Sinking La Broquerie church gets lift from southeast Manitoba community

The community of La Broquerie sees St. Joachim church as a literal piece of itself, having used area timber and clay deposits to erect the heritage site over 125 years ago.

But the ground it's built upon is made of sand, and the sinking church now needs work to keep standing.

The community inside and outside the church all take ownership of the Manitoba francophone place of worship, restoration committee president Lucien Grenier says.

"It's the centre of La Broquerie. And if you look down the line, everybody contributed to this building at one point," Grenier said.

Committee vice-president Ron St. Hilaire said donations started pouring in after they explained how important it was to them to save as much of the original church as they could.

That includes the original stone and clay pillars, doing their best to hold up the floors as they shift in the sandy soil.

"We explained it and they understood it: what was behind the project was to preserve what we had," St. Hilaire said.

Major floor work and masonry work on bricks hand-carved in the late 1890s also need to be done.

It is a three-year project, with the completion of the first phase's accessibility improvements celebrated Jan. 28 at the church with faith leaders, volunteers and others from the region eager to hear the game plan going forward.

St. Hilaire compared finishing the first phase to winning the Stanley Cup.

He hopes to build a dynasty.

"When you talk to teams that have won the Cup, they say it never gets tiring to win," St. Hilaire said.

His pep talk to the crowd in the church said they could do it with teamwork, focus, a good plan and support from fans of preserving history.

"You need support, right? Without that, you're not going to succeed," St. Hilaire said.