Description of Historic Place

Saint Andrew’s Anglican Church is a Municipal Heritage Property situated on a small parcel of land in the Rural Municipality of Porcupine No. 395. The designation applies to a small log building located in the Shand Creek district, approximately eleven kilometres northeast of the Hamlet of Carragana.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of this property lies in its association with activities of the Red Cross and the Anglican Church in the community. The property was initially the location of one of the first Red Cross missions in the region. Soldiers returning home from World War One settled in the Shand Creek district as part of the Dominion Soldier Settlement Act (1917) and built a Red Cross outpost at the site in 1921. An Anglican church was established on the same property in 1924, and its use for religious functions continued after the Red Cross outpost was abandoned in 1948. The church, the oldest in the rural municipality, is still used occasionally as an place of worship.

The heritage value of the property also lies in its architecture. Built in the domestic vernacular style, the church exemplifies simplicity, due in large part to the scarcity of material and labour in a remote area of Saskatchewan in the 1920s. The one-room building is constructed entirely of hand-hewn logs originally chinked with mud, but have since been chinked with concrete. The pitched roof, wood shingles and symmetrical placement of the side windows make it a landmark in the Shand Creek area.

Source:

Rural Municipality of Porcupine No. 395 Bylaw No. 03-06.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of Saint Andrew’s Anglican Church resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements that make it a landmark in the community, such as its existence on its original location;
-those architectural elements associated with the domestic vernacular style, such as the use of logs as the primary building material, the use of square windows throughout and the use of wooden shingles on the roof and gables;
-any interior architectural elements that distinguish it as a place of worship, such as the pews and altar;
-those elements associated with the Red Cross Mission, such as the existence of a historic marker on the original location.