The grain elevators of the Canadian prairie are disappearing

2020-01-20T15:09:00-05:00

Grain elevators were once an icon of Canada’s west: often painted a bright boxcar red, they stood in towns across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. [...] In the 1930s there were nearly 6,000 towers; now fewer than a thousand remain. The destruction, in many ways, mirrors the broader decline of rural communities in western Canada.

For The Guardian, journalist Leyland Cecco on the struggle of small agricultural communities in Canada's prairie provinces to preserve their aging, wooden grain elevators as cultural heritage monuments.

Restored Alberta Wheat Pool elevators at the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre in Nanton, Alberta. Photo: Tony Hisgett

Once the pride of every community and dubbed "prairie castles" for their often imposing heights in the flat landscape, thousands of them were left to rot and eventually faced demolition. Only a handful of lucky structures managed to win protection status, such as at the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre in Nanton, Alberta or the Prairie Elevator Museum in Acadia, AB.

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The grain elevators of the Canadian prairie are disappearing