Finished Altar Top

Folks the top of the altar is done. It is really fascinating to look at up close as the wood is like a relief map with all of it's contours. These planks met their final form only after seventy-five years worth of grain had trickled down them. Every board is unique and there are many different patterns for the eye to see. I think that in some way the topography of the altar top is reminiscent of all the rolling hills, valleys and coulees upon which our Province's grain grows.



















They are also stained some beautiful rich hues as canola often went up this particular elevator leg. During the trip to the top some of the seeds would always spill out of the scoops and cascade down the leg shaft. As gravity ran it's course the tiny canola seeds smashed and their oils would stain the leg boards.










The boards were not in pristine condition. Besides the usual splits and cracks you'd expect from old dry lumber there are some big gouges sustained during salvage. This was fine but one of the things I keep feeling over and over again while handling this wood is how better to tell the story of it's working life. I used the gouges as a way to do this; I glued down some grains in a few spots - a small river of grain in one board and some rivulets of grains elsewhere.

This is wheat grown on my wife's family's farm. My hope is that these wheat grains and the altar will help people to think about the historical importance of elevators, the essence of a grain elevator, and by extension all the Saskatchewan farmers whose labours have fed people around the world.

Options

Apparently if you need to move an elevator from Buffalo Gap to Big Beaver - you can.

(click photo to embiggen)

Altar Top

The sun is out, the air is warm and on a day like this I would rather be at a horseshoe tournament. But it's time to put on The Field Behind the Plow and get to work on the top.



















The boards needed a fair bit of piecing back together and cleaning. A lot of cleaning. I finally bolted a scrub brush to an old power sander to get things moving along. What beauty lies beneath...












All the boards I am using for the top came out of a canola leg. In the bottom photo you can see the depth to which the canola oils have stained the lumber, as well as some sculpting on the face.

Image of the day

Fascinating photo of an abandoned elevator. In the centre you can see the leg where the seeds went up in little scoops on the conveyor belt. As the loaded scoops ascended some of the overfilled grains would spill out to trickle down the leg. These grains would ever so slowly erode and sculpt the leg boards over the decades. The lumber I am using for the altar top was salvaged from a canola leg and is stained dark from the canola oil in the seeds. Once at the top of the structure the grain would be directed down into the proper storage bin.

One can also clearly see the cribbed method of construction - 2 by 4's were placed on the flat much like Lego bricks stacked together. This made for a very strong structure but labour intensive to build and taking considerable skill on the part of the craftsmen. The design had to take into account the shrinkage of the wood as it dried, as well as settling as the bins were filled. A full size elevator could be over 100 feet high, and would shrink as much as 2 to 3 feet.

Up With the Grain

Up With the Grain

Today I watched them knock
our town's grain elevator down.

Cloud of dust, pile of rubble
where it once stood
like a white, wooden soldier
beside the railroad tracks,
Melthern in black across its middle.

Now they'll haul the grain
to a huge, cement tower
nothing like the shoulders
that sloped above the town,
musty and dark inside

where a bright green engine putted
as it lifted kernels up the elevator
shaft to bins at the peak. I wanted
to rise up with the grain
and the swallows.

From that high window
I'd see blue squares
of flax, sloughs
like jewels, knots of bush,
roads to explore for miles.

Today our elevator disappeared
but my view is still here, clearing with the dust.


poem by Barbara Nickel


photo credit - Flickr: Cody Kapcsos

Work begins

June 11th - 2011

We hadn't been in town on the weekends for a month now. Too busy at the farm! We along with several other couples grow a big garden at the 'hobby' farm which belongs to my wife's family. The farm is a quarter section near Paddockwood. We spend more and more time there every year and the garden keeps getting bigger and better. For us, good food is at the centre of a good life. But the garden is all in now and germination is well underway. Time to get busy with the elevator wood.

Most of the boards have been sitting outside for a number of years now and are in need of restoration. The first step was to pressure wash all the weathered grayness from them. I also needed to run some tests to see what finish would best bring out the original colour in the wood.

























This used to be a 2 by 4 bracing board - before the grains of Saskatchewan washed over it.
























It's really amazing what lies beneath the surface...
(before and after shots of an amazing grain sculpted board - Katherine Soule Blaser on the left)

Inspiration: elevators

May 24th - 2011

Well this has all happened quickly... but an altar has to get built, and soon. I had sketched a few ideas before my trip to Herschel, but without seeing what the wood really looked like it's difficult to do much in the way of design. These aren't standard dimensioned boards from the lumber yard, after all.

Some of the altar's design criteria are:
-leaving the wood as original and rough as possible
-needs to be transported - so it must disassemble easily
-leave existing nails in (for the obvious crucifix metaphor)
-BIG; 12 feet long and about 4 feet wide
(it needs to fill a worship space in TCU Place in downtown Saskatoon, SK)

The idea being that this is working wood, wood which has born the thrust and weight of countless millions of bushels of grain over three quarters of a century. This isn't the pampered, polished and waxed wood of your coffee table. It's wood that has seen some action. Wood that is reflective of the Saskatchewan farmer's pioneering and hard-working spirit. And we want to make the altar meaningful by letting the wood tell it's own story. Not by transforming it into a piece of fine furniture that bears no resemblance to it's former life.

So how to go about getting inspiration for this? What else but to start by looking at elevators. I had stopped at a few elevators on my drive back home but couldn't get into any of them. We live in the Canadian Shield in Air Ronge, Saskatchewan so the closest elevator is a good drive away. I'd have to rely on photos and memories.

Some of the now gone elevators as they stood in Herschel, Saskatchewan.


























There are still some standing but I couldn't count very many on my drive home. Tessier, SK.

Herschel Retreat House

May 20th - 2011

One of the great things to come out of the Neufeld's salvage project is the Herschel Retreat House. The building is made (almost) entirely out of elevator wood, and everything inside is recycled too. Their design ethos for the retreat is impressive. Read about it here:









































Recycled lumber was used for the studs, sheeting, joints, rafters, floors and ceiling. Grain sculpted boards in particular have been used as finishing lumber throughout the house. This includes the dramatic grain washed wood used as wainscotting in the enclosed porch, and amazing pieces of wood chosen for use as door and window casings. I would love to see these boards bathed in evening light from a setting prairie sun...

Road trip

May 20th - 2011

Time to head to Herschel, meet Dave Neufeld and get that wood. I borrowed a truck and off I went.












The Neufeld's property had piles and piles of salvaged wood from the Herschel elevators. Next to the piles stood the remains of some of the cribbed storage bins.






















Dave Neufeld with some of the grain-sculpted bracing lumber.
















I came home with a load of interesting and strangely beautiful wood.

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.

Phone call

May 11th - 2011

Hey folks,
Received a great phone call tonight from Katherine Soule Blaser in Saskatoon. There is a national convention this summer in Saskatoon of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the country's largest Lutheran denomination.

Katherine is part of the worship committee and they need an altar built. But not just any altar. One which is unique and historical. One which is able to convey some of the history of our fine Province. So what else to build but an altar built out of reclaimed grain elevator lumber?

I was asked to mull the project over and get back to her and I responded that I would do just that, in a few days. But as soon as I had hung up the phone the decision had been made - I would take on the task. How could I give up the opportunity to work with such interesting and historical wood?