Harvest

It's harvest time in the prairies. This grain elevator's still up and running, although I forget where it's actually located. That's for the best.

Old church

SB and I went for a drive last weekend up the river, where we found quite a few nice historical and heritage sites. One of them, below, is the St. Andrew's on the Red, the oldest stone church still being used in Western Canada. It was built for the Anglican Diocese between 1845 and 1849, which means that it's celebrating its 160th birthday next year.

Although it has always been an Anglican church, its stonemason was Duncan McRae, a Presbyterian with a taste for the liquor. McRae's days of heavy labour came to an end when he fell off the scaffolding during construction of this very church.



Although it's a very unpretentious building, there are several nice details like these hand-forged hinges on the front door.



And these braces, stabilising the beams/columns under the 2nd floor balcony. The 'nails' holding this together are actually square wooden pegs. Note the rough wall texture.



Some of the stained glass windows. If you look closely at the depth of the wall, you'll see that it's over 2 feet thick!



Legend has it that the length of the central portion of the building (the "nave") was decided on in a way that we might find sort of amusing now, but makes a fair amount of sense. The following is a quote from David and Maureen Butterfield's book, If Walls Could Talk:

"McRae argues that the church Cockran [the Archdeacon -- ed.] envisions is far too long for the human voice, specifically that of the Archdeacon's, to carry. But Cockran disagrees. He insists the mason stand where the back of the church is projected to be. He blazes forth his first sermon on that very spot. "Duncan McRae," he bellows, "they tell me that you drink more rum than is good for you. In future, curb your bestial desires and try to live a sober, righteous and Godly life." McRae, stung, but still in control of his wit, replies that in fact, contrary to his former opinion, "the church is nae long enough.""

Northern Ontario

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of travelling to northern Ontario with Ms. Fourayem, and meeting up with her family. Definitely one of the best weekends I've had all summer, and there have been quite a few great weekends! This entry will focus on on just a few rural architectural highlights.....


This is the amazing view from the cabin/camp/cottage where we stayed. Logan is the most spoiled dog in the world, but he's awesome and he's bigger than you! On th e left is the only finished building on the property, a beautiful sauna where we spent quite a bit of time. I'm definitely sold on saunas. Get hot and sweaty, then jump in the lake (watch out for leeches!) and then get right back in the sauna. Repeat!




This is the outhouse building. No running water (or electricity) around here! Watch out for mosquitos.



This is supposedly a former train station, but now it's a restaurant. It's a little overdone with the inauthentic log interior, but they do have coffee.



We went for a drive to get ice cream one day, and found ourselves here. A picture says a thousand words. Great ice cream, too.



This is a building located at a place called Northern Light Lake, if I recall correctly. A small but prosperous little resort area near the US border. I like this little building because it's a shiny metal shed.



This is a little bridge we crossed when we got a little lost in the car on some back roads.



And finally, this is a little houseboat we saw in Kenora. I'd never been to Kenora but it seemed like a pretty cool place. Maybe some day I'll live on a houseboat. This one IS for sale.....

Must be some kind of sign.

Wind Power

Last week I travelled to Southwestern Ontario and I grabbed some photos of the wind turbine project being undertaken on the eastern shores of Lake Huron. The last time I poked around, I think 120+ turbines were being planned for the area, with about 20 up and running right now. Apparently this is a really great spot to generate wind power.

The photos don't do justice to the feeling of driving along the highway and suddenly seeing dozens of these things, as far as the eye can see. That is a beautiful sight!

Better than I could have ever said it.

"A vacant, broken-down Manitoba farm house is a Prairie icon, symbolic of a time passed and a people vanished. Such places, however, are more than just symbols. They are embodiments of time, space and culture. Step through the weathered door of that farmhouse, in the heat of a late July day, and you can feel the chill of abandonment and smell the dust settled there. Tread carefully, because the floors may be rotting and spongy to the step. Shafts of light try to poke through the faded, ragged curtains that ominously flap over yellowed windows. The surrounding quiet is sharp and hard, like the broken glass shards covering the floor. Except for you, no one's been here for years."

A beautiful quote from my co-worker David Butterfield's book, If Walls Could Talk, published by Great Plains Publications.

Trappist Monastery

I thought that I would try to pick up my spirits by going to a historic rural site today, and post some photos. It's Saturday, July 5th. I arrive there at 4pm and the site is closed! I'm pretty sure it didn't open today. When are people supposed to visit these sites, anyway?

