Heavy Construction Heritage Society HCHS

01/02/2025

Happy New Year everyone including our top fan John D. Big things coming to the HCHS this year.

09/23/2024

Yesterday we held the inaugural Caterpillar Wine Mixer to tour some new friends around the collection.

Sh*t…. Oh yeah our friend Austin managed to pick up the wheel of the Polar Bear and move it for the first time in 8 years.

09/22/2024

09/22/2024

If you’re new here…. Welcome to the HCHS. We have a vast collection of vintage iron from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.

One of the highlights of our collection is the Henuset Pipeline Equipment. This iron was graciously donated by the family of Arthur Henuset and serves as a great reminder of the work he accomplished.

We’ve gathered a vast collection of this iron throughout the years and are grateful for the people that support us from afar.

09/20/2024

The Henuset Polarbear seems to be getting a fair bit of attention on Facebook lately, and rightfully so.

The 300,000lbs beast has been sitting for quite some time, but it is our pleasure to say that this past Labour Day long weekend, the Polarbear lived again!

Our friend Ross Tory came up for a visit and, with the help of a few volunteers, got its Detroit 16V149 started.

The trencher still needs a torque converter to run the wheel, but Ross seems confident that the Polarbear will eventually walk again after we sort out a couple fuel injector issues.

Photo courtesy of .iron 👌

09/07/2024

Are you ready!? I certainly am and I can’t wait to see you!

09/04/2024

Wasn't that something!

Now that the dust has settled, we'd like to look back on this past Labour Day long weekend and say thanks to all of our friends and volunteers coming from all over the province that helped making the event such a success!

The spirits were high and smiles were big as the engines roared for the enjoyment of the crowd or for the first time in years.

It was a great time hearing the stories and taking in the knowledge from the more experienced folks, but also to have the satisfaction of seeing everyone's hard work pay off as we saw machines that had been sitting dormant for years come back to life. Some more common, and some as unique as it gets.

A lot of personal goals were achieved, memories were made and new friends were met, and this is why we are doing it all.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we keep sharing photos and videos of the weekend!

Once again, thank you all everyone, and thank you to our dear friend Matea Herauf for all the excellent pictures of the crew!!

09/01/2024

It was a hell of a kick off to the long weekend at the HCHS!

The day started with Martin, Nathan, Brayden and Tony going head to head to see who would get their tractor running first between a 1941 7M Caterpillar D7 or a 1939 1H Caterpillar D8. The D8 seemed more promising at first, but everyone ended up moving to the D7 and eventually got it running later in the afternoon.

In the meantime, the sandbox area stayed busy with Alex giving our friends, visitors and volunteers an opportunity to try the new to us 245, as well as giving a demonstration of the 1956 Northwest No. 6 cable hoe. The International TD24 and newly revived D7 eventually joined the party as well.

Today is already looking up with the prospect of having a dozer and shovel show for most of the day!

08/22/2024

Don't forget to swing by Devon next long weekend for our next start up event! August 31st to September 2nd.

Everyone is invited! Come visit as we get more machines from our collection going, hear the stories of the machines that shaped our country and see for yourself some of the most unique equipment preserved in a collection.

As always, we're still looking for more volunteers to help us out, but everyone is welcome to visit our site, located just south of the Leduc No.1 museum off Highway 60 in Devon, Alberta.

08/15/2024

Smoky evening in Devon.

In case you missed it, we are having another start up event this coming long week, going from August 31st to September 2nd.

The event is open to everyone, but feel free to give us a shout on this page or on our website hchscanada.com to let us know you're coming!

Are you a Caterpillar tractor wizard? Let us know, we have 9 Cats, from gas and diesel Forty and RD6 to D8s to get running again and we could use all the help we can get!

Come join the fun with a great group of people, and the most unique fleet of antique equipment you'll ever see!

08/07/2024

The beast is home.

It has been 2 years since we first started to hear about this donation, and we were very fortunate today to receive this beautiful Caterpillar 245, courtesy of Whissell Contracting in Calgary.

This is the 3rd machine donated by them this month, after the American 5299 and partial 245B for parts in order to finish building the Henuset wide undercarriage 245.

These are absolutely exceptional contributions and we cannot wait to finish putting it together!

We now have 4 complete and working hydraulic excavators, between the Hydra-Unit, Koehring 1066, Cat 245 and Hopto 1900.

08/06/2024

And on the 3rd day, the 1066 limped itself back to its spot.

Getting this 1971 Koehring together and swinging again was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.

Originally a Borger Group machine back when they were still in Manitoba, this machine spent some of its last years (or decades) digging gravel out of the North Saskatchewan river banks near Devon. With the help of Roger Nicolas, a retired local dragline operator and contractor, it eventually made its way into our collection.

Getting it running was also a bit of an adventure. While the 12V71 engine runs like a watch, all the air lines going to the controls were dried up in the sun, and she was plagued with air leaks. Last year, our friend Alex Burnett took it upon himself to replace all the leaking lines and fittings, but the air compressor showed little cooperation and all the functions had to be tested with JT Equipment’s air compressor hooked up to it to compensate.

A few months later, last May long weekend, our other good pals Austin Linderman and Brandon came around and worked their magic on the compressor. As it turns out, he has the same one on his truck.. But, the bucket cylinder leaked like a sieve.

That's when Landon McHugh got in touch with Trevor at Cross Cut Directional Boring in Lethbridge who very generously offered to reseal it for us.

So, in the pouring rain, we removed the cylinder, loaded it onto Austin's truck, only to put it back on again this weekend.

It really takes a village, but the help and collaboration of all the volunteers and businesses that have reached out and offered to lend a hand doesn't go unnoticed.

We could NOT do this without all of you, and for that, on behalf of the HCHS and all of us who enjoy this equipment, we say THANK YOU.