Saskatchewan Wheat Pool Whitepool #587

The old grain elevator stands alone in a field, battered and beaten after having been abandoned for many decades. We’ve seen a lot of structures like this in our travels and few are as sorry looking as the one seen here. Still, it has a rather odd dignity and elegance, even in spite of its decrepit state. It’s sad and it’s beautiful and it’s from another era. In today’s posting, we’re in Whitepool Saskatchewan and looking at Saskatchewan Wheat Pool #587.

This is an article from 2015, done over, re-edited but using the original photos. We had always hoped to capture new ones, perhaps at our favourite time of day, at sunset, but by the time we were in the area again, the structure no longer stood. It burned down a few years back but we have yet to hear the cause. Deliberate, an act of malice or something natural (say lightning). We’re not sure.

Whitepool #587 dates from 1930 and is a pretty typical elevator of the time. In form, layout, appearance and capacity, it’s much like any of its contemporaries. It belonged to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, a farmer owned cooperative founded in the mid-1920s but with roots going back further. For much of its storied history and it’s a long one, this firm functioned as the largest grain handler in the entire country.

The “Pool” ceased to exist some seventeen years ago yet is not forgotten. Imagine a firm on such a scale, and of such importance to the province that it’s still talked about. Sometimes in good ways and sometimes in words less flattering. Farmers had a love/hate relationship with the firm. The Pool had an elevator in nearly every town in the province with a railway line and dominated the market.

The Whitepool elevator operated until 1970 and then closed. Until recently, according to pictures we’ve found online, there used to be a house standing nearby and presumably it functioned as the residence for the elevator operator.

The Pool uniquely numbered each and every facility they operated and 587 used for here. They had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of locations. Look up and you’re reminded to use Pool Co-op Flour.

Grain elevators like this were constructed using 2×6” boards laid flat and stacked, so structurally they’re incredibly strong. This one did have a bit of lean to it but old elevators are near indestructible otherwise. Except for fire and in that regard they’re rather vulnerable.

The driveway where grain got offloaded from wagons and trucks was gone by our visit. Ditto for the office and engine house. The inner workings of the Whitepool Elevator were open to the elements and this afforded a good look at parts not always seen. Two sliding doors hang at crooked angles on the railway side of the building…it’s a pitiful looking place. Birds have gotten in and left their mark.

Whitepool was noted as one of a handful of fully abandoned wood-cribbed grain elevators to be found at the time. Out Saskatchewan way. There are still hundreds of them in the province today (vs around three thousand at the peak), built from the early 1900s and up until the 1980s, but most are in use in one way or the other.

With the loss of this elevator, the total count is down one.

The railway line that once passed by here has been obliterated, with nary a trace to be found, save for the occasional spike or metal tie plate found poking out of the ground. For decades, trains used to run right by this building, but it’s hard to imagine given what’s seen now.

This section of track dated from the early 1910s and built by the Grand Trunk Pacific during the great railway building boom. So many grain gathering branchlines were built up until about 1930 and most are now gone. This lightly trafficked streak of rust ran east from Biggar, through Whitepool towards the Saskatchewan/Alberta border. In the early 1920s it came under control of Canadian National Railways, who further extended the line into Alberta.

This sleepy branch was cut back in 1987 and terminated in a place called Smiley a bit southwest of Whitepool. In 1987 the line still in use got transferred to the Canadian Pacific Railway and any odd bits abandoned. The CPR ran just a little to the north of here (and the line still used today – somewhat) so no difficulty for them to tie into.

This arrangement lasted about a decade or so and with ever declining traffic the line was abandoned in the late 1990s. Soon after the rails were pulled up but one can still trace the route on Google Earth. Some sections, like the one in front of the elevator, were plowed under and no longer visible.

Whitepool refers to the railway siding here and never really a town to speak of that shared the name. There may have been a house or two nearby and that’s it, but no organized community. Today there is a single farm just to the north and it’s right beside the still active CPR line. Otherwise, there’s nothing else to see as far as can be viewed and the isolation rather humbling at time.

A storm gathers overhead as we explore and this fitting weather given the sombre mood. Rain falls, sometimes lightly, but mostly in buckets, thunder rolls, and every now and then flashes of lighting brighten the dark skies around us. Perhaps it’s not the best time to be walking about with an umbrella in hand but sometimes dangers don’t always seem so obvious at the time. It’s no a good environment for a camera either, but what the heck.

We elected to shoot in B&W this day and it just seemed right. A lack of colour seems to elevate a moody scene and this used to that advantage.

Know more about the “Pool”: (new tab): Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.

They’re saying…

“Can we all take a moment to appreciate how great this website is?” Kathleen Raines (kind words – thanks!)

Grain Elevator overload…
Prairie Sentinels: Willingdon Alberta.
Grain Elevators of DeWinton.
Bashaw Processors.

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Date of adventure: June, 2015.
Location: Whitepool, Saskatchewan.
Article references and thanks: Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, CNR archives and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool archives.

Whitepool: built 1930 and closed four decades later.

A maze of pipes inside.

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool #587.

Seen here in a derelict state, summer 2015 and now gone.

Looking at the exposed inner-workings.

“Use Pool Co-op Flour.”

Probably not the best idea in a thunderstorm…