buildings are only memories now. His son operates the farm that Miller moved from in 1986 when he quit farming but he still helps out with operations.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
