Saskatchewan Stone Structures

Saskatchewan

There are many stone structures in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan’s history is full of intriguing stories that are often intertwined with their stone buildings. My other blog posts on places in Saskatchewan feature some of the fascinating stories of those structures – barns, houses, schools, churches – and the people whose lives were connected to them. Stone structures exude an air of permanence and pride. Visiting them gives a person a taste of the history that can’t be experienced any other way. Do they bring the history forward for us to see in the context of our own lives or do they pull us back into the historical narrative that birthed them? I don’t know. I’m a photographer not a philosopher. What I can do is to give you a small sample of some of those special places. I hope you can experience them vicariously through my lens.

In the vast expanse of Saskatchewan, there exist enigmatic stone structures that continue to intrigue and amaze those who encounter them. These structures beckon us to explore their origins and the stories of those who lived, studied or worshiped in them. Let’s delve into a few of these captivating sites.

We’ll start with a school northeast of Regina.

Ridgeway School in South Qu’Appelle No. 157

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Ridgeway was one of the thirteen school districts surrounding Qu’Appelle. Very little was written about it in the local history book. What is written suggests that these communities shared a strong sense of patriotism and pride in their King and later Queen. For example, in 1944 there was to be a visit of Princess Alice. Exciting times for a rural community. The district planned a parade and each school was to decorate a car (I don’t know if they mean a parade float or an automobile but they did use the word “car”). Ridgeway School won the decorating contest but the roads were so muddy that the parade was cancelled and the cars joined other exhibitions at the Fair Grounds. That must have been very disappointing but, in Saskatchewan the weather always has the last word.

I spotted the school quite by accident and it took a stroke of luck to reveal the name of it as there is no sign out front. The school is on private land but it does appear to be well maintained.

The source for the 1944 newspaper notice and miscellaneous details about the school was the local history book: Qu’Appelle: footprints to progress: a history of Qu’Appelle and district. Additional details can be found below under citations.

The Widow Walk House (Fisher House)

I was looking for directions to another homestead when I spotted this house in southeast Saskatchewan. From a distance it looked so nice that I was sure somebody lived there. It was only after I walked around to the front that I realized that the only occupants remaining were possibly the ghosts of the past homesteaders that tend to occupy empty buildings like this one. The other nearby structure was likely an old barn with only the one wall to mark its existence. It should be obvious why the building is called the Widow Walk House. It’s not just decoration as there’s a hatch from the attic up there. Did a widow stand up on the roof searching for her long lost husband? Does she still wander the estate? This could become the start of a good ghost story.

If you would like to see aerial images of the Widow Walk House, I highly recommend the video by Prairie Past. Click here to open a new window to watch that short video. Look closely and you’ll see the hatch on the roof.

The actual homesteaders were Joseph and Mary Fisher who took title to the land on March 20, 1895. They moved to another farm not far away in 1920. I can’t say for certain that the Fishers built this house but they did live here until 1920. Their son Allan Fisher married Edna Bateman. Allan and Edna as well as their son Robert Allan, farmed in the same general area for a number of years but eventually they all ended up on Vancouver Island. Their daughter Donna Jean, even married a Captain by the name of H. Hoffart, and they moved to Comox, BC. This makes me wonder if Donna Jean had a widow walk on their house where she would watch for her Captain Hoffart to return from being to sea.

I actually have a personal connection to this area. It’s quite possible that some of my aunts and uncles attended the same school as Robert and Donna Jean. It was called Trafford School. You just never know what you’ll discover in Saskatchewan.

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Summerberry School

Summerberry School was completed in 1909 and was used until 1963. The school was purchased by a former student in 1985 and she, and her husband, significantly restored it to its former glory. One couple can’t maintain it indefinitely so the future is uncertain for this fine looking school.

The fire escape is a unique feature that lets students slide down to the ground. This could be the only school where the students rush for the opportunity to use the fire escape during fire drills. I’m sure it was great fun to participate in their fire drills. I wish the old schools that I attended had such an apparatus, although I’ve never actually attended a school with more than one floor. Having only one floor would take most of the fun out of a fire escape slide.

Click to enlarge, click the arrow to move to the next photo and then click the X to return to normal.

For more information on Summerberry School I recommend the book, Legacy of Stone, full citation below.

The Ross House

This beautiful house is situated in the McLean area between Regina and Indian Head. The land was homesteaded by George Ross on July 29, 1890. He owned both the SW and NW quarters. I couldn’t find much information about George Ross however, there is a George and Elizabeth Ross buried in the McLean area. They both died in 1905 which suggests a tragic event but I’ve been unable to learn any more about them. The local history book does mention “the Ross estate” because part of it was donated for a school site. The local history book makes occasional mention of a Barness Ross but I’ve not been able to establish if Barness Ross is related to George Ross.

What it lacks in provenance is easily made up for in simple beauty. I’m not certain why I find it so compelling. There are none of the typical adornments such as brick corners or arched frames over the windows. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the house that makes it stand out. It certainly helps that it is standing on the highest part of the middle of a farmer’s field. Also noteworthy is the use of so many different colours of stone. Was that done on purpose or were there just that many varieties of stone in the field? The overall building style is very common for Saskatchewan with the single point dormer in the front. If anyone is familiar with this house please comment below.

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St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church

St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church is a fine example of a stone church in a very remote part of Saskatchewan. The buttresses visible at each corner and along the side of the church help to ensure that this church will be standing for many years to come. In order to make their contribution to the construction of the church, each parishioner was to haul two loads of stones from their fields. It required 200 loads of stones according to the book, Legacy of Worship, (full citation below). The church was built in 1915 and extensively renovated in the 1960s. This was originally a very French community but eventually English replaced French as the language used in the church services.

