One of three divisions within the Land Transportation area, Non-Motorized Ground Transportation, is an administrative and cataloguing term used to group together the following subject areas:

• horse drawn vehicles
• cycles (bicycles, tricycles, quadracycles)
• human powered vehicles

Horse Drawn Vehicles

The Museum has a large collection of horse drawn vehicles: wagons, buggies, sleighs, cutters, carriages and coaches that were at one time in private or commercial use. The majority of the collection was transferred from various government departments when the Museum was formed in 1967. Despite its varied past, the collection is consistent in that it concentrates on vehicles manufactured by Canadian builders or those with a Canadian provenance.

Major Canadian manufacturers such as McLaughlin and Canada Carriage are represented by a broad selection of vehicles. Similarly, regional manufacturers, like Haney, Ledoux or Pringle are represented in the collection. Accessories, such as harnesses, are also well represented in the collection which boasts a good representation of trade catalogues dating from the mid-1890s.

Bicycles

The bicycle collection is one of the richest and most balanced collections in the North America. Consisting of over 1 000 objects, including over 100 cycles, the cycle collection traces the development of the bicycle from the early 1820s to the present. Apart from a wide selection of early-nineteenth century European models, the bicycle collection also contains over 40 examples of Canadian bicycles produced from 1895 to 1997.

The bicycle collection also contains a wide selection of research materials, trade catalogues and bicycle ephemera that help to document the social history of the bicycle from the nineteenth century to the present.

For more information on the history of bicycles, see our Collection Profile Cycles, coming back soon!.

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