The Daigle Polygonal Barn

Alberta

Part II of II:  Grand Barns of the North Peace Country

This is part two of the two-part blog post featuring a pair of polygonal barns and their interesting owners that are located in the Manning area of Alberta. Part one focused on Charlie Plavin and his Latvian style homestead.  It’s located approximately 24 km from the Daigle Barn. As with most of my blog posts, the owners of these barns are the real story.

Several years ago, Betty Paul, a kind lady from the Peace River area, sent me a book called “Barns of The North Peace“.  It was compiled by Carmel B. Ellis.  I’ve often browsed through it and one barn in particular really held my interest.  It was a beautiful polygonal barn built by Philip (Philiase) Daigle. The barn is located 600 km northwest of downtown Edmonton.  This is a fairly long road trip, especially in October, so I needed to have everything arranged before my wife and I departed.  With the help of Ron Thoreson of The Peace River Historical Society and Mary Kamieniecki from The Battle River Pioneer Museum Association, I acquired the locations of both barns and had contacted the landowners so all that was left was to pack my bags, put some expensive gas in the vehicle and point it northwest.

The Daigle barn is unique, and it simply oozes with character. I’m very pleased to be able to share this fine architectural gem with the readers of my blog.

Major Differences Between Daigle and Plavin

A natural assumption is that Charlie Plavin and Philip Daigle were two of a kind because they share parts I and II of these two blog posts. It’s quite the opposite really.  They were probably as different as two pioneers in the same time period could be.  They may have met each other, but if they did there is no record of the encounter. Here’s a brief list of some of their differences.

• Charlie Plavin was financially secure.  He was not a rich or wealthy man by any measure, but he spent very little on himself, so he had more money than most, if not all, of the local people.  Philip Daigle was a more typical homesteader who never had enough money.  His skills in carpentry and as a small sawmill operator definitely helped him pay the bills.
• Closely related to the above difference in finances, Plavin was a bachelor all of his life while Daigle had ten children!  The oldest Daigle daughter joined a convent in Vegreville, Alberta, but that still left them with nine children.  Philip and Elvina Daigle provided for nine children while trying to homestead in the frontier lands of northwest Alberta.  That took a lot of courage.
• Plavin was from the Baltic nation of Latvia while Daigle was from the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec.
• The Plavin Homestead is an Alberta Historic Site.  As such it will be maintained by the province for as long as is reasonably possible.  It’s considered the best example of a Latvian style home in Alberta.  Daigle’s barn is not a historic site.  The barn is still structurally sound, but it is definitely showing its age.
• Philip Daigle built a barn with a Mansard roof which is what makes it so unique in appearance and as beautiful as a French country estate. Plavin’s barn was built of logs which made it very strong.

The earliest known example of a mansard roof is credited to Pierre Lescot on part of the Louvre built around 1550. This roof design was popularised in the early 17th century by François Mansart (1598–1666), an accomplished architect of the French Baroque period.

Wikipedia – Mansard roof

Why where these steep roofs that are named after François Mansart so popular in France?  The answer is attributed to a brilliant tax avoidance scheme according to the quote below.

The reason for mansard roofs, the steep almost wall like roofs that are very steep at the top is that the French government, during the second empire, did not tax the attic space so any rooms behind slanted walls were not taxed and thus we get the very steep walls and dormers in French architecture in the 1800s into the early modern period.  It is all an elaborate tax avoidance scheme. If it is slanted and has shingles on it, it is a roof not a wall and the space enclosed is not taxed.

Peter Normand – Architect Discussion Forum

Some Similarities Between Plavin and Daigle

• They lived approximately 24 km apart, so they were in the same region of Alberta.  Both would have considered Manning as the nearest large community.  
• Both Plavin and Daigle built, or had built, unique barns that were polygonal in design (not square, rectangle or round). To see them side by side they appear quite different though.  Plavin’s barn is not very high and is made of logs, his favourite building material.  Daigles’s barn is very tall with its Mansard roof and is constructed of lumber.  
• Both Plavin and Daigle were homesteaders and pioneers in the distant northwest part of Alberta.
• Both Plavin and Daigle built round barns that are not round.  More on that below. 

