Some southern Albertans are using a piece of Prairie history to show their support for people in Ukraine struggling through the Russian invasion of their country.
The man leading the effort knows firsthand the damage that comes with war.
Leo Wieser is president of the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre Society in the town of Nanton, about 90 kilometres south of Calgary.
The organization is involved in preserving and repurposing three grain elevators that have been at the heart of Nanton for almost a century.
“To unload a load of grain would take between anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes,” Wieser said. “And so people would get together and talk. So it was kind of the social media of its day.”
Wieser’s organization is once again using the elevators to get the message out on something important.
“We basically have lit it up to be the Ukrainian flag — so the blue on top, the yellow on the bottom,” he said.
The show of support for people in Ukraine is being well-received by residents of Nanton.
“That’s excellent, because they need all the help they can get,” Carol Devine said. “Pretty sad situation right now.”
“Anything they can do to support Ukraine, it’s definitely the way to go,” Rob Beaton said.
The effort is close to Wieser’s heart, in part because of the impact the Second World War had on his family.
“This is very important to me, because I had an uncle that we lost in (a) concentration camp,” Wieser said.
His parents grew up in Europe, experiencing the Second World War as children.
“How do you go through something like being bombed and not be affected, especially as a child?” Wieser said.
“I watched my parents dealing with different types of PTSD right through their entire lives.”
Lighting up the grain elevators in Ukraine’s colours comes as the society gets official designation as an Alberta historic site.
“We’re very excited about this, to preserve the history of (the elevators) and this area,” Wieser said.
“Just down the road here is the old CPR station site, so this actually would have seen boys going off to war and not coming back, in both World War I and World War II.”
The society will continue showing solidarity with people caught up in the war in Ukraine nightly through until at least the end of March.
“We thought it was very, very important that people really think about what’s going on,” Wieser said. “And that’s what we can’t lose sight of, that there are people that are in trouble and need our support.”
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