Fall Heritage Fair 2025

This past Saturday, September 27, 2025, we held our Fall Heritage Fair with its theme of “Agricultural History of North Oakville”. Its held at the restored Palermo schoolhouse in northwest Oakville (Dundas & Bronte Road). There were lots of activities for kids – free popcorn, apples and a skipping rope. And of course petting the farm animals – pigs, ducks, chickens and bunnies. We added many new features, especially for the kids (and adults alike). See Fall Heritage Fair 2025 We have lots of FREE Parking.

• Fun on the Farm – It may look like a laundry tub, but it’s a large bubble station – join in the fun! Try doing laundry as it was 100 years ago with washboards. Hang clothes with pegs on a clothesline and vintage stocking stretcher. Our giant popcorn machine will be operating at capacity! Add your colouring skills to our huge farm mural. And most importantly, have fun with the farm animals – pigs, ducks, chickens and bunnies.
• Life on the Farm – Meet live farm animals. Climb aboard some of the tractors, ploughs and wagons used on the farm. Try ‘milking‘ MABLE, the cow. We have a rope making machine to make FREE skipping ropes. Watch a husking machine shell and grind corn for feed. See the working 1929 Rumely tractor that worked in local fields. Hear the noise of the early engines that worked on the farm.
• Life at School – back to the 1 room schoolhouse days, chalkboards, wooden desks, readers and spellers, and of course, ring the bell for class. Hang out in and sit in desks at the one room heritage schoolhouse. Have your picture taken with the Head Teacher – dressed in period costume! Maybe also sneak a candy from the teacher’s candy jar! Play with wood toys from days gone by and play vintage games like crokinole.
• Life in the Community – there will be a collection of historical machines, amongst other machinery reflecting life on the farm in early Trafalgar Township. Watch the blacksmith make farm implements! We’ll have a Neilson Dairy Wagon, and a LARGE milk carton as part of our Dairy display, and have your photo taken beside it. We have a local Scout group showing off their skills demonstrating water purification, knots and other talents. We will have the Old Palermo Country Store open, displaying and selling goods as it may have in days gone by! Farm goods as well as supplies you might have needed in 1910! We’ll have FREE apples.
• Families and Local History – meet some local authors and historians. Find your house on a 1858 Map of the Township. Speak to Genealogists and explore 8 local family histories and family trees. Learn about local Indigenous history: how do present-day roads relate to original trails? View our free archives and also online access to historical pictures and stories of times gone by in Trafalgar Township.
• Historic Palermo Tours – Explore the 1812 Palermo United Church (a short walk from the Schoolhouse), and tour local Palermo Historic Downtown and the Palermo Pioneer Cemetery. We have handy guides available (for a small donation).