of Robert Borden decided on Port Nelson and work began the following year. To help overcome the harbour limitations, an artificial island was built and a seventeen-span trestle extended to it. Port Nelson became a busy construction camp, with upwards of one thousand workers housed in its bunkhouses.
By 1918 the war had halted any further construction. With costs of constructing the port climbing to a staggering $6.5 million, an inquiry in 1919 learned that, despite the decision of the government, the project engineer had never approved of Port Nelson as the terminus. In 1927 the government reversed its decision and chose Churchill instead. By 1928 Port Nelson had become a ghost town, with the engineering office, wireless building, and several homes standing vacant. Meanwhile, the port of Churchill was completed in 1929 and trains began running in 1931. Today at Port Nelson, concrete wharfs, foundations, and a seventeen-span trestle still stand as a testimony to the folly of the original decision.
The CPR’s Ghost Town Line
It has been said by ghost-town hunters that to find such places one need only to follow a prairie branch line. While that may be a hit-and-miss endeavour, there is one line that does yield a greater abundance of abandoned places, and that is a southern CPR line that stretched from Souris in Manitoba to Stirling in Alberta.
Construction began in Souris in 1890 and continued to Reston, where a former CPR engine house yet stands. Then, from Reston, the route continued in 1900, reaching Forward and Assiniboia in 1910. By 1914 it had reached Attawan in southwestern Saskatchewan. The western section had been completed from Stirling to Manyberries in 1915, with the final link being broached in 1922. With rolling grasslands and cattle ranches, the route was not particularly profitable, and by the early 2000s, no tracks remained between Foremost and Consul. The lifting of the tracks and the disappearance of the grain elevators resulted in many of the little railway communities withering, many disappearing altogether.
In Saskatchewan, some of the more photogenic ghost towns include Maleval, Mayronne, Khedive, and Vidora, which had its own electrical grid and now consists of a pair of vacant structures on private land. Robsart could boast of its own hospital, town, council, and thirty businesses. The vacant hospital still stands, as do a number of abandoned main street stores. Being close to the American border, Senate and Govenlock enjoyed a brief period of prosperity during the days of prohibition. Whiskey would arrive by train to the Govenlock Hotel, which held a festive occasion known as the Bootleggers Ball. Today, only a plaque survives to mark the town. Scotsguard has fared a little better. Known as “Little Chicago,” it could once boast a population of 350, with a hotel, theatre, town hall, and six elevators. That had plunged to six residents by 1987. A few derelict buildings, including a church, are scattered among the vacant streets.
Manyberries, Alberta, while described by some as a “ghost town,” remains a populated place. The station, restored as a house with track and a caboose in front, still stands at the end of a now nearly vacant main street, although the Ranchman’s Inn can still offer lodging and a meal. The area’s ranching heritage is reflected in the many cattle brands that decorate the inn’s walls. Orion, the next on the line, used to boast of a main street with three general stores, a pool hall and hotel, as well as grain elevators. Today, Orion provides many vacant buildings and overgrown lots, as does Nemiskam, while Skiff and Wrentham fall within the “partial” ghost town category. Notably, Skiff retains its elevator, where a string of boxcars and a caboose stand on a siding. Foremost, today’s eastern end of rail, serves as a busy regional centre. (It is worth pausing in Etzikam, not a ghost town, to view the rather unusual windmill museum).
The main street of Manyberries, Alberta, still ends at the back door of its preserved CPR station.
With the abandonment of hundreds of kilometres of branch lines and the removal of the elevators, nearly every rail line can count dozens of ghost towns, or hamlets that resemble them, with overgrown streets, vacant false-fronted stores, and sagging houses. Few prairie ghost towns retain any component of their railway roots. However, lurking within a few of these ghostly remnants — places in Saskatchewan like Alvena, Jedburgh, and Parkerview — are grain elevators and stations. Mowbray in Manitoba and Manyberries, Heinsburg, and Rowley in Alberta are ghost towns, or partially so, and they retain their stations in their original locations. In Saskatchewan, grain elevators still stand silently in ghost towns like Fusilier, Sovereign, Bents, and Peterson; in Alberta, Rowley and Dorothy; and Brandenwarden in Manitoba.
Heritage Towns
All across the Prairies, a number of railway towns are becoming heritage attractions on their own, communities like Radville, Vilna, Strathcona, Ogema, and Empress. In Alberta more than two dozen communities have undertaken main street upgrades under that province’s Main Street program. Manitoba’s Hometown Main Street Enhancements program helps fund streetscape improvements in communities across that province. In April 2011, the province of Saskatchewan announced a similar program. Although such improvements may not necessarily incorporate rail heritage features, nearly all main streets in the Prairies owed their origins to the railways and the stations that stood at the foot of those streets. Some of the more exciting heritage communities are listed here.
Empress, Alberta
Located in the Badlands of Alberta, Empress began as a CPR divisional town on what became known as the “Empress” line, named in honour of the late Queen Victoria, who had been the empress of India. With its small but distinctive station and divisional facilities, the town developed into a busy community. But the station closed in 1972, and the tracks were lifted a few years later. The town was on the verge of becoming a ghost town.
Then, it was “discovered.” A number of artists have located their studios here or nearby. Sagebrush Studios has moved three historic churches onto its property to serve as additional studios. Another, the Knarls and Knots studio, features handmade furniture. The most active of the new businesses is “That’s Empressive” — a tea room and gift shop situated in the former Bank of Commerce, which was built in 1919 and remained in business until the CPR closed its divisional point operations; for a time it served as a boarding house. The TD moved into the building, which remained a bank until 1997, when a jeweller bought it for his studio. The building was then purchased by Pat and Ross Donaldson to sell artwork. Since then it has become the focus of the community, with its tea room and gift items, as well as being the town’s only convenience store.[5]
Radville’s main street contains a heritage bank and a heritage hotel, as well as the preserved station at the end of the street.
Vilna, Alberta
Shortly after taking over the CNo and the GTP, the newly formed CNR began to expand into the area northeast of Edmonton to help open the area to settlement, especially for soldiers returning from the First World War. At the site of today’s Vilna, the CNR established a station and a community quickly grew. The main street contained a hardware store, bank, hotel, post office, and a pool hall, among other businesses.
Despite the removal of the railway line, Vilna’s main street has remained largely intact. In fact, so much so that the Alberta Main Street Program has helped fund the street’s revitalization. More than twenty main street buildings have been improved or fully restored, many dating back to the village’s boom years in the 1920s to the early ’30s.
But the best known of the main street buildings is the pool hall and barbershop. Built in 1921 by Steve Pawluk, it remained in use as a pool hall and barber shop until 1996. In that year, it was purchased by the Friends of the Vilna Pool Hall and Barbershop Historical Society,