When was the Daigle Barn Built?

The local history book, Saga of Battle River, has a good description of the Daigle family and their experiences while homesteading but it is strangely silent about the barn. Silent except for a couple of old photographs of the barn, one of which is featured below. The book where I originally discovered the Daigle barn, called Barns of the North Peace, says that it was built in the 1920s by Philip Daigle. That is close but not quite correct. I am reasonably certain that Daigle’s barn was built in the mid to late 1930s. 

In order to find out more about the date of the barn’s construction I visited the Provincial Archives of Alberta to search for the homestead agreements. No homesteader would build such an elaborate structure until they “proved-up” their land and therefore received title to it. Anything could and often did happen to interfere with the homesteader’s ability to earn ownership of the land. Some of problems that could thwart a homesteader’s efforts to prove up their land include: accidents (there were no hospitals and often few, if any, doctors available), bad crop years due to weather or pests, or simply running out of money to buy food. More often than not the homesteader would seek employment during the winter months just to provide enough money to support their family.

If drought, insects – especially mosquitoes – and accidents were not challenging enough, the Daigle family had to deal with a problem that nobody could foresee. An unrelated homesteader made a formal request to The Dominion Land Office to cancel a nearby homestead agreement; presumably the original homesteader abandoned the property and left. The person who made the request would then try to homestead on that quarter. However, that person made a serious error on the cancelation request by writing down the NW quarter (Daigle’s property) when he meant the SW quarter. This error of just one letter on a form initiated the action to cancel the Daigle homestead agreement. It must have been quite a shock to Philip Daigle and his family that resulted in a number of sleepless nights. The erroneous cancellation was of course subsequently corrected by a letter dated January 25, 1930. It is filed with their homestead documents at the provincial archives.

The Daigles entered into the standard homestead agreement in March 1928. After the Daigles selected their quarter section and paid the $10.00 fee, the first order of business was to build some sort of a house for this large family. In a quote further down in this post, Joe Daigle tells us that their first house was a log structure with dirt floors and blankets for partitions. The small basic house had to suffice for those first three years. On October 20, 1931, The Dept of Lands and Mines accepted that the Daigles had met all the agreed upon homestead conditions, so they were granted Patent (a right granted by a sovereign monarch that is open for public viewing) or what we now simply call “title to the land”. Now that they owned the land Philip and his eldest son Charles could work on constructing a much better house for their huge family followed by the new barn. This means that this big, beautiful barn was built sometime after 1931.

In 1933, Philip Daigle, who was quite skilled in carpentry and in the lumber business, received some very good news from the Peace River Mission. He would soon own a sawmill. This was a game changer and it allowed him to build a much different barn than Charlie Plavin because Daigle’s barn would be built out of lumber rather than logs. While we don’t know the exact date of the barn’s construction, we do know that it required a lot of lumber, so it was likely built after he obtained this sawmill. This means it was built after 1933.

Around 1933, Dad went to the Peace River Mission to do some building for the priests and brothers there. In return, they gave him a sawmill that they had salvaged from the bottom of the Peace River. He set the mill up at home and some of the neighbours came to work at the mill. Sometimes they took lumber instead of wages.

Joe Daigle – Saga of Battle River. page 137

The Barn

In my previous blog post I explained that Charlie Plavin built a polygonal style barn quite likely because of the 1939 promotional efforts of the federal government. I don’t believe that Philip Daigle’s choice of barn style was influenced by the government’s promotional efforts. Certainly if Daigle built it before 1939, as I believe he did, then the federal government’s promotional efforts hadn’t yet begun so accordingly they were not at all relevant to the choice of building style.

Polygonal or circular barns and houses have enjoyed a certain popularity from time to time. In the late nineteenth century in the United States in particular, multi-sided buildings were quite the fad and a surprising number of these buildings remain. But they went out of vogue almost as quickly as they had come into favour. The hexagonal hog barn, designed and promoted by the federal Department of Agriculture in 1939, revolutionized current thinking on designs of pig brooder houses. But, as noted on page 86, this new design did not convince the great majority of hog producers of its superiority.

