Historical Saskatchewan church burns to ground
Lynn Swystun was cutting the lawn at her home near Redberry Lake when she saw the smoke.
She hopped into her car to check out the source and drove toward a nearby former Roman Catholic church.
“I didn’t get very far from home, then I realized it was our landmark church that was burning,” Swystun said in an interview Thursday afternoon as she watched fire consume the church. “It wasn’t a church that was used, but it was a landmark for us.”
Swystun’s husband and others from the rural area nearby brought water tankers and a sprayer but opted not to bother with them since the fire had already reduced the church to ash. Her husband, Douglas, said the church “went up like a Roman candle.”
Swystun and others watching the fire said the church had been there for more than 100 years. RCMP arrived the afternoon of Thursday, July 8, she said.
Nobody on hand knew the church’s official name, but a plaque had been placed near it to explain its historical significance.
The plaque says the church was used from 1909 to 1985.
Little was left of a church after an afternoon fire near Redberry Lake, about 80 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon, Sask.
“It’s not going to be rebuilt,” an emotional Swystun said. “It’s really, really sad. In light of everything that’s going on in the country, it’s just a little bit suspicious.”
Several churches in Canada, including some prominent Catholic churches, have been burned in the wake of revelations that unmarked graves have been identified by ground-penetrating radar on the grounds of former Indian residential schools that were run by churches.
There was no immediate indication about the cause of Thursday’s fire near Redberry Lake.
The Cowessess First Nation in southeast Saskatchewan revealed last month that it had identified 751 unmarked graves on the grounds of a former residential school.