THE GAZETTE
Sunday, July 31, 1994
THE BARN THAT WOULDN'T DIE
Built in 1850 by the great-grandfather of film-maker Paul Almond, this
barn has sheltered animals and grain, starred in movies and just recently became
an art gallery
BEVERLEY MITCHELL
Special to The Gazette
Back in 1850, when the Almond barn first went up at Shigawake on
the Baie des Chaleurs, tongues wagged up and down the red-bluffed
Gaspé Coast. And no wonder !
British pioneer James Almond and his 15-year-old son James Jr., had
built a giant of a barn, a barn strong enough to survive the hard
life ahead - a barn that wouldn't die.
They had stood astride freshly cut tree trunks and, wielding heavy
broad axes, had hacked out solid square timbers spanning 36 feet
that were pegged on to massive support beams. Inside the barn there
were roomy stalls for the horses and cows, a hay mow, a loft where
oats and barley were stored and nooks and crannies where chickens
made their nests.
The exterior was whitewashed and its doors and window frames
painted brilliant red. The roof was black-tarred in the traditional
Gaspé style. It was so magnificent that one leisurely Sundays,
neighbors would ride out with their horses and buggies along the
shore road to gawk in admiration at the barn and its adjacent
house, the Lilacs.
More than a hundred years later, in 1953, her days as a working
barn ended when the farm was passed down to a relative who
preferred not to farm. Still beautiful in her dotage, she stood
empty and neglected until Paul Almond, the great-grandson of James,
returned to the Gaspé to make her a movie star.
Almond's evocative films about life on the Gaspé he had come to
love during childhood summers - the acclaimed Isabel and more
recent The Dance Goes on - starred his former wife, Géneviève
Bujold. But the barn had a featured role in each.
Then, three years ago, during a fierce Gaspé blizzard, the barn
surrendered to the ravages of too many years, too many winters, and
too much snow. In the dead of night, with no one to see, the barn
collapsed, to be covered by morning in a shroud of freshly fallen
snow.
Almond, who divides his time between Montréal and Malibu, was
relaxing on the deck of his Malibu beach home when he got the news
next day and was devastated.
"I felt as though I'd lost part of my soul. I spent most of my
childhood summers at the farm. It's the place I consider my true
home. When it looked like it was going to be sold outside the
family five years ago, I bought the house, barn and land not
already sold off to neighborhood farmers.
"I still look back on those summers as some of the happiest in my
life. When I was little my job was to climb up into the nooks and
crannies and collect the eggs the chickens tried to hide. Then we
would eat the eggs for breakfast.
"When I got bigger I'd take the cows from the barn to pasture every
morning and collect them in the afternoon and milk them in the barn
with my uncle Earle. During haying season, he'd tell me, 'Take the
team to water, son', and I'd climb on one of the horses and lead
the other to Shigawake Brook, where they could cool off and drink
to their heart's content.
"Sometimes a village girl I fancied would be waiting for me there.
I'd stay longer on those days and my uncle'd give me hell for
holding up dinner."
Old barns, of course, fall down all the time in farming
communities. It's no big deal. Some are burnt as firewood, others
become walls of rustic family dens, many are simply left to rot -
their usefulness at an end. Almond, a romantic to the core, could
not accept such a fate for his beloved barn.
"Her farm career was over. So was her movie career. But I preferred
to think of her as 'the barn that wouldn't die.' I was sure there
was another role for her to play," he said in an interview at the
Lilacs, where he's spending the summer.
And he was right. When he let it be known he was interested in
doing something positive with his fallen barn - preferably
something connected with the arts - he was invited to reconstruct
the barn at the Gaspesian British heritage Centre, a charming
pioneer village on the outskirts of New Richmond, 75 kilometres
from Shigawake, which supports itself through admission tickets and
fund-raising activities including lobster suppers, dances, and
bingo nights.
Joan Dow, the powerhouse chairman of the Centre, embraced his
suggestion that the barn become an art gallery and meeting place
for Gaspesian artists of all languages and cultures.
And so the Almond Art Centre was born - or at least conceived.
Almond called in architect Glenn Bydwell, a member of the board of
the Canadian Heritage of Quebec, who had worked as art director on
Almond's film Journey, and special visual consultant for the 1991
The Dance Goes on.
"Glenn knew the original barn and he designed the born-again barn,
incorporating the flavour of the original but changing the
dimensions slightly to utilize the timbers which remained in good
condition. Now there are many more beams per square foot so the new
structure is strong and won't be affected by the weight of snow for
centuries to come," Almond said.
"Otherwise, it's constructed exactly the same way the original barn
was made. The rafters and beams are pegged, there are no nails,
bolts, or screws used. And on one of the original interior walls is
written in pencil with lines and crossed the number of loads of
hay, oats and barley the barn contained for each year since 1850."
The daunting task of transporting the barn timbers from the
Shigawake site to new Richmond and rebuilding to the resurrected
barn was handled by Pierre Blais, a local artisan who also keeps
the British Heritage Centre running smoothly.
Blais and a team of local workmen loaded the heavy timbers on a
flatbed truck for the trip to New Richmond and worked the next five
months to put everything back together again. The reconstructed
barn is 36 feet long, 24 feet wide and 20 feet high, its roomy
interior including a traditional loft. New shingles had to be
bought for the roof but, as Blais noted, "They're black-tarred so
you can't even tell. The barns painted the same colours as the old
one so it's as close as it could possibly be to the original."
On opening day of the Almond Art Centre on July 15, more than 200
guests were once again gawking at the Almond barn. But this time
they were marveling at its reincarnation as an art centre and
enjoying the paintings, sculptures and ceramics by the 25 Gaspesian
artists participating in the opening exhibition.
Painter Eva Bujold predicted the Almond Art Centre's location
within the pioneer village will be a boon to artists because
tourists visiting the village will also be exposed to the artists'
work.
"The place has an air of history, for both the French and English
communities. I think Mr. Almond has created something wonderful."
As befits such an occasion, there were speeches by various
dignitaries, the most prominent among them Roch Carrier, author and
the newly appointed chairman of the Canada Council. He praised
Almond as "a man of imagination" and urged all Gaspesians to "make
the most" of the heritage buildings existing within their
communities.
Almond, who shared the cost of reconstructing the barn wit the
Heritage Centre, modestly said, "All I've really done is be born
the great-grandson of James Almond who built the bran in the 1850s.
"I know my ancestors would be proud that after their noble barn
collapsed under the weight of so many winters' snow, it would be
re-born as a centre for Gaspé artists. I hope they'll enjoy it."
The speeches done, there was a salute by kilted bagpiper Phil
Smollett and the traditional champagne christening by Almond, who
needed four tries before the bubbly actually flowed. Then, as is
the way on the Gaspé, the guests got down to some serious partying,
perching on bales of hay planted around the shining whitewashed
barn as they munched on hotdogs, hot chili and birthday cake and
sipped beer and wine into the wee hours.
In a quiet moment, Almond said, "Of course, some people thought I
was nuts to restore an old barn. But I have this great attachment
to the Gaspé and to James who built the barn and to Uncle Earle who
farmed the place and to the little boy, me, who found the eggs for
breakfast.
"It seemed a logical thing to do."
