On the 100th anniversary of the settlement of the Kashubians in Canada (see Kashubian settlements), descendants of the first Polish settlers founded the Vilnius Heritage Society in 1998. The primary aim of this Society was to save the memorabilia of their predecessors, the Pomeranian exiles, and to create an ethnographic park. It took four years from the plans to the realisation of the project and in 2002, the first building (barn) of the Polish Kashubian Historical Park was erected on the site of the former Wilno railway line connecting Ottawa, Anprior and Perry Sound. In this historic building, a Kashubian museum was created with numerous exhibits such as agricultural tools, old furniture handmade by Kashubians, documents, photographs, paintings, Kashubian costumes, embroideries and pottery. There is even an old school bench in the museum, where the children of the first settlers used to sit and learn Polish and history, among other things. There is also a signboard from the Vilnius railway station.

Two paths lead to the barn, along which numerous boulders scattered with names engraved in stone, place of origin and date of settlement commemorate the arrival of the first settlers in Vilnius. These boulders bear such names as Dombrowski, Biernacki, Szczypior, Etmański, Kulas - several dozen in all, for in 1859, 14 families with 57 people settled in the area. A year later, the land was given to another 21 people, and the following year to six.

Over time, the open-air museum grew. Descendants of those who had to clear forests in order to plough a piece of land found a long-unused, self-made machine for pulling tree trunks and roots out of the ground and... it found a place of honour in the open-air museum. Later, in addition to the barn, the open-air museum acquired several buildings, including an original Kashubian log house with a fully equipped kitchen and bedroom with numerous appliances used by the first settlers and unique, hand-made furniture from Vilnius.

A very interesting exhibition is located in the building next to the smithy. It gathers uniforms, documents and photographs depicting the participation of Kashubians in General Haller's Blue Army and the battles of World War I (see: Hallerian Cemetery in Niagara on the Lake).

The open-air museum also has a lapidarium - a place to store and display Kashubian crosses from the oldest cemetery in Vilnius, including the cross from the first church of St Stanislaus Kostka, which was consecrated in 1876 and served several generations of Kashubians for sixty years (until it burned down in 1936). Here are Kashubian crosses from the old cemetery in Vilnius with epitaphs with the so-called Kashubianisms inscribed on the transverse arms: "Here spociwa Franciszek Rekowski, born 1897-1923", "Here spociwa Leon Kubiszewski", "Here spociwa Ignacy Smagliński died Nov 14 1950, aged 80"., "Tu spociwa Józef Kulas urodzoni 10-th grudnia 1851 umrzeć 22 czerwca 1926, Prosieni o Zdrowaś Maria", "Tu spociwa Adam Całka urodzoni 1840, umrzeć 18 marca 1917".

Many of these original epitaphs in the old cemetery have been destroyed by time. As late as 1984, the names of those who, in their wandering knots, brought family heirlooms and hope for a better tomorrow were still visible on the wooden, often decayed crosses. Two years later, a raging windstorm in the Madawaska Valley knocked down a significant number of these crosses. Someone unknowingly carried them to a corner of the cemetery instead of burying them where they marked the graves of Polish pioneers. Like signposts in the wilderness, they rested in the part adjacent to the forest. Fortunately, the caretakers of this historic cemetery preserved them and today some of them can be seen in the lapidarium.

The Historic Polish Kashubian Park in Canada, also known as the Historic Museum and the Polish Kashubian Park, is only open during the summer season.