I also went to a bookstore where I found an entire section of books dedicated to this fair prairie city and province. Well over one hundred books! I guess there's more money to be made in books commemorating our past, than in getting people to actually visit these places. What a shame!

So I am disappointed that the site was closed, but I did manage to get some photos.




What I find so especially interesting about this site is that it belonged to a religious group that moved to another site when they felt that their way of life was being infringed upon by the ever-sprawling city. Five years later, the site burned down. I'm sure there's a whole lot one could say about that, but I'll leave it up to you.

Equipment

Throughout the past year at school, I was told over and over again that I focused too much on "the product" and not enough on process or experience. It was a fair and valid point, because that's exactly what I do. In architecture, I'm not sure that's a good thing, but coming from an education in product design, it's a pretty normal thing for me to do.

So in honour of the profs this past year who tried ever so hard to pull me out of my obsession with "things," here are some photos I took with my friend SB. As far as I can tell, this is a small steam plant that would have supplied heat and maybe electricity to the stockyard building nearby.

Sambo

I had forgotten about a meeting/lecture at school today, so a co-worker and fellow architecture student and I went down to the university to hear what our prof had to say. As I entered the school - for the first time since early May - I felt a sense of anxiety. Very real anxiety. But anxiety is nothing new to me. I suppose I just realized that the new schoolyear is coming upon us quickly. But then, I'm a fortunate one. There were people still up in studio working on their projects from last semester. It is very late June. School ended two months ago!

The lecture was really good. It sort of reminded me why I am doing what I'm doing, and to hear it from a different but related and very interesting perspective was great. Part of what made the lecture good was that it validated some of my own interests (it's rare that architects even pay attention to rural issues or rural architecture).

Coincidentally, I went to the library after work yesterday and got a library card. I picked up two books - one about Canadian architecture, and one about Rural Studio. If you're reading this blog, you probably already know about Rural Studio, but if you don't, then you owe it to yourself to find out more about it. Essentially, Rural Studio is doing what I feel I ought to be doing when all is said and done.

Go to Rural Studio's website.

Union Stock Yards

I wasn't going to post today, but my friend SB dropped by unannounced and we went on a long bike ride - more than five hours, I think. SB wanted to check out an abandoned stock yard. So we did.

I don't know much about it, but the stockyard used to be outside of the city, but of course now it's engulfed in the larger metro area. It sits abandoned and neglected.

We went with the intention of just looking around - SB didn't know that I had a blog about rural architecture. When we got there, we found that there were two buildings, and both of them were open. I should probably mention that now - for the sake of clarity, I wouldn't ever break into a place if it was boarded up, locked shut, or even probably had a sticky door. Both buildings were wide open, with not so much as doors to keep people out. So we did what anybody would do - we went inside. I'm glad that SB had remembered a bike light (that we used as a flashlight), otherwise we would have never been able to go inside.

This is part of the front of the first building.....



And this is the back....

This is the basement, and the open room we found out back, obviously destroyed by fire. We saw that the buiding was made from thick, solid concrete (it was a stockyard building, after all). SB is an engineer as well, so I trusted his judgment that the place looked okay to investigate. Safety first!


This is the main stairwell, up on the ground floor. I have another photo that shows everything in a lot more detail and with much better lighting, but I like these atmospheric photos better, and they much better reflect the reality that my eyes don't flash light like my camera. For the first while, this was a very freaky place. I thought ghosts were for sure going to capture our souls.


This is another set of stairs. They were solid concrete and cast iron. Amazing. The iron handrails were basically the only salvageable items in the whole building, but that might be a problem considering that they are cast into the concrete!


This is the hallway you enter when you reach the top of the first set of double stairs. I lied. There was quite a bit of fairly intact wood trim.



More stairs.






This shows about 3/4 of the length of the building. It was big. We investigated most of the rooms.


There were lots and lots of stairs. Every floor had one set of stairs up to a landing, and then two sets up to the next floor. I'm sure it was something to behold when it was brand new. This set is slightly different because it leads up to the roof.


If you stick around this blog for long enough, you'll see that I like to 'frame' the frame. Here's a view out of a window. A long time ago, this is where cows came to die so we could eat delicious beef.


This is the view from the top floor up onto the roof. Nature has taken over. At some point, there was a fire and there's not a whole lot left of the old structure.


This is a view of the roof, complete with mosquito breeding grounds.


And finally, if you look up at the first photo of this post, you'll see an elliptical hole at the top of the building. Here's the view from the other side.