As long as most can remember the Brandon Research Centre has featured the iconic ‘Red Barn 13’ as one of the central structures on its campus.
Built in 1917, the barn was a replacement for a similar structure lost to fire several years earlier.
At 112 feet long and 50 feet wide, it held the distinction of one of the longest known barns in the province at the time and offered about 17,600 square feet of available space.
Now, however, the building is slated to join the list of similar barns that have disappeared.
As of Sept. 29, 2021, tenders opened for the demolition of the structure. AAFC has said that the current plan would see the building totally taken down, the land it sits on graded and partly returned to grass.
That plan, however, does not sit well with some ag history buffs, who worry that the federal government is rushing into a demolition that the community will later regret.
“There is precedent where they have done this in the past, where they have torn down buildings of historic value because they just wanted to and it was subsequently lamented in the community,” Gordon Goldsborough, president of the Manitoba Historical Society, said.
The historic Red Barn at the Brandon Research Centre is slated for demolition, and many aren’t happy at the news.
Many uses
The Brandon Research Centre was founded in the 1880s, and was one of the five original experimental farms established by the federal government at the time.
The others include the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, and facilities at Nappan, Nova Scotia, Indian Head, N.W.T. (at the time) and Agassiz, B.C.
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The Brandon research site was given the task to develop production practices and breeds of livestock and crops better suited for the volatility of the Prairies.
Over the years the barn has been the scene of many research activities.
For the first decades after construction, the barn primarily functioned as housing for the farm’s Shorthorn dairy herd, before pivoting in the late 1940s, becoming instead an isolation space for sick livestock, as well as a feed-grinding facility in the upper floor.
Since then, it has gone through a lottery of uses, from crop research to storage.
One of the recent activities was to support the research program of Cynthia Grant, a now-retired crops researcher.
“We had set up the building for drying samples and storing samples and we had set up grinding facilities,” she said.
Push-back
Goldsborough is calling into question the government’s transparency and process of assessment, which he says he has yet to be convinced is fair and accurate. He further expressed concern over reports that station staff, those who he says should know the building best, have been allegedly told to stay quiet on the issue.
Goldsborough says he was contacted as far back as 2019, with concerns that the building might be slated for demolition.
But AAFC says the building no longer fits the needs of the station and, while it was previously assessed for historical value by the Federal Heritage Review Office, it was passed over as a heritage building.
When the Manitoba Co-operator requested information about how the decision on the barn’s heritage status was made, AAFC forwarded a brief letter confirming the decision that was penned in 1998.
Today, the building is not used by science staff. Even storage, one of the barn’s most recent purposes, has been shifted to newer facilities developed on the research station ground over the last two decades, according to AAFC.
Even if the building could be put to another use, the department said, the foundation is failing.
“A section of the building is no longer safe to access due to advanced deterioration,” a representative from AAFC said. “A third-party assessment in 2014 estimated that AAFC would have to spend approximately $1.1 million to extend the life of the building.”
Grant, meanwhile, is among those who would like to see a longer timeline on the demolition.
“I don’t think things need to be preserved forever if there is no use and no purpose, but I do know it was a useful building when I was there eight years ago,” she said.
At the time, she said, the station was chronically short on storage space.
According to a representative from AAFC, the review office bases demolition plans on environmental considerations (such as potential impact to a species at risk), any kind of hazardous material that may need to be contained and disposed of, as well as a consultation with the heritage review office.
Skeptical
Goldsborough, however, is not satisfied with the federal government’s word.
An assessment was done on the building in 1998, he said, and while that report did conclude there wasn’t enough merit to making the barn a heritage building, Goldsborough says details of that study were never released publicly.
Furthermore, he argued, things have changed. The history enthusiast argues that barns like the Brandon site are far rarer than a few decades ago.
“If it can be proven that the building is, One: not of historic value, and Two: has sufficient problems that it would be far too costly to repair it, then I’m mindful that you always have to be somewhat pragmatic about these things,” he said. “You can’t save everything. On the other hand, I would have to be convinced of those things, and I’m so far not.”
If he had his way, he added, he would get to see the details of that early report.
“Maybe it’s convincing,” he said. “Maybe it’s compelling. I just can’t know that.
“There seems to me no reason to rush to demolish the building until a full disclosure can take place,” he also said.
Meanwhile, he argued for the government to pursue a new assessment.
Grant echoed Goldsborough’s call to shift proceedings to a lower gear.
“I recognize that if there are structural problems or issues that really mean that it is totally ridiculous to preserve it, that’s fine,” she said. “But it just seems to me they’re kind of rushing to tear it down without investigating other avenues that can be used.
Also, Grant noted, the government has moved to preserve historical buildings at four other original experimental farms turned research stations in Canada.
“I wonder why, with a site that’s this historical and a beautiful building that’s this historical, they can’t put some effort into preserving history in Manitoba,” she said.
Outreach
In the mind of its advocates, the barn is possible opportunity for agri-tourism, assuming the economics work out.
Brandon has strong agricultural roots, Goldsborough argued, and remains a centre for the industry. Within that context, the research farm itself has played a major part in the industry’s story, he added.
“Why couldn’t they develop, for example, on the main floor of the barn, some exhibits on the history of agriculture and particularly the role of the experimental farms?” he said. “There were farms all across Canada that were groundbreaking in developing new technology, for adapting new techniques and crops and livestock that were better adapted to Canadian conditions. That story could be told, because to be honest, I’m not sure that many Canadians know that story.”
The building’s location, right next to the station’s main hub, would lend itself to that use, he argued.
The local MLA of Brandon-Souris has since weighed in on the issue. In early October, Larry Maguire said he had spoken with the office of federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, as well as the Manitoba Historical Society. The minister’s office is looking into the issue, Maguire said, although no promises have been made.
“The main thing that I’m wanting to find out first before I pass judgment on it is what is the present condition of the facility?” he said.
Maguire said he was waiting on an assessment of the building’s status, although he echoed Goldsborough on the building’s agri-tourism potential.
He equated the building to wooden elevators, now mostly relegated to the annals of history. But in some places, such as Inglis, Man., those old structures have been used to draw visitors and highlight the province’s agricultural foundation. In his mind, the Red Barn in Brandon could play a similar ambassadorial role for ag.
