20090630_image2 There are two log buildings at the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre. During the Museum’s expansion project, they were relocated and closed to the public. Both the MacKenzie Home and SS 10 Amabel have undergone renovations and are once again open to the public in their new location, tucked behind the Museum. The next step will be to return the gardens to their former glory.

MacKenzie Log Home

Around 1850, the Donald MacKenzie family–with nine children–built a log home in Kinloss Township, southern Bruce County. More than a century later the Women’s Institutes of Bruce County purchased the house. In 1958, they had it moved to the grounds of the Bruce County Museum, where it still enthralls visitors with a sense of the past. Step onto the narrow porch, and notice the thickness of the log walls as you pass through the low doorway. You can feel the warmth of the wood fire, appreciate the time and labour in the rag rug on the floor, and touch the furnishings worn smooth by years of use.

Log School – SS 10 Amabel

Right next door to the former MacKenzie home is a log schoolhouse. SS 10 Amabel was built in 1875, used as a school until 1892, and used for many purposes until it was purchased as a centennial project by Bruce County’s elementary school teachers in 1967. Reconstruction of SS 10 took place at the Bruce County Museum. It serves as a setting for numerous groups of students to experience the old-time ways of learning.

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