Jane W. McCracken, Overlord of the Little Prairie. Page 145

Daigle was a carpenter with a sawmill in a part of Alberta that has a lot of trees. He could build whatever style he wanted and as a French Canadian he chose a Mansard design. Was Daigle’s choice due to nostalgia for Quebec? We do know that Mr and Mrs Daigle eventually returned to Quebec so the idea of building a barn that reminded them of home was probably a factor in the decision to construct the Mansard roof polygonal barn. While the Quebec style was likely a factor in the barn’s design it was not the main factor. Subsequent to publishing this blog post I heard from the great granddaughter of Philip Daigle. This was the explanation that she provided.

Philip and Elvina were born and raised in Quebec and were married in 1901. Philip and the family moved to a farm in Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan from 1920-24. A few of the children (including Armand) were born there. Unfortunately farming in Saskatchewan did not go very well for the Daigle family. For four years running, they had hail which wiped out their crops. At one point there was a huge windstorm/tornado? and it blew off the roof of his barn. Then Philip decided to move the family back to Quebec and they spent the next 4 years in Le Sarre. Philip and his oldest son Charlie worked in lumber camps there. Their youngest child, Cecile, was born in Le Sarre. In winter 1928 a friend from Willow Bunch wrote telling Philip about the free homestead land opening up in Notikewin and he decided to move the family there in March 1928.

Armand told my mother that the reason Philip chose the Mansard design for the barn on his new homestead north of Notikewin was to make it more tornado proof – he did not want to lose another barn like he did in Saskatchewan!

Sharna Polard

The Plavin and Daigle barns are both round barns except that they are not round. What I mean by this is polygonal barns are built to function just like round barns. It’s possible that the idea behind the polygonal design was that it might be easier to build than a barn with actual round walls but, in the end, the farmer could derive the same benefits that round barns provided. The main benefit is that the addition of a ramp for a team of horses would facilitate easy access to haul hay up to the second level and that would be where feed was stored. In a round barn (which is really the same as a polygonal barn except of course that it is round) there is an opening in the middle of the second level (loft) floor so feed could be easily distributed to the first level where the livestock would be waiting.

The odd thing is that there is no middle opening in the second level floor of the Phillip Daigle Barn, nor did I see a large second floor entrance or ramp for a team of horses. Now we seem to have a polygonal barn built to function like a round barn except it’s missing the key attributes to really be a round barn.

I walked up to the door of the barn and looked inside. It was quite dark because the barn has very few windows and the fact that the inside was full of all the trappings and paraphernalia of farming for nearly 100 years. This made it difficult to get a good photo of the inside. My plan here was to capture some images of the interior and then zoom in on the photos with my computer when I returned home. This would give me a closer look to see what the images would reveal about the construction of the barn. I tried to hold my camera steady as possible to photograph the ceiling of the barn but unfortunately this pushed my camera well beyond its limitations for a clear and sharp photo. The result is a somewhat blurry high ISO image that is not conclusive. I can see that there is definitely no central opening, but there does appear to be an opening at the far end much like a typical rectangular barn. This prevented Daigle from using his polygonal barn like a true round barn. The ceiling (floor of the second level) was quite badly deteriorated so it wouldn’t have been safe to go up there even if I could find and reach the stairs. Why did Daigle finish his barn without an opening in the middle?

I considered whether the second level was used as a residence for farm hands, (or just some of the older Daigle children) but the barn has a cupola on the roof rather than a chimney for a stove or furnace to heat it. With no heat the second level would not have been of much use as a bunkhouse or other residence except perhaps during the warm summer months. The answer was provided by Philip’s great granddaughter.

My mother recalls that her father used the barn for farm animals such as horses, cattle and pigs. The upper level was used for feed storage and it would have been brought in from the upper door on the outside. She remembers her dad pitching hay down to the mangers. One time when some older cousins were visiting the cousins decided to climb to the top of the barn with her younger sister Eleanor, who was only 6 or 7 years old. There was a ladder on the outside of the barn that went all the way up to the cupola. Eleanor did great until she reached the roof line when she suddenly got very scared and froze. Then the adults had to be called to come to the rescue and everyone was in trouble!

