Saskatchewan Grain Elevators
I had never seen a grain elevator in my life, until I took my first train trip to Western Canada many years ago. As we crossed Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the visions of grain elevators approaching against the backdrop of canola fields and those fabulous prairie skies were very powerful.
Then I learned that there were thousands of them in Saskatchewan only, in the 1930s, but today only a few hundred remain, very few still being used, most of them abandoned, weather beaten, on the verge of demolition.
To me, grain elevators are the architectural equivalents of European medieval castles, or Dutch wind mills (a little exaggeration here, maybe?). They've captured my imagination like no other buildings in North America have (lighthouses and barns come to my mind too, I love them as well). These are the photographs I took in August 2013.
Saskatchewan Grain Elevators
I had never seen a grain elevator in my life, until I took my first train trip to Western Canada many years ago. As we crossed Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the visions of grain elevators approaching against the backdrop of canola fields and those fabulous prairie skies were very powerful.
Then I learned that there were thousands of them in Saskatchewan only, in the 1930s, but today only a few hundred remain, very few still being used, most of them abandoned, weather beaten, on the verge of demolition.
To me, grain elevators are the architectural equivalents of European medieval castles, or Dutch wind mills (a little exaggeration here, maybe?). They've captured my imagination like no other buildings in North America have (lighthouses and barns come to my mind too, I love them as well). These are the photographs I took in August 2013.