Help save a barn, before they’re all gone

First, we’ve got to find a barn. This should be no problem because in Western Quebec there are still a number of old but solid barns.

The barn is located in Chelsea, Quebec.

Gatineau Valley Historical Society

The yellow building is the Fairbairn House, built by William Fairbairn in 1861 in Wakefield, Quebec.

Fairbairn House Heritage

Lori Waller

Canada’s oldest barns are vanishing from the landscape. As they go, so too does a wealth of traditional knowledge and insight into our rural heritage. That’s why Fairbairn House Heritage Centre in Wakefield, Quebec is inviting people across Canada to support its plan to save a historic barn and use to teach generations to come about early pioneer farm communities.

With the addition of a barn, Fairbairn House Heritage Centre—which already includes a 19th-century house, log cabin and pioneer garden—will become a complete heritage homestead, recreating the life and times of rural Canada in the 1800s for thousands of visitors each year. Through a crowdfunding platform set up by the National Trust for Canada, anyone can donate online to the barn-raising fund, from now to December 11, at https://thisplacematters.ca/project/raising-a-barn/.