Elevator lumber

May 15th - 2011

I called Katherine back to let her know I would built the altar. Prior to contacting me she had already found a source to buy the lumber for the project. The Neufeld family of Herschel had taken on the job of salvaging the elevators which were so unceremoniously destroyed in their community. It is quite exciting to know that this wood is available, and that David Neufeld is willing to part with some of it.

Even though Saskatchewan once had 3300 standing elevators and the last two decades have seen that number decline to just hundreds of these sentinels, it is extremely difficult to get the salvage rights. Most of the grain companies have no interest in seeing the wood continue on but rather to simply send in the wrecking equipment and get the job done quickly and with the least cost. So most of the lumber from most of the elevators is destroyed. What does survive is rare, and the lumber I was able to get is rarer yet.

This is a tragedy as a grain elevator contains a type of wood which is unique in the world. These are the leg boards (the leg is the wooden chute the grain goes up) and the bracing boards. (which brace the walls of the storage bins) These boards have a life like no other wood does. Their placement in the elevator requires them to be in the places where grain moves over them. As that grain cascades over the boards it slowly erodes them.

Or rather it sculpts them as the result of (in the lifespan of the Herschel elevators) 75 years of impact from seeds of wheat, barley, canola - you name it. The result is a grain washed wood which could never be recreated by any machine or tool. Each board is unique and truly a sculpture which could only have been made by an old wooden grain elevator.