SaskUrbEx Blog

We tend to explore a lot of rural areas where access to sites is fairly easy, because the urban areas of Saskatchewan present few locations that one can explore.  I do enjoy the more urban areas as approach to the building and accessing the building without being seen is very exhilarating to me, and that is partly why I enjoyed this location so much.  This location is in the middle of an open field with many houses close by.  The owners have gone to great lengths to seal this building up – absolutely everything is welded shut.  Even the gates on the surrounding fence have been welded shut.  It is a one of the more difficult to access locations that I have been to.  However after much searching we did manage to find a way into the plant.

 

The plant consists of 4 or 5 separate buildings connected by conveyors.  Each of the conveyor lines has a small walkway beside it, so once we accessed one building we could get into all of them.  I have seen this location on a few urban exploration sites and it is referred to as a tipple; however after seeing all the machinery in the plant I came to the conclusion that this place was more that just a tipple, there was some type of processing of the coal taking place here.  Perhaps it was a breaker, or perhaps there was more going on here, but I don’t have enough knowledge of coal processing to make a conclusion on its use.  There were some offices in a separate building but we didn’t have the time or energy to attempt to see them.  They probably weren’t that exciting anyways.   

 

I have read that this old coal processing plant has a date with a wrecking ball.  It has been idle since closing sometime in the 1980’s.  The whole town is pretty rough shape as this place and the nearby mines were the major employer and they have all shut down in the past 25 years.  I would like to get back there someday as the whole town presents quite a few places I would like to check out. 

The smallest building on site an connecting conveyors as seen from high up on the main plant building

Inside one of the connecting conveyors

Under the main bins where coal would be start it’s trip through the plant.  From here it would be dropped on the conveyor and fed into the main plant.

Inside a different conveyor connection

Near the top of the main building looking down at some of the machinery

Arilem is intrigued by something – not sure what – she doesn’t remember either.

Main floor of the main building – various machinery

CaptainCanada using his telephoto lens to ensure the coast was clear before we made our exit from the plant.

There was a large tank with an agitator of some kind – not that kind of stuff you would find in just a tipple.

A quick shot of the main building as we were making our exit.