A one-hour trip on Monday afternoon afforded a select group of attendees a rare look into the past and a heady glimpse into St. Albert’s cultural future.
The party of civic and provincial officials, engineers, architects and local heritage supporters were lucky enough to get an on-site tour of the restoration work under way on St. Albert’s two grain elevators.
The two sentinels that have stood overlooking the Sturgeon River for several decades have been largely unmaintained since they were decommissioned in 1989. Almost immediately afterward, a movement sprung up to make them permanent fixtures on the city’s historical skyline and that work is finally being undertaken under the guidance of HIP Architects, Arts and Heritage and Alberta’s historic resources management team.
Passersby on Meadowview Drive or Mission Avenue have likely noticed the Quonset hut, the excavations and other works in progress. This summer’s deluge of rainstorms has dampened progress, especially in regards to pouring new concrete to create a sturdy base for the structures.
Ann Ramsden, the director of heritage at the MusĂ©e HĂ©ritage Museum, explained that the elements have taken a toll on them over the years, especially since they haven’t been in service.
“The goal of the project is to stabilize and restore both of the [provincial historic resources] designated grain elevators,” she began, referring to how this status places them at the highest level of importance according to the ministry of culture and community spirit. “We have been working with a preservation architect and engineers to actually look at the condition of both of the elevators. What the condition assessment told us was that we needed to stabilize the foundations on both … because they were weak and also on the 1929 Alberta Wheat Pool elevator there was a fair amount of rot both in the siding and in the cribbing behind the siding.”
The restoration efforts therefore have both structural and surface elements including the concrete foundations, the wood siding and internal beams and also fire prevention in the form of a fire retardant paint. The larger objective is to open the site up to the public as an interpretive centre. Considering so many communities have lost their grain elevators to the ravages of time, disuse and the harsh elements, St. Albert is poised to become a historic site for these agricultural beacons that so many consider to be the mountains of the prairies.
Gary Chen, the province’s heritage conservation adviser, said that the plan is highly commendable and will be one of the benchmarks for other communities to follow.
“St. Albert is very fortunate to have both elevators still standing.”
He said that eventually the site will be one of the best examples of these preserved icons in Alberta.
Project leaders are still hopeful that the work will be substantially completed before the winter, but some might need to wait until the spring.
