Etzikom Museum and Historic Windmill Center

The living is breezy at the Etzikom Museum and Historic Windmill Centre, 85 km (53 mi) south of Medicine Hat. This area of southeast Alberta gets the sustained and predictable winds needed to keep windmills turning. That’s true today with modern power installations, and it was true in the early days of settlement. The museum’s collection includes historic (and ingenious) windmills as well as reproductions of buildings of the early 1900s. These include a general store, blacksmith shop, barbershop and a post office. There’s also a settler’s home, complete with parlour, kitchen and bedroom. Visitors are free to wander along the path that winds through the four-acre site, grab a seat at one of the many picnic tables, and contemplate life in Alberta in the early 1900s. The museum is open from mid-May to early September annually.