Monoliths on the Lakeshore

We’re at the waste strewn base of the monolith towering before us, a shiver making its way down my back coming from gusting Lake Superior. I need to go in. Beads of rain shake and trickle into new streams on the shrubbery. Piles of gravel and mud valleys split by machinery are the base of the crumbling behemoth. They look like a giant’s estimation of a mountain range; minuscule disturbances his cloud-bound eyes could only imagine by the texture beneath his toes. Past the industrial waste we traverse over the piles of cement debris towards an iron grid with a large square gap cut into it. This is our way in, cut for us by adventurers with the same goal in mind. Within those present at the base of the grain elevator there’s a bristle of electricity, a driving need towards finding something crusted and soiled with history. 

Silt lines the creases of my hand when I pull myself up and through the grid.

These elevators were erected, used and abandoned, but at one point in time they were central infrastructure that fed much of Thunder Bay. This one was the first, built in 1883, with its success leading to the construction of six more throughout the years. 

Spelled out in graffiti is the phrase, “ZONEK PACES WASE” capping the top of the silos. I’ve never met anyone who knows what it’s supposed to say. 

As I place my foot on the cement step outside of the pizzeria and take a bite before we begin our adventure, a sleeve with the patch “75th Anniversary, Local 865, iuoe (international union of operating engineers)”  attached to it shuffles on by. Later we’re in the elevator, sifting through locker after locker. James pulls out a matching patch from one locker and holds it to the breast of his jacket.

Herb Daniher, a member of Friends of Grain Elevators, remembers a past where, “At one time if you walked around the city of Thunder Bay... everybody had a tentacle attached.” Where these ties fell so did the elevators, the need for six elevators ticking down to only two. Richardson Main and Richardson Current River still operate, handling durum wheat, oats, and feed peas better than any in Canada. Their old coworkers? They stand as hollow bastions along the shore of Lake Superior, breathing the wind and carrying history on the exhale. 

The use for the older grain elevators went out as inland grain terminal technology came into play. Part of that special time in the industrial revolution where the need for capacity surmounted the need for efficiency. 

Between the wrought iron spiral staircases and the cold brick are names and profanities alike. We get to the top floor and we . Graffiti layers overtop cracking cement that we layer with the mud from our boots. Fisher kneels and over his shoulder I can see his finger tracing out a J. C. that was made before the cement even dried. 

At one point in time these elevators were the only thing keeping the city going. People spent their lives here building Thunder Bay up and out. Now, years past their intended purpose, the residents of the city are still attracted to the space. The abandoned elevators are museums of the thick blooded people who lived here and the proof of their existence is painted all over the walls. 

In short, that’s what the elevators are to me. They’re the city; a cold gap only ever filled with the warmth of the people who end up flooding into the solemn northern outpost.

Everyone is here to see, everyone is here to fill the space with themselves; what else is there to do here but make a mark?