The aerial photographs by Hugh “Howdy” McPhail are an amazing record of Prairie life from the 1950s. He photographed more than 7,000 black and white images while flying over Saskatchewan and the other prairie provinces. Read more about his collection.
These images were donated to the University of Saskatchewan and are available online in the McPhail collection. Grain Elevators of Canada was granted permission to repost some of the grain elevator photos here with appropriate credit.
This collection is important from a grain elevator perspective because aerial photographs of grain elevators from that era are exceedingly rare. In following decades aerial photography became more common, and organizations like the Manitoba Pool published calendars featuring aerial photos of their elevators.
These excellent quality photos from the 1950s show a way of life – and some towns – that no longer exist on the prairies. Please browse through their collection and use the search feature at the top of the pages.