Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator National Historic Site of Canada

Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator National Historic Site of Canada is a wooden, hipped roof grain elevator, located along the Trans-Canada Highway, five kilometres west of the Manitoba border. It is situated south of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) mainline, between the highway and the community of Fleming, Saskatchewan. This National Historic Site was demolished by fire in February 2010. The formal recognition consists of the grain elevator and a small area of surrounding property.

Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator was designated a national historic site of Canada in 2008 because:

- as one of the oldest known Prairie country grain elevators, structures regarded as icons of rural Western Canadian life, the Fleming elevator is associated with the early development of the grain handling industry in Western Canada; and,

- in its form, materials and most particularly its roof profile, it retains the physical and visual characteristics of the earliest phase of grain elevator design on the prairies.

Once part of a row of four grain elevators, the Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator now stands sentinel on a flat landscape along the Trans-Canada Highway and the CPR main line. One of the oldest known surviving wooden crib-construction grain elevators in Western Canada, the Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator has an overall vertical emphasis and a typical late 19th-century design, in which the main structure’s four exterior walls terminate at eaves about two-thirds of the way up, at which point a hipped roof supports a square cupola. A sloped-roof, wooden lean-to receiving shed is attached at the base on one side and has a ramp leading into it with a shallow incline. Constructed in 1895, the Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator is associated with the genesis of the modern system of grain handling, which took place between 1876 and 1900, and is one of only two surviving grain elevators from this period. By the early 20th century, construction of this hipped roof style of grain elevator became less common, as the monitor-roof “standard plan” design became more dominant. Grain elevators have come to be accepted as icons of the Prairies, and the Fleming Lake of the Woods Grain Elevator, with its surviving wooden massing and rare roof profile, standing tall against the horizon, next to the CPR main line, is a rare surviving example of this evocative symbol of the early history of the grain industry in Western Canada.

Sources: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, July 2007; Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Submission Report 2007-45 author: Kate MacFarlane, Historical Services Branch, Parks Canada.

Key elements contributing to the heritage value of this site include:

- its hipped roof design style, with its shorter stature and narrow cupola;

- its traditional wood-crib construction of boards laid horizontally and nailed together;

- its location along the CPR mainline and Trans-Canada highway;

- its sloped-roof wooden lean-to receiving shed;

- its shallow-sloped ramp.