Bread List!
Everyone is making bread this spring & summer, and there are lots of historic sites that are associated with bread, grain, grist and other parts of the process of feeding people. Let’s visit a few of them!
Places
Batoche National Historic Site
Batoche, Saskatchewan
The Batoche and St. Laurent areas were home to approximately 1,200 settlers. They grew many crops, including wheat. If you visit Batoche you can see the traditional Metis way of allotting farmland – much more equitable and sensitive to the land than the plots the Canadian land surveyors imposed on them.
I learned a lot about Batoche recently from a brief visit, and from Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Harriet.
Val Marie Heritage Grain Elevator
Val Marie, Saskatchewan
Grain was transported grain elevators like Val Marie and assessed and sold to the wheat pool.
Val Marie is an 1927 Historic Crib Style Grain Elevator, the Lighthouse of the Prairies
Alberta Legacy Development Society/Leduc Heritage Grain Elevator
Leduc, Alberta
There were once hundreds of grain elevators across the Canadian prairies. They were landmarks and gave a sense of place to the locals.
The Mill of Kintail Conservation Area
Mississippi Mills, Ontario
Conservation area that is home to R. Tait McKenzie & Dr. James Naismith Collection.
I used to play in the mill stream here as a child.
Mills turn grain into flour so you can turn it into bread!
The Distillery Historic District
Toronto, Ontario
Previously the Gooderham & Worts Distillery, now a commercial district. A very different sort of loaf, but historically lots of people were involved in brewing or distilling.
Roma at Three Rivers National Historic Site
Montague, Prince Edward Island
Lots of historic places actually bake bread as part of their programming!
As one of my colleagues said in a recent blog, which inspired this this:
If we take that word wilderness to mean “the unknown” we can make an argument about the use of bread as a comforting symbol of home and of culture against the great uncertainty we are collectively living through. (“The Stuff of Life: The Living Heritage of Bread in a Time of Change”, Kristin Catherwood)
Road Map
Batoche, Saskatchewan to Montague, Prince Edward Island
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