Holy crazy heat in southwest Manitoba. The air is dry, the wind seems hot and the dry grass crunch’s beneath my feet. This is not unusual for this area either. It has made farming this area nearly impossible unless you are willing to irrigate it and not many are. Many of the early settlers had to abandon this area early on as they were unable to make a go of it due to the harsh weather conditions (both summer and winter)
This old church is a wonderful example of how talented the settlers in this area were.
Copley Church was built in 1890. The area they chose to built it was 4 miles from the Saskatchewan border and ONLY 2 miles from the US boarder. This church also overlooks a small cemetery. The first burial was in October of 1892. There are 11 graves but only 3 headstones.
Copley church had a very short life span as a active church as it was shut down in 1913 due to poor attendance with families leaving the area since they couldn’t support themselves in the harsh weather conditions.
Now for the dark shady side of this little old church. Because of its proximity to the United States and that it had fallen into disrepair with no one taking care of it this church was used by the bootleggers/rum runners during prohibition. Yuppers that’s rights the bootleggers from the US would run their booze through there and used the area as a hideout.
In 1932 the locals decided something needed to be done about the church and the land because of the unsavoury people that were being attracted to the area. They showed up and cut back the trees. Fenced off the yard and boarded up the windows.
The church continued to deteriorate as any abandoned building does and to make it worse that’s when some cows decided they wanted to attend church. They got into the building and did a ton of damage.
This truck is a bit of a mind muddled. Not sure when it came to be there. Was someone running from someone and tried to hide it behind the church or maybe they were out having fun driving in the mud and just left it were it got stuck.
It was finally decided in 1990 that for safety sake the church needed to be burnt down. You can see some evidence of this fire still with scorch marks on some of the rocks and on the wood that is still holding some of the walls together.
I honestly don’t believe it will be to many more years before the trees and the brush will hid this church from sight and only a select few will know it’s whereabouts. It may finally have peace.
Tktravels 