The town of Gravelbourg celebrated the community’s history on August 9 by offering free guided tours from 11-5 p.m. The doors of the Gravelbourg Museum, the Co-Cathedral, the chapel of the Convent, the town’s remaining grain elevator, the Gaiety Theatre and the barbershop were open for visitors. There were also hamburgers, hot dogs and a market in Soucy Park. This event was sponsored by Southland Co-op.
“It’s really good. Everybody knows the gardener lady,” Cathy LaRochelle said as she described her experience on Heritage Day. LaRochelle had been busy selling fresh produce in the park’s outdoor market on a day with changeable weather verging from sunny to grey periods.
Inside the Gravelbourg Museum, Brandy White was busy welcoming visitors in both French and English. “This is our second Heritage Day Fundraiser. Last year was successful. This year is very successful and its important to know this heritage,” White explained.
The Gravelbourg & District Museum was founded in the 1980s and has been located on 300 Main Street since 2005. The museum is located in the same building where Styles and the Café de Paris are housed. Gravelbourg’s museum takes care to hire locals who are well-informed about Gravelbourg’s history and can offer detailed information about the town’s collection of historical buildings.
On the north end of town and east of Main Street, one of the 10 oldest grain elevators in the province was open for visitors on Heritage Day. Once, Gravelbourg had nine grain elevators and a flour mill. When farmers began using their own grain bins and were hauling grain by trucks rather than relying on the railway, the elevators slowly became redundant. In fact, the railway tracks where the line of elevators once stood were removed in 2016.
On the south end of town, Our Lady of the Assumption Co-Cathedral is an imposing building completed in 1919. The Romanesque church was fashioned from bricks manufactured at the Claybank brick plant – now a tourist attraction located south of Briercrest and west of Avonlea. The cathedral’s interior is decorated with paintings by Msg. Charles Maillard, an artist originally from France. The aisle section has four levels of paintings beginning with the Seven Deadly Sins and the Stations of the Cross. The story of St. Philomena ascends to the ceiling. Once, the cathedral had been named Our Lady of St. Philomena Church, but the building’s name was changed in 1965. Her sainthood began to diminish after 1961, when the Holy See issued an order to have the name of Saint Philomena removed from all liturgical calendars.