Sharna Polard

Daigle’s barn functions like any other barn, but not like a round barn. It is an anomaly that we might well call a polygonal peg in a round hole.

If you look closely at the image above, you can see where the ceiling joists seem to end before they reach the far wall (where the ceiling suddenly turns quite dark in this photo). This is where the ceiling is open so that hay can be shoveled down to livestock below. Also visible are the huge roughly hewn beams that bear the weight of the second floor.

Philip (aka Phillippe, aka Philiase) and Elvina Daigle

Philip Daigle didn’t originally plan to homestead in northwest Alberta. As stated in the quote above, the family’s first attempt at homesteading was in Saskatchewan from 1920 to 1924. They left Saskatchewan to return to Quebec. In the winter of 1928 a friend from Willow Bunch wrote to Philip about the free homestead land opening up in Notikewin and with this news he decided to move the family there in March 1928. The local history book says that in 1927, he was heading west from his home in La Sarre, Quebec to the west coast where he planned to work in the logging industry. Perhaps he was keeping both options open when Philip and the family again headed west. We now know that they went to the Notikewin area which is north of Manning. When I say “they” I mean both Philip and Elvina Daigle plus some of their ten children.

Joseph (Joe) Daigle in his quote below, lists out the ten children in this family. I was curious if the children were all born in Quebec or were some born after they settled in Alberta. The Daigle homestead documents from the Provincial Archives of Alberta might be of use here to answer those questions. The standard homestead application forms are odd things, even for a government form. More often than not, in the area where family members are listed, there are numbers scratched out and replaced; the Daigle form is no exception (the total number of children could be seven or nine). The homestead application form requests that they list the children by their age and sex, not name. Strangely children under 13 are just listed by age (or the total number of children under 13 depending on how the applicant interpreted the question). The total, with parents is seven, or nine depending on which of the changed numbers was meant to be correct. I’ve uploaded the bottom half of their actual homestead application so that blog readers can see this part of the form from March 1928.

We know, from the quote below, that Alice, who was the oldest daughter in the family, was at a convent in Vegreville. So, ten children, minus Alice, is nine to account for. I was curious as to why Alice became a nun so I asked a member of the family that very question. I was told that it was not uncommon (and in fact even expected!) if you had a large Catholic family at that time for one of the children to go to become a priest or nun. Another one of the younger sisters (Philomene) also became a nun. That makes perfect sense for those early century days.

In our family there was Mother, Dad, Alice, Charles, Marie, Antoinette, Archie, Philomene, Armand, Therese, me (Joe) and Cecile. Our oldest sister Alice (Sister Anastasia) was in a convent in Vegreville.

I often wonder what my mother thought when she saw her new house.  She must have remembered the big house she had left behind.  Now her house was to be a log cabin with a dirt floor and blankets for partitions.  She didn’t speak English and felt like she was a stranger in a strange land.  That first summer we lived mostly on prairie chicken stew, beans and pancakes.  The trails going northwest through our yard and I used to run out to open and close the gate for people passing through.  They gave me either candy bars, gum or a nickel.

Joe Daigle – Saga of Battle River. page 136

The question, located above the area where the number of family members and ages are entered, asks, “Number in family including entrant, giving their ages”. It’s the third column that causes all the confusion.

No matter how you interpret the family information on this form, it must have been quite a journey up to the Peace River country with so many children, although some of them would have been old enough to help with the little ones.

I thought I had the family size figured out until I noticed question six on the second part of the homestead agreement. First the pioneer applies to homestead, and he has three years to fulfill the requirements before it becomes his land. At the end of the three-year period, the pioneer must apply for patent. He describes the number of acres that are productive, the buildings such as a residence and barn and numerous other details for the government to consider. For Philip Daigle the form is dated October 6, 1931. I’ve scanned part of that form so that readers can see it and in particular, look at the response to question 6. It’s hard to read from the original form so I transcribed it below the image. It seems to contradict the first document unless the first document numbers are meant to be five and nine (meaning there were five children under age 13 for a total of nine).

