**Here’s a rough draft for a small chapter or section on the school sites we find. These are my favorite things to discover while biking the prairies. And since they are (former) public schools, it makes me feel like we are not trespassing when we visit them.
I’m sure I could elaborate more in this chapter. Comment below if you have suggestions. Thanks - B
Schools and Former Educational Sites
During our first few journeys peddling the prairies, we ran across several signs, monuments, and markers announcing the site of former schools. They seemed to be everywhere.
Such as one small but official looking road sign saying “School site of the former TIPPERARY SCHOOL: 1909-1964”. Or a nice granite monument with a metal plaque: “INVERCAULD SCHOOL: 1914-1964…Dedicated to the pioneers & Educators whose vision made this district today”. And maybe even a large smooth rock with a faded painted message and portrait of the school building: “ALLINDALE SCHOOL DISTRICT 1903-1963”.
These markers were honouring a bunch of one-room school houses, educating all aged kids under one roof by one teacher. Kind of like in that old 1970s TV show “Little House on the Prairie”. My wife’s grandmother was one of those teachers, working at Saskatchewan schools in Radville and Oungre, both near the North Dakota border. We never knew her. She died when my father-in-law was a teenager.
And all of these schools closed during the 1963-1964 school year. I later learned that this was the year the Provincial government put resources into transportation and fewer school districts, forcing the independent farmland school houses to close while bussing the kids to the closest town.
A rarer find is an old school house that has been preserved. There are a few around. Many of the fieldstone built school houses are still standing because of the longevity of the structural material. Others, like the brick school house in Pheasant Forks, a ghost town community north of Lemberg, are well preserved thanks to the nearby community who recently replaced the roof.
But the rarest find while biking: an abandoned school house uncared for by any group. There are very few of these around.
One of my favorite school finds was the Maple Green school. The Rural Municipality (RM) of Abernethy has done a fine job of marking each former school site with a professional sign and brief history. In search of a cemetery plot, we came across the sign marking the former site for the Maple Green School, posted in front of an unruly Caragana patch. But we could see a chimney sprouting above the tree patch when we biked in search of the cemetery.
“I wonder if that is the school in those trees”
Sure enough, a red brick school house was embedded in the thickest Caragana mess. It was amazing. This was definitely a Stage III building by my unscientific rating system: an empty shell left to rot. But the building seemed straight and sitting on a decent foundation. It had a small entryway. And a wide open classroom with framework on the wall where the black boards once hung. Also, a small office aside from the classroom. And a basement full of water.
My second favorite school find was in the RM of North Qu’Appelle. We bike by a farmyard entry with some parked farm equipment and an old building. I was convinced the building was a church because of the tall steep steeple-like roof. Paul thought it was a house. We were both wrong.
Like all other school houses, the framework for the blackboards still hung. Wide open room. A small office to the side. This one had a deteriorating basement wall that exposed the old coal furnace. I never found out the name of this school. Or its history. I wonder how many kids were educated here.
Then there was a really small school house we found north of the valley between Ellisboro and Hyde. It was on the side of the road. And at first it looked like a shed, or a 100 year old grain bin. But it had a small entryway. I peeked inside. There was the frame for the blackboard.
I guess the actual blackboards were the first thing people removed when a school closed.