Description of Historic Place

The CN Station Building is a Municipal Heritage Property located on the Canadian National Railway right-of-way in the Town of Blaine Lake. The property features a Third Class Canadian Northern Railway station built in 1912.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the CN Station Building resides in its association with the town's access to the rail system. Though the rail line from Prince Albert to North Battleford had been running through Blaine Lake since 1910, the construction of the station was not completed until 1912. Once finished, however, the station became the town's nucleus, providing better access to communication, travel, and the transportation of commodities. The arrival of the train, whether passenger or freight, became a daily event for the community, with the station as the centre of activity.

Heritage value also resides in the building's architecture, which displays standard features of the Canadian Northern Third Class design. The backbone of the company's agent accommodations, the Third Class design was a combination freight-and-passenger station with an agent's quarters. Featuring an office, waiting room, agent's living room, kitchen annex at the rear, and four bedrooms upstairs, this station housed seven agents and their families over the course of its lifetime, right until its closure in 1973. The station at Blaine Lake also reflects the 1907 modifications made by Canadian Northern to the Third Class design. Built to Special Plan 100-29, this plan extended the waiting room and office each by two feet, replaced the pyramidal roof with a hip roof configuration, and added a coal shed to the end of the freight room.

One of the few remaining original buildings in Blaine Lake, the CN Station Building served the community until 1973 and remains a historical landmark in the community.

Source:

Town of Blaine Lake Bylaw No. 3/81.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the CN Station Building resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those features that reflect the trademark architecture of a Third Class Canadian Northern Railway station, such as the high, hip roof; prominent gable dormers; the broad, bracket-supported overhang along the track side; the kitchen annex; and the attached coal shed;
-its original location on the Canadian National Railway right-of-way.