'Heart of the community:' Sask. town feels loss of historic hotel

SASKATOON -

Cabri Mayor David Gossard is still having trouble believing the gathering place of his small town in southwestern Saskatchewan is gone.

Watching from the centre of Railway Avenue in Cabri on Monday, Gossard marvelled at how the only remaining part of the Cabri Hotel was a chimney stack in the centre of the property.

A few days earlier, the Cabri Hotel just finished wrapping up another busy Friday night — a rarity over the past two pandemic-ridden years — when a fire started sending plumes of smoke out of the building around 2 a.m. Saturday.

“It’s awful,” Gossard said, looking back at fonder memories. “You know, I can remember when I turned 19 and I was old enough to go to the pub. It’s a big deal your first pub night. I was in university then. You came home to Cabri because you had to go to the pub.”

Gossard said he doesn’t know the cause of the blaze quite yet, but the fire sparked in the basement and quickly spread throughout the building.

By the time other members of the Cabri Fire Department and RM of Riverside Fire Department arrived, firefighters were helpless as they quickly realized they couldn’t put the fire out.

The heat was so intense that Bryan's Auto Body across the street has a blown-out window and melted shingles.

“We just protect those buildings and we watched the old girl burn to the ground,” Gossard said.

The Cabri Hotel burned to the ground on March 12, 2022 after 110 years of serving the southwestern Saskatchewan community. (Cabri Bar/Facebook)

The Cabri Hotel burned to the ground on March 12, 2022 after 110 years of serving the southwestern Saskatchewan community. (Cabri Bar/Facebook)

The three-storey hotel originally built in 1912 housed a lounge and bar on the main level.

For the thousands of people that passed through its doors over the years, it wasn’t just a place to share drinks. It was a place American hunters gathered after long days in the fall. It hosted dozens of birthdays, family reunions and Saskatchewan Roughrider games in the summer.

When those events weren’t taking over the historic hotel, it was next door to the hall in town and across the street from the Co-op grocery store, making it a rather convenient place to stop in.

Isabel Brooks has spent her whole life in the Cabri area. She worked at the hotel for over a decade and feels like the province is incomplete without the Cabri Hotel.

“Like me or you losing like our mom and dad. Just a huge devastating loss for our community. Everybody's kind of still in shock that it's gone,” Brooks said.

Beverly Williams works at the Co-op next door. She rushed to the fire on Friday as soon as she heard about the smoke coming out of the building.

She stood there for hours in the middle of the night watching one of her favourite places burn to the ground. Williams moved to the area roughly 16 years ago. It’s tough for her to imagine how those years would have gone without the hotel.

“You just get to know everybody like family. Everybody knows everybody and everybody looks out for everybody. It's a real family, not just a community but a family,” Williams said.

Gossard and the rest of the community now begin the task of rebuilding knowing the iconic building can’t be replaced.

“If you came to Cabri and came to see people, that’s kind of where you went. It was just kind of the heart of the community. But on the other hand, this community has a big heart. We'll be fine,” Gossard said.