Question six of the homesteader’s application for patent asks in part, “Of whom do your family consist”. Daigle’s response is, “wife, four boys and six girls, total 11”.

The homesteader is motivated to convince officials that he has met the homestead criterion requiring him to reside on the land. Perhaps that is why he included in his family his oldest daughter Alice, even though she was living at a convent in Vegreville. I’m fairly sure that Philip Daigle completed the first form with the numbers 5 and 9 before he second guessed his own answer and changed it. Five children under 13 plus those he listed separately is nine and that is how many were with him at the homestead. This puzzle is what many people who research history call a rabbit hole. You can spend hours, days or longer trying to find the answer and the research takes a person in all sorts of different directions which reveal new problems. Joe Daigle tells us that there were ten children, and the second document completed by Joe’s father Philip, also says ten children so ten it is. I believe that all ten were born in Quebec, but only nine were at the homestead because Alice was at the convent in Vegreville.

The Daigle family of twelve (Philip and Elvina Daigle plus their ten children) travelled all the way from Quebec to Alberta. He homesteaded even further north than Charlie Plavin’s farm (as described in the previous post). What a memorable journey that must have been.

The barn still looks just as it did in 1942 when the above black and white photo was taken, except that I didn’t see that classic old car parked in front of it.

Joe Daigle says on page 137 of the local history book that his parents, Philip and Elvina, moved back east. I believe that means back to Quebec. Their son Armand, and his wife Francis, took over the family farm. Armand and Francis’s first daughter was born on the original homestead and lived there for ten years. In 1952 the homestead was sold outside of the family to Peter Dmitriuk.

The barn definitely has a French look to it which is not surprising given that the family was from Quebec. This style is rare in Alberta. I believe that Philip Daigle built this barn with help from his older sons because, according to the quotes below, he was a skilled carpenter. The quote below states that Philip Daigle built the local Catholic Church. It’s the church where his oldest son Charles married Valerie Noel. If he can build a church, he can certainly build a barn.

In 1936 Charles and I were married in the Roman Catholic Church.  His dad had built the church in 1930 and his church has since been moved to Hawk Hills.   

Valerie (Noel)Daigle – Saga of Battle River. page 133

The Church that Philip Daigle Built

The construction of this church by Philip Daigle was mentioned again later in the same local history book. It’s always good to read the same facts written by different people as that adds greatly to the veracity of the information. The parishioners had a difficult time finding a priest for the long term. Four days after the church was blessed, Fr Borsutsky died.

On April 8, 1931, the Most Reverend Guy bought two acres of land from Marie Dejarlais. This land in Notikewin became the site of the Sacred Heart Church, which, as a bridge over the Notikewin River had been built, would service all Catholics in the area. A 24 X 40 foot church with a 16 X 22 foot sanctuary was constructed by Philip Daigle, the Reverend Fr. Borsutsky and parishioners who volunteered their labour. On June 25, 1932 this church was blessed and four days later Fr. Borsutsky died leaving the parishioners without a priest. During this period, Father Joseph Wagner made visits to the Notikewin and North Star Parishes for baptisms and burials and Father Jacques Huguerre took care of the Christmas ministry that year.

In 1965 the Sacred Heart Church was moved from Notikewin to Hawk Hills.

Fred Hudema – Saga of Battle River. page 651

People in the above image from left to right:
Joe Daigle, Theresa Daigle, Elvina Daigle, Armand Daigle, Philip Daigle (with the tall hat!), Gerry De Laforest, Archie Daigle, Paul De Laforest, Mary Boos, Tony Boos, possibly Paul Boos, unknown child.

The great granddaughter of Philip and Evina Daigle sent me photos of the church that Philip Daigle built. It started out as the Sacred Heart Church in Notikewin but in 1965 it was moved further north to the Hawk Hills area. In Hawk Hills it was renamed St. Peter’s Catholic Church. This move attests to the quality of the construction because only a well built structure with good bones could make such a move. The shaking and swaying caused by a move would destroy a lesser quality structure. Philip Daigle built it well and thus his legacy lives on here as well as through the barn.

I don’t believe that the church is still in use for regular services but it could be available for events such as baptisms, marriages, and funerals.

