$1-M facelift for Trappist ruins

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This article was published 28/04/2009 (6249 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today, Alpha Masonry Ltd. will begin the delicate job of shoring up the old Trappist Monastery ruins without making it look like any work has been done.

"It’s like cosmetic surgery," said Alpha owner Gus Kotoulas, who was waiting Monday for the province to announce the $1-million preservation job so his crews could get to work.

The decaying ruins at Trappist Monastery Provincial Heritage Park were fenced off last spring over safety concerns. The province estimated repairs would be $350,000. When initial preservation work began last summer, it became apparent that a total overhaul of about $1 million was needed.

"We were very concerned," said Louise May, a board member of the neighbouring St. Norbert Arts Centre.

Without the money to fix the ruins, the beautiful but crumbling brick-and-Tyndall-stone skeleton of Our Lady of the Prairies would have been demolished, said May.

On Monday, Conservation Minister Stan Struthers and St. Norbert MLA Marilyn Brick (NDP) announced the million-dollar project at the provincial park in south Winnipeg.

It was a huge relief for May and other supporters of the historic site.

"It takes someone individually within government to have the commitment to get the money," May said outside the tall, chain-link fence surrounding the ruins deemed a safety hazard until repairs are completed in May 2011.

The original monastery was established along the LaSalle River in 1892. In 1978, when urban sprawl came too close for the peace-loving monks’ comfort, they moved their monastery to Holland, Man.

Fire gutted the remaining church in 1983 but St. Norbert heritage activists preserved the ruins. The old brick archways, walls and foundations became a popular tourist attraction. Events like Shakespeare in the Ruins were staged there, and the site became a hot spot for wedding photos. In September 2002, the Manitoba government declared the Trappist monastery a provincial heritage park.

Since last spring, however, it has looked like a caged, wounded old beast.

"Bricks are falling off, stones are falling off," said Kotoulas, whose company has rescued from ruin the likes of the legislative building and Wesley Hall at the University of Winnipeg.

The first task will be to strengthen the top of the tower and the southeast corner of the chapel ruins. Site improvements will also include preservation work on the monastic wing.

"What we’re trying to do is stabilize most of those walls and the foundations are falling apart… we have to take them down and put them back up," said Kotoulas. Like the other venerable buildings his masonry firm has restored, you shouldn’t be able to tell that work has been done, he said.

"At the end of the day, you have to do the work but make it look like it was always there. It can’t stand out — the mortar colours, the laying of the stone."

Struthers marvelled that so many old stones and bricks are still standing.

"They’ve survived out in the open so many Manitoba winters."

Now a golf course is being built a stroke away from the site that is still sacred to many.

"I love the connection to the history of the Trappists," said May, who is friends with some of the monks who moved away. She said they take visitors to the site from time to time. With suburban sprawl and a golf course closing in on the ruins, saving them seems especially poignant.

"It’s a reminder of a different way of life, a spiritual way of life."

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca