Chris Attrell started the project in 2003
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A new book documents about 120 grain elevators spread across Western Canada.
The work for Grain Elevators: Beacons of the Prairies¸ started in 2003.
Chris Attrell, a Saskatchewan-based photographer living in Calgary, Alta. at the time, remembers taking a photo of a grain elevator.
“I happen to come across a grain elevator demolition in Champion, Alta. That’s when I first became aware these were being torn down,” he told Farms.com. “Living in Calgary, when we’d drive out to the country, you’d see these massive structures on the horizon. I’d always been fascinated with them and they way they looked, even before I knew what they did. Over the years I’ve been collecting pictures from Western Canada. I eventually moved to Saskatchewan and continued to take photos of grain elevators.”
Attrell, who published Forgotten Saskatchewan in 2019, received an inquiry from his publisher, McNally Robinson, about whether he’d want to turn his collection of grain elevator photos into a book.
Christine Hanlon, an author from Manitoba, joined the project to provide the text for the book.
She cross-referenced online and print resources to provide readers with facts abouts the elevators, their locations, capacities and other pieces of information.
Part of Attrell’s photography process included speaking with community members in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba about the local grain elevators.
A common thread among the people Attrell spoke to was what the grain elevator represented in the community where it stood.
“Just about everybody had a story,” he said. “Whether that person sold grain and talked about the long lineups, or someone worked at the elevators. They talked about long hours and the elevator needing repairs. But everyone was so proud to be part of the elevator and that people would come into their town to use the elevator with the town’s name on it.”
When thinking about the elevators in the book, one in particular sticks out for Attrell.
It’s Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator #952 in the ghost town of Bents, Sask. It was built in 1928 and closed around 1977.
“When that elevator closed, basically the entire town died,” he said. “Mother Nature has been working on this elevator for the last 50 years to the point where it’s really crumbling and is bending over. You look at it and see it in its current state, but then you try to go back in time in your mind to when it was new, and beautiful and a busy spot in the community.”