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"We were sitting having lunch and he asked where I came from. I said I was from Fusilier, Saskatchewan. He said, 'Fusilier, Saskatchewan? Where is Fusilier, Saskatchewan?' I said, 'It's not on the map anymore. "But when I was in Hong Kong I looked at one of the maps and Fusilier was still on the map there." Entering the new millennium, Fusilier is only shown on a very few select Canadian maps. But Zlatner, who owns a farm a few kilometres southwest of the townsite, is still holding out hope it will somehow be revived.
Several years ago, he purchased several acres of land in and around the townsite, including the grain elevator and community hall properties. The hall's electricity still works, and Zlatner is always hopeful it will once again come alive to the sounds of laughter and
revelry from an old-fashioned western style dance or party.
Zlatner has lived in the Fusilier area all his live. His father Charlie moved to the district in the early 1920s, securing a job at Fusilier's new Sodium Sulphate Plant.
As with most turn-of-the 20th-century pioneer settlements, Fusilier was dependent on the railroad for its existence, and ultimate survival. The rail line reached Fusilier in 1914. The line near the townsite boasted one of the sharpest rail curves in Saskatchewan, and would later be the scene of two train wrecks; the first in 1915 when a fireman was killed and decades later in 1980 when eight loaded grain cars derailed.
When the trains first began to arrive in Fusilier, its primary reason was for grain, and right away in 1914, the Home Grain Co. Ltd. built the town's first grain elevator. Three years later, two more grain elevators were added to the new town's skyline; the second built by
the Saskatchewan Elevator Co. and the third constructed by the United Grain Growers.
With the new Sodium Sulphate plant was built in the early 1920s, Fusilier has a promising start. The town, which boasted a population in the 1920s of more than 125 residents, would eventually have three stores, a lumberyard, school, church, post office, blacksmith shop, livery, and community hall, which opened in 1921.
"They used to play basketball in there. Everything was done - church services and even funerals," said Zlatner. But the land was dry. The Sodium Sulphate plant changed ownership three times and by 1938, was closed forever. The Depression came hard in the 1930s, and Fusilier, like so many other southwestern Saskatchewan communities, slid into permanent decline. On February 28, 1967, Fusilier's post mistress resigned. The post office closed for the last time, signaling the end of the line for the town. Remaining residents left but nobody came to replace them.
In 1971, Fusilier had a homecoming. More than 430 people attended. There was another homecoming a decade later but the numbers of former residents attending had dwindled.
Although only ghosts remained in Fusilier by the end of the 1970s, Zlatner was still attached to the town and tried to make a go of the last grain elevator he purchased in 1979. It was up and running for a few years, but today the former United Grain Growers elevator is idle, slowing decaying from the forces ofthe elements and the occasional vandals. "Kids came in here and smashed all the windows, and stole the scale off me," said Zlatner, noting the trains stopped coming in the
1990s and the line subsequently pulled.
Every once in a while visitors to the area, noticing the old grain elevator from a distance, will come into the old townsite. They will walk around the dusty streets and poke around in the abandoned buildings. When the enter the community hall, they still find a dozen old-style theatre seats - waiting for occupants that never come. On the wall, there is a homecoming sign, welcoming people to the 1971 event.
"Anybody that wants to use the hall, I let them for free," said Zlatner. "I was going to put a dance on but who would come to dance?" |
