Heritage Year in Review 2024– Great Saves & Worst Losses

As we all boldly stride into 2025, it may be worth pausing to reflect on the year that went before, a fateful year for many of Canada’s heritage places. Don’t miss our non-exhaustive roll-up of some of the highlights and lowlights from 2024.

Great saves or worst losses thoughts of your own? We would be delighted to hear them. Please send them here (cwiebe@nationaltrustcanada.ca) and put “Great Saves and Worst Losses 2024” in the subject line.  

Great Saves 

The historic town of Barkerville (BC) was saved from the Antler Creek wildfire in 2024 after firefighters used sprinklers, heavy equipment, and a “moisture dome” to control the flames. 

Manitoba Indigenous organizations are on a roll saving and reimagining Winnipeg’s heritage buildings, including the former Hudson’s Bay Company Building (EPL 2021) by the Southern Chiefs’ Organization Inc., and the former Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main by the Manitoba Métis Federation. This past year, Fisher River Cree Nation stepped in to reinvent the Rubin Block (EPL 2019).

Photos: Kate Dalton

The restoration and reopening of the Old Council House at Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (Next Great Save Competition 2022) has been called a step towards reconciliation.  Believed to be the first Band Council formed under the Indian Act (1876), the building was the seat of Anishinaabe governance within the Greater Golden Horseshoe region for over 100 years. 

Edelweiss Village + Resort (Golden, BC) (EPL 2022), an inspiring example of public-private collaboration to save the homes of the Swiss Guides critical to Rockies mountaineering in the early 20th century, had its grand reopening.  

After years of debate over whether to build a new museum in a new location, the historic 1934 New Brunswick Museum (Saint John, NB) will be restored and see a large new addition. This course of action is in stark contrast to the Royal Alberta Museum (Edmonton, AB) whose former museum (EPL 2016) is now in the process of being demolished for landfill.  

1495 Heron Road (Ottawa, ON), a striking mid-century modern complex formerly owned by the federal government, received heritage designation and is on track for an ambitious residential reuse and infill project led by Canada Lands Company. Similarly, the massive Memramcook Institute near Moncton, NB, an important symbol of Acadian resilience, will be redeveloped after sitting empty for a decade.  

The 2024 Next Great Save Competition winner, Lady of Mercy Heritage Church (Port au Port, NL) now looks fabulous with its exterior completely restored. La Vieille Maison (Meteghan, NS) (Next Great Save Competition 2022 winner), a 1796 house saved and reborn as the museum, received huge international attendance during the 2024 World Acadian Congress in Nova Scotia this past summer.

Restoration is now underway at the Roxy Theatre (Coleman, AB) (Next Great Save Competition 2024), a rare Quonset hut-style theatre and community gathering place that opened in 1948.  Meanwhile, in Regina (SK), the Globe Theatre, which moved into the former Regina Post Office in 1981, reopened to great fanfare after a dazzling four-year renovation. The 9th Floor Restaurant of the Art Deco former Eaton’s (Montreal, QC) reopened, revealing a spectacular restoration of the 1931 replica of the ocean liner Île-de-France’s dining room. 

The past year also saw an inspiring list of heritage buildings being transformed into community spaces. Hope Train Station (Hope, BC) (Next Great Save Competition 2022 winner), a historic building and site of conscience with connections to the internment of Japanese-Canadians in WWII, was moved to a new location to serve as a museum and visitor’s centre. The 1910 Riverside Bungalow School (Calgary, AB) will be turned into a childcare facility after sitting empty for 15 years. The former St. Mark’s Anglican Church (Hamilton, ON) reopened as a community arts and culture hub and greenspace in the inner-city Durand neighbourhood. And Chez Doris organization purchased the historic Fulford Residence (1854) (Montréal, QC) to provide shelter and services for women experiencing homelessness. 

Alberta wooden grain elevator preservation groups like the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre in Nanton (Next Great Save competition 2024) and the Spruce Grove and District Agricultural Heritage Society are following the award-winning Sexsmith & District Museum Society in rallying support and restoring their towering landmarks.   

In Charlottetown (PEI), a 1920s turreted cottage-style Irving Gas station, thought to be PEI’s first gas station, will become an EV charging station.  

On the heritage legislation and policy front, Architectural Conservancy Ontario (ACO)’s effective advocacy work pushed the Ontario government to extend the deadline for municipalities to protect listed heritage properties (EPL 2022) by an additional two years to Jan. 1, 2027. 

And there were a host of awards recognizing Canada’s heritage workers including an Order of Canada for Shannon Prince (long-time curator at Buxton National Historic Site and Museum), and a King Charles III Coronation medal to heritage architect, Christopher Borgal.  

A new women-led community initiative, Association Sainte-Marie héritage et développement, formed in December to lead efforts to save North America’s largest wooden church and Acadian-Nova Scotian icon, Église Sainte-Marie (EPL 2024) in Church Point (NS).  

And in the small community of Brigus (NL), the 1850 Fowler House was meticulously restored by Stephen and Stacey Burfitt and was recognized with an award from Newfoundland & Labrador Historic Trust’s.  

 

 

Worst Losses

Fire claimed many historic places this past year. Particularly tragic was losing Hangar 11 (Edmonton, AB), a high-profile WWII relic on the brink of an adaptive reuse project after years of advocacy, in a massive blaze. Other high-profile losses to the fire include: St. Anne’s Anglican Church (Toronto, ON), a historic building with extraordinary Group of Seven murals; the 1928 St. Mary & St. George Anglican Church (Jasper, AB) lost to the wildfire; and the historic Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Allégresses Catholic Church (Trois-Rivières, QC) lost to arson (reports say an estimated 33-80 churches have burned down in Quebec in the past several years). In Meteghan (NS), the 19th century Bangor Sawmill and Museum, a restored 19th-century water-powered turbine sawmill, went up in flames. And in Montreal (QC), where there are an estimated 800 derelict buildings, several historic buildings were devasted by fire in a series of spring fires. Then on December 30, a fire destroyed the iconic 1951 modernist Montreal residence of artist Charles Daudelin, a prominent figure in modern public art in Quebec.  

Protected from demolition by the City Council in 2013 (EPL 2013), the prominent 1870s-era buildings at 18-22 and 24-28 King Street East on Gore Park in downtown Hamilton (ON), spontaneously and dramatically collapsed in June after years of deterioration.   

Once Sackville (NB)’s most famous industrial concern, the historic Dominion Foundry (Enterprise Foundry) building dating to 1872 was torn down after sitting empty following a 2012 fire. Also in New Brunswick, the well-kept historic Rothesay home of famed Canadian aviation inventor Wallace Rupert Turnbull was briskly demolished in November.  

Saved from the wrecking ball in 1978, the Raisin River Heritage Centre, a former Roman Catholic Convent (Saint Andrews West, ON) near Cornwall, was demolished after a bitter, multi-year preservation battle.

A Saint Mary’s University team led by Professor Jonathan Fowler found that of 9,000 Halifax (NS) buildings built before 1878, only 1,143 have survived and only 381 are heritage-designated.   

In Newfoundland and Labrador, changing weather patterns, hurricanes, and coastal erosion is taking a toll on the province’s traditional fishing structures, with losses escalating. Many fishing stages have been lost this winter alone, including Gary Janes Store in New Bonaventure and others damaged in Tilting, a nationally renowned cultural landscape.