Grain Elevators across Canada
Two contributors to this site, Mark Zulkoskey and Jason Paul Sailer, are offering 2022 Canadian grain elevator calendars for sale. I encourage you to check both calendars out and buy one – or both!
Jason’s calendar is called “Wheat Kings 2022”.
Buy Wheat Kings 2022 Calendar
Mark’s is called “Grain Elevators of the Prairies”.
Buy the Grain Elevators of the Prairies calendar
Regrettably, fire has claimed the last grain elevator in Rouleau, Saskatchewan. This ex Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator was made famous by the Corner Gas TV series, and it was relabeled as “Dog River” for the show.
The CBC reported that fire crews were called between 2 and 3 AM on November 5, 2021to the fire. By then it was fully involved and the fire crews worked to keep the fire from spreading.
Photos show the elevator was completely destroyed, with only a few pieces of scorched equipment remaining. Rail cars in the adjacent siding were scorched.
The elevator was built in 1973 and sold to a local farmer in the mid 1990s. It was used for storing grain for a while but had been dormant for the past few years.
Photographer Chris Attrell has partnered with author Christine Hanlon to produce a beautiful book featuring Canada’s grain elevators, Grain Elevators: Beacons of the Prairies. This 128 page hardcover book contains numerous full colour images of the grain elevators in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
Amazon links on this site are affiliate links, meaning that I earn a small commission if you purchase something using those links.
The stars of the book are the grain elevators, evocatively photographed in all seasons in night and day. The photographs are large and colourful and are all captioned with details about the elevators and/or the area.
I must disclose that I was the copy editor for this book – and I was paid for it – so I am quite familiar with the book’s contents and I am definitely biased in its favour. It was a pleasure to work with Christine, Chris and Vernon from publisher MacIntyre-Purcell on this book.
You can view the virtual book launch below.
The book includes numerous sidebars describing aspects of grain elevators and the people and companies who built them. It is not “just a picture book”!
Several of the grain elevators featured in the book were photographed by Chris before their demolition, and the elevators at Winnipegosis and Pierson were demolished while the book was being completed. Poignantly, Homewood and Lowe Farm‘s elevators are featured in the book but were demolished soon after this book was released.
This book has been produced to the same level of quality as Chris’ previous book, Forgotten Saskatchewan, which was a best seller in its class on Amazon.
If you like grain elevators, you should get this book. It’s available from McNally Robinson and from Amazon (below).
I’d like to welcome a new contributor to the site – Richard Woloshyn.
Richard contacted me to offer some grain elevator photos to fill some gaps in the list. He supplied images of elevators in places like Duck Lake, SK and Kirriemuir, AB. Thank you very much!
If you have some grain elevator photos to contribute, please contact me at steve@traingeek.ca. We’re looking for photos that you took, or have the copyright for, and especially for photos of grain elevators not present on this site already or showing a different angle than what’s here already. Thanks for your contributions.
Ron LePage has contributed quite a few grain elevator photos recently, mostly from Alberta and Saskatchewan. Much appreciated!
You can see his contributor page and find a few elevators that he has submitted photos of.
If you’d like to contribute your photos of Canadian grain elevators, contact me at steve@traingeek.ca. Thank you!
Calgary photographer Lisa James has sent in several photos of elevators in her area. Thank you, Lisa! You can see her contributor page for more information.
Ole Pedersen Kirkhus helped build some of the very early Pool elevators in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He took photos of his work and coworkers and his family has graciously allowed us to post these rare photos.
You can see the full list of elevators on his contributor page, but I have included a few elevator photos here.
We are very grateful to his descendants for sending these photos in.
Please join me in welcoming Bill Jex as a contributor. Bill was a contributor to the first version of this site and has contributed many photos recently to the site, including elevators in:
Thank you, Bill!
If you’d like to contribute your photos of grain elevators in Canada to the site, please email me at steve@traingeek.ca.
As of today, there are 581 towns featured on this site. 581! It’s thanks to you, the contributors, that we’ve reached this incredible number. That’s 581 pages featuring one or more grain elevator photographs. There are still plenty of towns that had or have elevators that aren’t here yet… so please contact me if you can fill in some blanks!
Here are some statistics.
Here’s the spreadsheet, for the data nerds like me.
Jeff Whyte is a new contributor to Grain Elevators of Canada. He is a Calgary-based photographer and has shared photos of a few elevators so far – see his contributor page for links and a link to his Instagram profile – and we look forward to more contributions in the future.
If you want to become a contributor, please contact me!