Wile Carding Mill Museum, Bridgewater

*Disclosure: Our family received a family seasonal pass for the Nova Scotia Museums so we could tour around the province and share our experiences. All opinions are our own.*

Imagine 12 hour days, 6 days a week for only $2 a day.

It was a long, tough job working in a wool mill in the 1800s. If you go to the Wile Carding Mill Museum in Bridgewater, you will learn all about it.

Our family decided to check out the museum during one of our adventures on the South Shore.

Here’s what the Museum is About

From 1860 to 1968, this water-powered mill lightened the workload for Nova Scotian farm families by carding a week’s worth of wool in one hour!

See the very machine that revolutionized carding in the area and imagine the clatter as it prepared wool for bedding and spinning.

Step outside and picture the line of ox carts that would wait patiently as women operators processed loads of sheep fleece.
Wile Carding Mill’s overshot waterwheel still turns in its tranquil setting on Sandy Brook, a reminder of a once vibrant industrial centre.

About our Visit

We were greeted by a museum interpreter who gave us a tour of the museum.

This included a step-by-step explanation of what happened to the wool from the moment it entered the mill, having been shorn off the sheep, to when it left as wool.

All the machines were operated by a giant water wheel beneath the mill floor. The technology was quite amazing!

The boys were able to have a hands-on experience of how the wool would have been carded by hand and spun into wool.

They even got to keep the wool they had spun as a souvenir!

Overall

It took us about 45 minutes to go through the museum. It was a great hands-on demonstration that would be suitable for all children, preschool aged and up.

There is also a scavenger hunt for kids to do.

It’s important for kids (and adults) to learn how jobs were so much harder over a hundred years ago and the conditions that prevailed.