I’m still chugging away at this potential coffee table book. Much of my practice writing has been posted to a private writers blog type of page. They are very supportive and sometimes give direction (thanks Jeff for the invite). Somehow, I have fit this in along with recording a new album of some of the most serious material to date, and creating stuff in the shop for Summer and Fall markets, along with a few new items I’m working with. Thankful I get to do this.
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Abandoned Homesteads
Growing up, I never could have imagined houses being left empty and falling apart on their own.
That seems so foreign to me. Suburbia is generally new to mankind. Pre-planned cookie-cutter neighborhoods with copycat houses on the outskirts of any city began post World War II, giving the illusion of ideal living. Therefore most of these houses were fairly new, valuable, and occupied. If a suburban house is empty, it will be occupied within a few months, via sales or rental.
The Saskatchewan Prairies are littered with hundreds, if not thousands of empty, abandoned houses. Most of these are in remote locations, such as in the middle of a field that is a current crop being managed by a nearby farming operation. But sparse, empty houses makes sense when you know the history.
“An Act Respecting The Public Lands of the Dominion”, aka “The Dominion Lands Act”, or “The Canadian Homestead Act” lasted from 1872 to 1918. The Canadian government tried to populate the prairies, which eventually became Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, by giving away a free 160 acre parcel of land to male farmers. Yes, males only. Just read Georgina Binney-Clark’s “Wheat and Women”. This female British farmer had to pay for her own land in the Qu’Appelle Valley through bank loans. The remains of her property is located on the adjacent farm to Paul’s family farm. Paul and I explored it once. There’s one building left standing, and I’m certain it was a farm hand’s quarters. Very tiny compared to the description of her house in the book. And it was located on lousy farm land. Chock full of sloughs. A far cry from the choice land around the Pheasant Creek given free to male farmers.
Many of the farmers in the region today are forth or fifth generation homesteaders from the late 1890s.. But most of the descendants have moved on to urban areas. As farming technology advanced beginning in the 1950s through today, fewer people are needed to farm. And less people can manage larger quantities of acres than their predecessors.. Therefore, not as many people have need to live out in the remote rural prairies connected by grid roads.
Paul and I bike past dozens of houses in various stages of abandonment. I started a semi-unscientific labeling system identifying each house we find according to abandonment period, in three stages.
Stage I: (Abandoned 1-10 years) Newly abandoned. Most likely, Grandma and Grandpa were recently moved into a care home or suddenly died. The house is still furnished like the day before they left. Clothes hang in the closet. Prescription drugs and non-perishable food are still in the cabinets. The yard might be kept up by a relative for the first few years, with the assumption that “grandma might move back in”. But probably after reality sets in, the yard and property eventually gets ignored. And within 5-10 years, the house starts to see the first signs of obvious neglect and natural deterioration due to weather, lack of interior heat in the winter, and wildlife.
Stage II: (10-25 years) The descendants of whoever had lived here last have most likely sold the farm, or just farm the land and live elsewhere. The current farmers are tending to the land but have no use for the house, which takes too much time and resources to demolish. Or it holds sentimental value. So the house deteriorates due to zero upkeep. Vandals have done their fare share, unless the house is one of the rare ones that is well hidden from the public due to distance from any well traveled roadway. Or perhaps, it is located behind an Aspen grove or thick Caragana patch. Nature has taken it’s course. Tree branches grow through windows, birds live in the roof, and other wildlife have found refuge. If it’s a house from the 1950s or later with drywall, the ceiling has fallen in due to moisture and a wide temperature variance throughout the year. There may or may not still be belongings in the house.
Stage III: (25+ years) An empty shell. No glass in the windows. Usually no doors. If it’s a classic era farmhouse pre stock market crash where trim work was hand-crafted, most of it would have been harvested by vandals and collectors. Stage III houses are rarely looked after in any way. Field owners are just waiting for them to fall. Many of these houses have been purposely braced with steel cabled from the inside and used for grain storage. And the yard is cluttered with ancient rusting farm equipment, in an almost museum-like presentation.
(more later)