Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns

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Sep 122011
 

A couple months ago as the flooding was starting to subside Arilem and I got out to explore an area that we had seen a couple times before however this is the first time we have seen the area in daylight. This are consists of a few ghost towns and rural churches. I find it interesting because these towns did not exist on a rail line which is unusual for Saskatchewan because this province was built by the railways. 95%+ of the communities in this province are railway towns. Everything on this post is all within a few miles. The towns and churches were the support structure for countless small farms that surrounded the area at one time. Over the years small farms have disappeared and now we have large scale commercial farms that are 10 – 20 times larger than the old family farm and with modern machinery they can operate these large farms with only a couple people. With very few people around the support structure started to die and now all that is left is countless abandoned farm yards along with these old churches and halls.

The photos included are a mix from 3 different trips to the area over about 18 months.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
This is a long exposure shot taken about 3 hours after sunset. This is church #1

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Furnace in the basement of one of the churches

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Interior of Church #1

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Looking towards the entrance at church #1

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
The hall next door to church #1. The church itself is boarded up and has no power, the hall seems to still see some use.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Decrepit homestead – the area is full of abandonments.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Church #2 – Another long exposure – this is about 2 minutes again close to 3 hours after sunset. We didn’t stay too long this day as there was a skunk in the church and we had coyotes very close to us as well. Over the past couple years the coyote population has exploded around here and they are getting brave so I like to keep my distance from them.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
The flooded road to Church#1 – it is beyond what my little SUV can handle going through.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Interior of Church #3

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Bed in the brick farmhouse that we stopped at.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Looking out the window at the brick farmhouse

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
The brick farmhouse

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Interior at Church #2 on a different trip. There was no wildlife to worry about this time.

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
Fungi at Church #2

Touchin Wood Churches and Ghost Towns
All that remains of an old town site. One of these appeared to be a store at one point.

 Posted by at 11:06

Relics of Religion and Agriculture

 General  No Responses »
Sep 052011
 

One extremely hot evening in July Arilem and I decided to spend the evening out exploring rather than face the extreme heat of our apartment.  We drove to nearby city and grabbed a bite to eat before heading out onto the back roads in search of something to explore.  We decided to stop by a ghost town that we had seen on a previous trip a couple years ago.

The town has no one living in it; it isn’t on a highway, its rail line long abandoned.  Lonely in the middle of nowhere stands the last two remaining buildings; a grain elevator and a church.  It’s only mention in the history books I have seen is it was labeled as a CN siding and it had a post office till 1974.  As a siding it must have never really had much of a population as it isn’t even referred to as a hamlet; however there is evidence of there once being a school there so it points to some amount of people, perhaps it just serviced the local rural area.

With all the flooding we had in this province this year it is making getting to locations like this difficult.  We were able to easily navigate the roads in this town a couple years ago with no problems however this year there is really thick vegetation growing over all the seldom used roads.  Driving was not an option and we had to walk a fair distance to get to the old elevator.

The elevator was very complete and quite interesting.  It was cool to see the intact scale as these scales were typically salvaged when they closed the facilities.  We then headed over to the church.  The church is still in nice shape and is maintained.  It’s is interesting to see because it isn’t easy to make it to the church – whomever is taking care of it must be using a 4×4 or a tractor just to get to it.

There is a backlog of locations to post on this blog so there is more updates to come and we are heading stateside again in the coming weeks so there should be some interesting locations to share once we return.

Elevator

United Grain Growers

Elevator OfficeThe office of the elevator

Driveshed ScaleThe truck scale

Prairie Sentinel

Church BasementThe church basement

Looking through the glassElevator from the church basement

ChurchInside the church

 Posted by at 23:53