Ardath, SK in decline after a series of tragic circumstances
All that’s left is the church, a ruined brick bank vault and a few scattered houses.
Ardath, Saskatchewan is a town located in central Saskatchewan, nearly 85 kilometres south of Saskatoon just off of Highway 45 – this is literally where the pavement turns into a rough hewn, dusty gravel. Just north of Bounty, one of Saskatchewan’s more notorious ghost towns, it’s not an easy place to find unless you’re looking for it.
That’s simply the modus operandi of the sleepy prairies town. But there is a lot more to Ardath than a missing grain elevator and abandoned homesteads.
According to an article in the Red Deer Express, the town fell into decline after a series of bizarre and tragic incidents, including a fire that wiped out several of the buildings, a murderer who committed suicide in the community and a fatal train accident that killed several of the townspeople.
Nowadays the church, which was built in 1912 and is one of the town’s only remaining original structures, still stands tall. Someone is taking care of the building but the surrounding dwellings are slowly being chewed up and spit out by the surrounding farmland.
Give it another decade and Ardath will likely be a lot harder to find.
– Words by Chris Morin, photos by Ryan Smith.
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