'Disappearing landmarks': The historical significance behind Sask. grain elevators
As grain elevators are brought down across the province, some are taking the time to remember the significance of the structures and their place on the prairie landscape.
Kurtis Kocay is a farmer in Saskatchewan, dealing a lot with grain shipments. He has met a lot of older farmers who reminisce about the chit chat that would go on at these elevators back in the day.
Now, he says those same farmers are watching them get torn down. The Meecham elevator was recently torn down.
“When these structures go down, its very sad. I’ve seen it before in our local town, they cried. It’s a very big loss for them,” Kocay said.
“They’re just kind of neat, they’re like a lighthouse of the prairies. The uniqueness of how they’re built out of wood and stuff. It’s sad how they are disappearing landmarks.”
Kocay said several factors came into play over the years to make the elevators obsolete.
“They open up these new large concrete terminals that are able to produce and turn over more tons and serve a larger, wider area.
“Between production-wise and railway capabilities, now they can spot 100-150 car trains. These old ones can hold only 10-15 car spots,” Kocay said.
As these elevators become less and less important, Kocay said many were left to sit and over the years they have begun to wear down to a point where many have to be demolished.
“Usually they get abandoned and usually no one wants to take them over. Farmers nowadays have storage capacity on their farms the size of these old elevators,”
“They kind of become a liability, falling apart, not maintained and cared for. That’s where a lot of the choices are to demolish them and get rid of them, which is sad.”
THE RISE OF GRAIN ELEVATORS
Bill Waiser, a local historian and author, said the elevators once served a big purpose in the province.
Without them, early farming would have been a lot more difficult.
“Farmers couldn’t haul their grain more than 10 miles to a delivery point or it wasn’t economical. You’ve got the building of branch lines, and along the branch line you’ve got a system of elevators along the line, that’s where the term ‘line elevators’ came from,” Waiser said.
Waiser said initially only a handful of companies owned the elevators, leading to a monopoly that saw grain price fixes.
“There were about 1,000 of them by the start of The Great War. Farmers constantly complain that they felt cheated by these elevators by the monopoly they had,” Waiser said.
“They established what was called the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Company. Farmers came together and pooled their resources with provincial help and bought their own elevators, farmer bought, farmer owned.”
For years after that the elevators were a staple in the agricultural industry, up until the 1950s when farms got bigger and the elevators began to lose some of their usefulness when larger concrete grain terminals began being used.
PRESERVING THE PAST
As the elevators phased out of regular farm use, they still served a purpose to people like Jack Robson, who has spent more than 20 years travelling around to take pictures of the structures, and in the past year he has decided to turn his hobby into a book.
“We started taking pictures, elevators, churches etc. But the elevators were always part and parcel a part of our lives, for a Canadian farm boy. They are pretty important,” Robson said.
Robson is working on a book with 1,200 pictures of 1,140 elevators in the province, his attempt at preserving this piece of Saskatchewan’s history.
“They were the tallest points in the Saskatchewan. They were identifiable for miles and miles and they identified there was a town there,” Robson said.
“We were agricultural. Everyone’s money was made hauling grain to those local elevators. In those elevators, there was meetings, there was coffee time. An awful lot of chit chat.”
The book will be sold at $100 to those who request it directly through Robson.
He can be reached at 306-365-2004.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Pilot reported fire onboard plane carrying fuel, attempted to return to Fairbanks just before crash
One of the two pilots aboard an airplane carrying fuel reported there was a fire on the airplane shortly before it crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both people on board, a federal aviation official said Wednesday.
'One of the single most terrifying things ever': Ontario couple among passengers on sinking tour boat in Dominican Republic
A Toronto couple are speaking out about their 'extremely dangerous' experience on board a sinking tour boat in the Dominican Republic last week.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
7 surveillance videos linked to extortions of South Asian home builders in Edmonton released
The Edmonton Police Service has released a number of surveillance videos related to a series of extortion cases in the city now dubbed 'Project Gaslight.'
Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by U.S. to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.