Revue Saveurs et savoirs - Partie 2 (.pdf) - Assemblée ...

Domrémy was founded by French colonists in the late
19 th century. Located in the east of the region and 1.5 km
from Highway 2, the village of Domrémy is characterized by
its cultural diversity and the relationships that have been woven
among the various communities over time: Francophones,
Ukrainians, Scandinavians, Poles, Hungarians, etc.
The village seems to have been built around its elevators:
prairie icons and testaments to the community’s economic
viability and the region’s agricultural strength. Today only
two of the five elevators that once stood in Domrémy
still exist.
Grain Elevators
At one time, elevators marked the horizon every 12 to
15 kilometres, the maximum day’s journey for a farmer in a
horse-drawn cart. The grain elevator, a building designed to
receive, store and ship grain in bulk by railroad is one of the
visual symbols of the Canadian West. The expansion of
operations and the reduction in the number of farms,
combined with an improvement in road infrastructure, made
small railroad branch lines increasingly less viable and led
railroad companies to seek permission to abandon the
elevators. In 1977, the Hall Commission recommended
that significant sections of the rail network be abandoned;
the trend continued with 1996 rail deregulation and the
end of the Crow Nest agreement. These factors, augmented by
recent grain company mergers, have led to the gradual
abandonment and disappearance of grain elevators in
Western Canada.
In some communities, agricultural entrepreneurs have purchased
them for their own storage needs. This is the case in Domrémy
and Hoey.
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