UNITY - Earlier it was announced a longtime display, “machinery row” at Unity and District Heritage Museum, would need to be moved due to the Highway 21 re-routing project.
A museum committee representative tells the Press-Herald / SASKTODAY.ca, “We are waiting until the gas lines are in and such before we can do anything as there is too much snow around the there yet. For now, we wait.”
Recently, it was also announced that the Zunti soddy, built in 2006, is now becoming a danger and in sad shape, meaning it will have to be dismantled.
The museum committee is sad to see it go as it offered a unique attraction, however repair or rebuilding it is beyond the small museum volunteer group’s capabilities. Artifacts that are on display will be removed and housed elsewhere around the museum.
The Zunti sod house was erected on the Unity Museum grounds on July 29 and 30 of 2006 by the Zunti family for a family reunion.
“The Zunti family led by Morris, Robert and John Zunti asked the Unity Museum if they could build a replica of a soddie that was like Jacob and Casper Zunti's that they built in 1906 south of Reward. Then when they had their reunion later that summer the soddie would be part of their reunion. They brought in three semi loads of sod from Alphonse Feist's land to build the house. The Zunti family also donated homemade furnishings and other artifacts for the inside display. Two pictures were also donated showing Jacob and Casper Zunti with their wives and the other picture of the original soddie," according to a museum spokesperson.
Morris Zunti came daily for the next two years to water the outside and roof to get the roots to grow and so the grass on the roof did not dry out. Gordon Miller, a museum member at the time, had a sawmill at the south end of the grounds where he was cutting old telephone poles and tree stumps. He donated the wood that covered the inside walls.
The soddie has stood for 16 years at the Unity museum and was a great attraction. Now the walls are starting to cave in from the weight of the sod that has fallen down, the roof is looking sad and safety is in question.
A sod house was never meant to last more then a few years, only until the pioneer built a proper house and the soddie became a storage shed or something. Natural sod is hard to come by and hard to get so there is no recourse but to take the sod house down. Those who built it and did upkeep on the soddie have passed away. The museum volunteers have tried over the years to do what they could but as their numbers are so few, they are unable to do more to save the structure.
