WESTERN PRODUCER — My memories of growing up on the farm include moments in the barn, sitting on the extra milking stool with a cat on my knee, talking to Dad while he milked Lucky or Star or whichever cow it was.
Other moments include a warm summer afternoon, entering the dim quiet of the barn, laying on hay with a purring cat joining me, both of us almost dozing off until we could hear the slight scratching of a mouse climbing a nearby post. We’d jolt upright; each of us for different reasons.
Dad’s barn was a shabby old relic — half log, half lumber — barely standing, but he never saw a reason to replace it. It served his purpose: shelter for cows in the open-doored back end in bad weather and a closed-in space in the front for milking or to keep an early-born calf and mother until the weather improved.
It was your standard rectangular shape with a hay loft up top, three stalls and a loose box at ground level. It didn’t attract attention unless to wonder when it would collapse.
On a cross-country road in summer, we sometimes spotted a round barn and our eyes followed it as we drove past as if we’d seen a UFO or a sasquatch.
“Why would anyone build a round barn?” we asked. “Is it better than the usual rectangular shape?”
Apparently, round barns are cheaper to build (per sq. foot) than a quadrilateral barn because they offer a greater volume-to-surface ratio. They are also more structurally stable and, according to one report, “more streamlined, offering little resistance to wind”.
“With a circular barn,” John Termuende said in an archived 1939 interview, “a farmer is not so liable to come out of the house on the morning after a high wind and find his barn in the middle of the neighbour’s field.” The theory may be proven faulty by the many reports of them 小蓝视频 damaged or destroyed by wind, although not more nor less than a rectangular building.
There’s a more credible reason for their use. Termuende went on to explain they save time and effort while feeding stock. The stalls form an inner circle with the heads of the livestock toward the centre. Feedboxes are filled from storage bins in the hub of the circle affording a minimum of effort.
Termuende moved to Lanigan, Sask., in 1908 from Illinois, where a substantial number of round barns existed due to the promotional efforts of a university there at the time, but round or multi-sided barns were built in many places across North America and originated in Europe.
There are two distinct shapes of round barns: the polygonal barn consisting of five or more equal sides and the truly round barn.
By the 1920s the building of round barns started to decline. The construction industry became more standardized and modern agricultural methods are more suited to a rectangular design.
Some round relics have been abandoned and are, or soon will be, collapsing and rotting away. Others are still surviving either for their original purpose or have been restored and converted into museums, restaurants or other uses.
The Bell Barn at Indian Head, Sask., was originally built for Major W.R. Bell, farm manager and primary shareholder of the first farm company in Canada, the Qu’Appelle Valley Farming Company.
Made of fieldstone in 1882, its original use was as a horse barn but later converted by the Holden family into a cow barn in 1923, replacing the lookout tower for a silo. It was dismantled in 2008, moved to a new location and re-assembled to house Indian Head’s museum. It now stands beautifully restored, a proud emblem of the hard-working and innovative pioneers to the Prairies, operated and maintained by the Bell Barn Society. It was the first and oldest round barn in Saskatchewan.
Since 1882, the Henderson round barn stood on the junction of Jasper Avenue and 98th Street in Edmonton but was moved to Fort Edmonton Park and is now located on the 1905 Street. It is a multi-sided structure made of wood.
Near Kelowna, B.C., the Fintry Octagonal Dairy Barn, built in 1924, was part of the Fintry Estate. The dairy barn stood among traditional agricultural buildings at the mouth of Shorts Creek and was the only octagonal structure there. It was built especially to house the prize herd of Ayrshire cows owned by James Cameron Dun-Waters who developed the farm as part of the estate. As a dairy barn, its south extension was significant for its design toward efficient milking, penning and collection of manure. It has endured well and was formally recognized as a National Historic Site in 1995, preserved and maintained as part of entire estate in the Fintry Provincial Park.
A research project by Frank Korvemaker and the late Bob Burke of the University of Manitoba covers the history of round barns in Saskatchewan and describes 30 structures in the province. It states there are seven round barns on the Day Star First Nation north of Punnichy, built around 1901 and 1902 but have no photos and requests photos from readers. The first was built by a band councilor.
The report stated they are the only multi-sided structures located on First Nations lands. A 1902 report from Indian Affairs describes them as “octagon shape, roomy, all 小蓝视频 strongly built.”
Others in their report include a part-stone and part-lumber round barn built west of Drake in 1927. Cornelius and Marie Bartel contracted John Andres of Rosthern to build it. Lorne Thompson of Lanigan built the lower stone wall with other contributions by J.A. Peters.
The unknown builder of the wooden Sandborn barn at Drinkwater, Sask., managed its smooth, round shape by placing the boards vertically. It was seriously damaged by a blizzard in 2021 and is now slated for demolition.
The largest round barn in North America is near Arcola, Sask., built in 1905.
If not for some concerned people who worked to preserve them, round barns might indeed have become as mysterious and unseen as UFOs or sasquatches but thanks to their efforts, some still exist for us to enjoy on a family road trip.
