‘Beacons of the Prairies:’ An author’s journey to photograph Saskatchewan’s disappearing grain elevators

In the 1950s, there were more than 3,000 grain elevators in Saskatchewan, often in nearly every city and town.

Now, most of them are gone, decommissioned, destroyed or downed because of storms and other environmental factors.

Swift Current photographer and author Chris Attrell has spent the past 18 years photographing them. His new book ‘Grain Elevators: Beacons of the Prairies’ highlights many of the 200 or so grain elevators left in the province.

He spoke with Gormley about how he photographed some of the towers.

“I literally travelled to just about every grain elevator left in Saskatchewan,” Attrell said.

Many of them were in the southwestern part of the province.

“There’s still so many of them down in the southwest. So they still have a whole bunch of grain elevators (in) every other town still,” he said.

While few are left along major highways in the province, some are still located along secondary highways. Many of them are still in operation.

“I’m actually surprised there’s still people working in them,” said Attrell. “I thought they would just maybe use them for storage or something like that but nope, they’re using them.

“It’s a dirty job and those things are still pretty old, but they still love operating those grain elevators.”

The book contains not only pictures, but descriptions and histories of each elevator. Attrell said his website also has a link to all of the remaining standing wooden grain elevators across the prairies for anyone interested in visiting them.