Last fall the Prairieview Elevator Museum in Plum Coulee expanded its space by around 25 per cent, and more is scheduled for this year.

"Hopefully in spring, we'll have another two or three rooms open to [make] the main part of the museum an interpretive centre," said Dorothy Derksen, who sits on the committee overseeing the museum.

The plan is to move all the artifacts currently in the main room into the new spaces in the elevator so the interpretive centre can be built. This would display how farming used to be and how elevators played a role.

The renovation to create more usable rooms last fall requires a lot of work. Old bins are re-purposed to become extra museum space, but the floor of each bin is sloped toward the centre, so a new floor needs to be installed. Volunteers took care of the renovations so costs were almost negligible.

During the powerful wind storm that ripped through the Pembina Valley last August, the three main doors of the museum were blown in and a number of artifacts from the museum were carried across Plum Coulee. Some of them were recovered, but many needed to be replaced.

Some pieces came from generous people in the area, but the museum was also able to look through the artifacts of a museum in St. Norbert which was closing down.

Within a few short weeks, the doors were replaced and the museum was cleaned out from the dirt and rain from the storm. The museum was even open for Plum Fest.