Blaze destroys ‘glorious’ Craik Eco-Centre
For one community member, seeing black smoke pour out of the Craik Eco-Centre meant more than just a building destroyed by fire.
“It hurts. It’s a bit like the death of an old friend,” said Jim Nodge, who lives a few kilometres away from the Eco-Centre.
He watched the building being constructed before it opened its doors in 2004. On Thursday, he saw smoke and firefighters getting water from a nearby well before 10 a.m. while getting ready to go into town.
The Eco-Centre was destroyed by the blaze, of which the cause is still unknown. No one was injured in the fire.
Nodge lost a sculpture (called Al, short for Alumi-man) that stood outside the front doors of the building. The six-foot statue, made of scrap iron, was like a greeter or a mascot, Nodge said. But that loss doesn’t hurt as much.
“The building itself was quite something,” Nodge said.
“It was a real glorious, cool, big building. It had a lot of neat ideas.”
The Eco-Centre, located just east of Craik and about midway between Regina and Saskatoon, housed a restaurant, conference rooms and a golf clubhouse.
Much of the timber used in the construction of the building was recycled from an old grain elevator demolished in Craik. The centre was also built using about 1,500 straw bales, which provided insulation.
The Eco-Centre was the reason Kelly and Audrey Taylor-Faye moved their family from Saskatoon to Craik’s eco-village. Kelly said the centre was basically in their backyard. Their kids were out doing chores when one of them came running into the house saying the Eco-Centre was on fire.
“We were thinking there was a small fire or a little bit of flames, but we looked outside and everything was up in flames. It was just unbelievable,” Taylor-Faye said.
By the time he got close to the scene, firefighters were there. Taylor-Faye heard members of the fire department had gotten inside the building, but determined it was unsafe.
“It’s heart-wrenching,” TaylorFaye said, adding he doesn’t think it will be rebuilt.
Now, instead of having a view from their backyard of the EcoCentre that motivated them to move to the community, his family is looking at rubble.
By Thursday afternoon, a backhoe was used to collapse the structure’s remains.