5 Save our Little Elevator

A project by Isabelle Blanchard,

Gravelbourg Museum

Gravelbourg is known for being a beautiful town in southern Saskatchewan with a substantial Francophone population. . Though the approach to living heritage in the community focuses on cultural preservation, one project in particular has the entire community excited to be a resident of Gravelbourg. The museum is working on repainting and restoring the elevator so that there can be a museum exhibit in the elevator that would focus on the agricultural and economic side of Gravelbourg. Though farming practices have changed, the community remains deeply agrarian. Grain elevators were once predominant in Saskatchewan. Beacons of prosperity, they would line the train tracks and tower over those hauling and storing grain. These “lighthouses of the prairies”, as some people in Gravelbourg call them, are now echoes of the past that fade with every passing year. The Gravelbourg museum board of five directors have taken it upon themselves to preserve the 1915 wooden grain elevator in an effort to make it into a museum. Gravelbourg has an ecomuseum model where the community is involved with the public museum and the museum itself has many “stops” on its heritage tour.

The community has been fundraising to have the elevator preserved and will eventually need volunteers to set up meaningful exhibits. They would like their tours to be stories from community members about agriculture and the elevators. Sharing these community memories is what preserves the essence of the grain elevator. Without stories, it is merely a building. Isabelle Blanchard, a past Economic Development Officer and now museum spokesperson, said that the elevator is a landmark in the community and it acts as a reminder of the heritage that is all around us. The elevators helped them develop their community over the decades of settlement. In turn, the community is looking to preserve the elevator that helped bring prosperity to the region for so many years.

The Museum of Gravelbourg and museum board have since received a grant to continue the preservation process. This grant revived the community’s hope and interest in the grain elevator. The museum also ran programming for children and exhibits over the last four summers in relation to the elevator. Blanchard says that the people of Gravelbourg realize the importance of keeping their grain elevator because many surrounding communities lost theirs. Though the community does not readily use the term “living heritage”, Isabelle says that residents of Gravelbourg live their history every day because of the cultural and tourism initiatives Gravelbourg prides itself on.

The Gravelbourg Museum maintains an online presence through Facebook.