Once a lively farming community complete with shops, a railway station and two churches, Solsgirth has become an almost forgotten settlement.
Eerie photographs show how the once-busy Manitoba, Canada, community has changed, with only a small number of households remaining in 2021.
At the time, resident Garry Workman told the Manitoba Co-Operator: ‘Once a bustling thoroughfare of businesses, homes and residents, a mere three families now live in the village, counting myself as a family.’
Workman returned to Solsgirth in 1962 following his father’s death and made his living in agriculture. Over the decades, however, the community’s population steadily fell to almost zero.
The hamlet lies along the Yellowhead Highway, south of Riding Mountain National Park. Abandoned houses, gardens reclaimed by vegetation and a church containing a calendar still marked September 2002 make the settlement appear frozen in time.
Solsgirth was first established roughly six miles north of its current location, where it was known as Toddburn. The settlement moved after the railway altered its planned route.
Photographer Dave Conlon, who documented the area’s derelict buildings, summed up the upheaval by saying: ‘The whole town picked up and followed it.’
Solsgirth, Manitoba, is now nearly forgotten despite once being a thriving farming community
Two churches remain, with wooden pews and religious books still abandoned inside
Only three families were living in the area in 2021 after years of population decline
Among the abandoned structures still standing is St Stephen’s Anglican Church, built in 1906.
The church has been left untouched, its interior still holding religious books, including an old Oxford Holy Bible placed on a red-covered surface, alongside rows of wooden pews.
Solsgirth is also home to Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church, which was created from a former schoolhouse after the school closed in 1958.
Its striking domes were made by local carpenter Michael ‘Mike’ Swistun, who once performed with a circus as the world’s strongest man.
The two churches held their final services four months apart in 2002. About 50 current and former parishioners reportedly attended to mark the end of an era.
St Stephen’s Anglican Church was sold to the Prairie Mountain Regional Museum for just one Canadian dollar (50p). Plans to move the building, however, were never carried out.
Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church was later purchased by private buyers who intended to convert it into a home.
Historical records show that the conversion was still incomplete when the property was inspected in 2016.
Several of Solsgirth’s former homes are now almost concealed by trees and waist-high grass, while others have been abandoned with personal belongings still inside.
Trees and waist-high grass now obscure many of the remaining buildings, leaving them to decay
A calendar left stuck on September 2002 still hangs on a wall in one property
Belongings have been left in some buildings, including a television and other items
Inside one neglected property, an extraordinary collection of items can be seen scattered across the floor.
An old television sits above a washing machine, while framed pictures, household objects and assorted clutter fill the room. Another room contains a colourful mountain of baseball caps.
The area once had its own shops and school, but many of those everyday services eventually vanished.
It’s a far cry from the thriving community remembered by older residents, when Solsgirth was a busy stop along the railway.
The village’s decline reflects a wider transformation of Canada’s farming communities, as agricultural operations grew larger and families increasingly travelled to bigger towns leaving places like Solsgirth to fade into the past.
