Save our churches
For a place with such a strong sense of history and roots, it’s astonishing how tenuous a foothold our physical past has on the Canadian prairie.
In a single generation, structures as central to the Western identity as grain elevators can vanish like the wind. Those of us who regularly travel Alberta’s byways mark the passing years with the gradual erosion of forgotten homesteads and abandoned farm equipment that were once the most prized possessions of our forebears.
And now, it is the Ukrainian churches’ turn to begin fading into memory, as small, aging communities confront the huge sums it would take to preserve if not restore beautiful old wooden structures such as the threatened Spaca Moskalyk in Lamont County.
John-Paul Himka, a professor of history at the University of Alberta, says there are hundreds of such centres of spiritual and community history scattered across Alberta and Saskatchewan. “The Prairies, the way they’re covered with these churches, there’s no place like that,” Himka told Journal reporter Brent Wittmeier in an article in Saturday’s Journal.
It’s easy to understand the problem that brought the Spaca Moskalyk to the brink of scheduled demolition by fire. Restoration was slated to cost close to a million dollars, and even then would only prolong the battle with the elements for a generation or two, not end it.
Further, our old rural Ukrainian churches are caught up in a larger and even more irreversible trend: the gradual shift away from the family farm, and from the pattern of small communities in which the churches were built. At the same time, the rapidly growing urban population is also drifting away from Alberta’s rural heritage. Cities such as Calgary and Edmonton are increasingly filled with people as likely to have their roots in Asia as in Manning or Mundare.
If we were to propose that provincial money be spent preserving at least some of our rural Ukrainian churches, it’s even simpler to imagine the objections. The province is in deficit; instead of worrying about buildings and the past, we should focus on programs oriented to people and the future — such as health and higher education — that were squeezed in last week’s provincial budget. But we should reject that parsimonious response. First, theses buildings invariably have local volunteer backing. Second, they don’t all have to be saved; the best and most structurally sound could be singled out, with records and photos of the rest preserved in the admirable collection Himka and colleagues are assembling by criss-crossing the two provinces. And third, there is considerable tourist potential if care is taken to think of saving churches that would make good driving loops.
Many of the churches are astonishingly beautiful. You can check out a sample in a photo gallery to be found at edmontonjournal.com/insight. If we were on holiday in Europe or Latin America, photos of such local jewels would be treasures when we got home, something special that not everyone sees. We should not allow what we have here to slip away.