Click to enlarge, click the arrow to move to the next photo and then click the X to return to normal.

To view a video of the church and area by Prairie Past, click on this link.

St Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church is an impressive example of what can be built out of field stone. However, the reason I remember this church so well has more to do with the adjacent graveyard. It contains a reminder as to how difficult rural life typically was in the early century.

A testament to the grief experienced by so many of the families in this congregation is the poignant metal obelisk with many names on it. Also engraved on it are the names of Julia and Alex Gervais who are the benefactors of the monument. Both Alexander (1990) and Julia Gervais (2006) are now buried in the same cemetery.

All four sides of the obelisk are full of baby’s and children’s names. At first I thought that these were all names of victims of the Spanish Flu that swept through the prairies of Canada. However, most of the deaths occurred well before 1919 and 1920 when the Spanish Flu spread throughout Canada. It does include a number of likely victims of the flu because some of the dates are in the range of 1919 and 1920, but most are well before then, beginning in 1904. There are roughly 18 names per side of this obelisk. In some cases, there are more than 18 names because a line lists twins or even triplets.

A great number of viruses wreaked havoc on families in rural areas of the prairies in the early century. To compound the problem of viruses, medical help was far away for the homesteaders so any complications related to a birth could be deadly. Nearly all old rural cemeteries have an area of unmarked graves where children were buried. Sometimes families even buried their lost child in a grave dug by the father on the farmer’s own property. For an example of this click here to read my blog called A Solitary Grave.

There are various reasons why the graves were unmarked but it’s typically because they had a wooden cross and then the parents either died or moved on so there was nobody to replace the wooden cross with a more permanent marker. Julia and Alex Gervais did a fine thing by paying for a marker to recognize all of these children. This is just one cemetery out of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of rural cemeteries with babies and young children, both marked and unmarked.

St. Lucy’s Anglican Church

The first thing that I noticed when I drove up to St. Lucy’s Anglican Church is the tiny size of this building. The church is even smaller than it looks because stone walls are always quite thick. Did the congregation not expect to grow as the years passed by? Stone construction normally lasts for a long time. Perhaps they thought that this structure would eventually serve as part of a much larger church in the future.

St. Lucy’s Anglican Church was built in 1914. The regular services ended in the late 1950s. St. Lucy’s church is located north of Regina in Dilke, Saskatchewan.

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There is one photo above of St. Lucy’s Anglican Church with what appears to be a huge stump near the door. That is actually the remains of a tree that started to grow over the step. When it was cut down they left the stump there to show how it had nearly swallowed up the concrete steps and taken over the entrance to the church.

Holy Trinity Anglican Church

This stone church is located quite far from most of Saskatchewan’s stone buildings. In fact, it’s in northwest Saskatchewan, and not far from the Alberta border. This is surprising because in the north there are lots of trees, yes even in Saskatchewan, and they are much easier to work with than stone. But stone it is.

Some stone structures seem to blend into the prairie landscape. This church does not. In fact, the stones and the bright white mortar remind me of a leopard’s skin but, leopards are quite rare in Saskatchewan. There’s lots of architectural detail to this church. Anglicans had a proclivity towards building architecturally interesting structures although this one owes its beauty to a German stonemason by the name of Karl Gortzyk. Perhaps the reason this church has such a grand appearance was because Karl Gortzyk was assisted by John Le Grand (bad pun?)

Everything on the grounds and the church looks as it would have appeared in the early 20th century apart from one anachronism, the distinctive red metal roof.

The church, like most stone structures, was built of stones from the local farmer’s fields. Those rocks were great for building churches such as Holy Trinity but the only time a farmer was pleased to see those rocks was when he was gathering them to fill his quota for the new church.

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The Martin House

The location of this house makes it a frequent stop for photographers. This house is located northwest of Regina in the Lumsden area. It sits in a prominent location on a high spot that can’t be missed when ascending from the nearby valley. John Monro Martin homesteaded here back in August 2, 1892. I wasn’t able to learn anything about the Martin family or if John Monro Martin did indeed build the house or had it built for his family.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of some of the stone buildings in Saskatchewan. Stone structures can likely be found in all of the provinces of Canada but only Saskatchewan has so many that they are a unique provincial legacy.

Citations

• Qu’Appelle: footprints to progress: a history of Qu’Appelle and district, 1980, (CU12687009) by Qu’Appelle Historical Society. corporate. Courtesy of Local Histories Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
• Legacy of Stone, Saskatchewan’s Stone Buildings, 2008, (C2008-905722-8) by Margaret Hryniuk & Frank Korvemaker. Publishers Group Canada, Richmond BC. Hardcopy version used.
• Legacy of Worship, Sacred Places in Rural Saskatchewan, 2014, (C2014-903787) by Margaret Hryniuk & Frank Korvemaker. Publishers Group Canada, Richmond BC. Hardcopy version used.
• Moosomin Century One: Town and Country. 1981 Moosomin History Book Committee.

It’s important to respect and protect the places that I visit to photograph. For this reason I am reluctant to give out exact locations, although for proper context I do try to describe the general location. If you recognize a place featured in my blog posts please do not give out the location in the comments. If you visit a place featured here please respect the owner’s legal rights for private property and obtain permission before entering their land. If it is on public property, such as a place on Crown land, always leave it in as good or better condition that it was when you arrived, including ensuring that the door is properly closed. Together we can help to ensure that these historic structures are available for the next generation to experience and explore. There’s no better way to learn history than to stand in the place where that history happened.