Ogilvie Wooden Grain Elevator Society

07/16/2026

Moving a grain elevator from Greenstreet, Saskatchewan, to Marshall, Saskatchewan in 1985. Unfortunately, this grain elevator was later demolished. From the NFB archives!

06/18/2026

from our friends at Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie - BIGDoer.com, a view from Meeting Creek, AB

A peaceful evening in Meeting Creek Alberta. ➡️➡️

While the photo is not that old, it looks like something from long ago. It's a convincing scene when you stand here and it's like you're looking back into another time.

It's quiet night in Meeting Creek and a train is due, but it looks there's no need for it to stop. No passengers this night, but it seems the the station agent is burning the midnight oil. He attended to all local business for the railway and lived in an apartment upstairs.

You can thank the folks the Canadian Northern Societyfor saving this structure, built in 1913. They fixed it up and you can reach out to them and stop by for a tour. It's great look back into how travel was in the past. They have a historic grain elevator too, not the one seen, but off camera to the left and we highly recommend paying them a visit.

Check the comments to meet stinky dog, who hung around the entire night. He had an earlier run in with a skunk, so we gave him a wide berth, but what delightful pooch otherwise. No, you are not coming in!
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Greetings from Chris & Connie - unique content from Team BIGDoer since 2012!

05/14/2026

Thanks for sharing! Give Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie - BIGDoer.com a follow if you haven't. They do amazing work.

What a difference 25 years makes - Before & After in Wrentham Alberta. ➡️➡️

The original photo comes from a friend (thank you Allan), and shows a scene in that little southern Alberta community back in 1995. Not that long ago, really.

The three furthest elevators, at the time, were all properties of the Alberta Wheat Pool and wear company colours. They date variously from the 1920s to the 1960s period. Now only one of the trio remains (the furthest one and the newest). On our visit it was privately owned and used for grain storage. The two in the middle were gone by about the year 2000.

The silver elevator (covered in fire mitigating metal sheathing) also once belonged to the Pool, but only briefly. It was built for Ogilvie Flour Mills in the mid-1920s.

The Alberta Pool bought out Ogilvie’s modest network of rural grain elevators in 1960 and closed most of them soon after. This one lasted into 1968, with the Pool then selling it to a local farmer. Old elevators could be had for a song and made fine offsite grain storage facilities. It's the reason many survived after commercial use.

Used well into the 2010s,, it was then acquired by a group working to preserve the historic structure, the Ogilvie Wooden Grain Elevator Society. Go here: https://www.facebook.com/OWGES/ It's the last wood elevator belonging to that company left standing in Alberta.

Our shot is from 2020, but the scene today in Wrentham is much the same.

It's possible the van seen in the distance in the original photo (bottom right), belonged to the photographer. The Mighty BIGDoer-mobile is parked in almost in the same location and that's completely by chance. We didn’t even notice the coincidence until processing the images.

There's been much change in Wrentham, as there has been in countless small prairie towns, and yet the scene here remains almost timeless.

Check the comments for a bonus photo of the Ogilvie.

📸 The then photo is thanks to our friend Allan Brooker.
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Greetings from Chris & Connie!
Unique content from BIGDoer.com - since 2012!