The Daigle Barn

I’m sure that Bryan Kelemen, who rents the land surrounding the Daigle Barn, must have thought I was somewhat crazy while I walked around the barn two or three times. I was trying to ensure I had the best possible angle on the old barn because I couldn’t know if or when I would be able to return. Now, as I look at my collection of images, I wish I could just quickly go back up north and take many more images, this time while using a tripod.

The above image contributed by Ron Thoreson offers a unique perspective on the Daigle barn. The use of a telephoto lens from a significant distance away allowed him to capture more of the unique roof rather than how my wide angle images emphasize the walls. Here you can see just how massive the mansard roof is. I can just imaging Philip Daigle responding to his wife’s questions about when the barn will be finished. He may have responded, “it’s nearly done Dear, only the roof is left!”

You can see from the wet tire in the above photo that it was raining. My shoes and pant legs were soaked after walking through the wet grass, but I got the photos of this wonderful structure, so it was worth it.

Three Bonus Images

The three photos below were contributed by a reader who grew up in the Manning area. His family homesteaded in this area in 1928 which is the same year as the Daigle family. These three images were taken in December of 2019. They show the huge upper floor and attic space. We can now see for certain that there is no central opening because the main post that holds up the roof is in the middle and there is a solid floor around it. From these images the roof still looks quite solid. I think that this barn may be around for quite a while yet.

Wrap-up

Homesteading was hard work but one can always make time for a little merrymaking. I’ve added the quote below where Kay Daigle tells us that Charlie Daigle (Philip’s oldest son) was not one to let rules or laws get in the way of a fun evening at the dance.

The first year I was in Notikewin, a new Mountie was on duty at a dance. Every time he caught someone with a bottle he confiscated it for evidence and put it in the back seat of his car which was parked at the side of the highway. As soon as he left his vehicle, Charlie Daigle would sneak up from the other side, open the door, steal the evidence and return to the dance where he passed the evidence around. The next morning, he didn’t know what to do with all the empties until it occurred to him to plant them along the Mountie’s front lawn.

Kay Daigle – Saga of Battle River. page 135

This brings to an end my two-part blog post about two magnificent barns and their interesting owners from the north Peace River area. I think that Philip Daigle’s barn has the most character of any barn I’ve seen in Alberta.

Citations:

• Saga of Battle River: A History of Deadwood, North Star, Manning, Notikewin, Hotchkiss and Hawk Hills Districts. 1986. Battle River Historical Society, Manning, Alberta. Hardcopy from Edmonton Public Library.
• Carmel B. Ellis, Barns of The North Peace. Private Collection. Hardcopy available exclusively at Almyra’s Fashions in Grimshaw, Alberta.
• McCracken, Jane W. Overlord of the Little Prairie: Report on Charles Plavin and his homestead. 1979. Alberta Historical Resources Division, Edmonton. Digital copy from the University of Calgary, Digital Collections, Local History. Most of the Charlie Plavin post was paraphrased from this source but I did quote Jane McCracken in this Daigle post as well.
• Provincial Archives of Alberta – copies of homestead documents.
• Peter Normand – Architect Discussion Forum – Online
• Special thanks go to Sharna Polard, the great granddaughter of Philip and Evina Daigle. Sharna provided the photos of the church that Philip Daigle built. She also provided additional details of the Daigle’s journey’s west and the story about the kids climbing up the roof of that very high barn. That sounds like something I would have done at their age.

Be sure to read my previous post about Charlie Plavin and his polygonal barn. Charlie’s barn doesn’t have nearly as much character as Philip Daigle’s barn but that’s okay because Charlie Plavin himself was quite a character. Click here to go to the post about Charlie Plavin. If you find round barns interesting you might enjoy my blog post called, “Getting Around to Two Round Barns”. Click here to go to that blog post.

If you visit the structures shown in this blog, or any other old and potentially abandoned structure, please respect the landowners” rights and obtain their permission to access and photograph their structures. Always exercise caution when visiting abandoned buildings as there are potential dangers such as crumbling structures, deep wells hidden by grass, and even spores of mould in the air.