I decided to take July 3rd as a rest day. The weather forecast for today called for thunderstorms and strong winds and I was feeling a little tired anyway.
In the morning I visited the Remington Carriage Museum, the largest carriage museum in the world. The museum holds more than 250 horse drawn carriages, coaches, buggies, wagons, sleighs and other specialized vehicles.
The bull wagon pictured above, weighing 1,980 lbs. empty and capable of carrying 5.5 tons of freight, would have been the lead wagon. Three bull wagons hitched together formed a ‘train’ pulled by 9 or 10 yoke of oxen. The second wagon would have been smaller and the third wagon smaller yet. This bull wagon wast first used on the Oregon Trail in the 1870s and later rumbled over the Fort Benton-Fort MacLeod Trail. After 1885 it was used to haul coal from Lethbridge, Alberta to the Northwest Mounted Police post in Fort MacLeod.