Volunteers fight to save historic Sask. brick factory from oblivion

It's a place like no other on earth. Formed by glaciers in the last ice age, these hills in south-central Saskatchewan are home to high-grade clay deposits. And for 75 years, this was a clay brick factory, essential for furnaces, warships, even rocket launches. A piece of Canadian history, a place many believe should be preserved. Instead, it's been abandoned. When people come now, too, they say, Well, you're a National Historic Site. What are you doing with all your money? Well, we don't get any. It wasn't easy for us to access the property. It took an email chain of 30 messages with various levels of government until we were finally allowed inside the fence, but not the buildings. For that, we used a drone. The Claybank Brick Plant closed in 1989 and shortly after became a National Historic Site and Provincial Heritage property. It remained open to the public for 25 years, until 2019 when the provincial government decided to permanently close the site due to safety concerns. Dan Flegel is the caretaker. We're worried about someone getting injured or something like that. We tried to say that we could find a safe route through there, But so far, it's kind of fallen on deaf ears. He wants to save the historical site as a window to the past. They kind of knew it was the end because, to be honest, what is the use for firebrick nowadays? It's true that today, firebrick has been somewhat forgotten. Legend has it that in 1886, a homesteader named Tom McWilliams was out looking for his lost cows when he spotted the white clay gleaming in the distance through his telescope. A sample sent for testing later revealed that this clay was extremely heat-resistant. In fact, it can sustain temperatures up to 3,300 Fahrenheit. Firebrick became essential, going into locomotives, coal furnaces, boilers, power plants, and, during the Second World War, Canadian warships too. Years later, clay bank firebrick was shipped to NASA in Florida to insulate the rocket launch pad. It helped send Apollo 8 to the moon. Other kinds of face bricks were used in buildings, from the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City to the Delta-Besborough Hotel in Saskatoon. It's that history that was shared with hundreds of children and families who used to tour the plant during annual heritage days. We had guys that used to work here, and they would show the people how this stuff worked. They would actually have the machines running. You could see the lathe go back and forth. You could see the shaper doing its thing. But it still works today? Oh yeah, it still works today. But no one is allowed in to see it. And the more time passes, the more dilapidated it becomes. The volunteers refuse to give up. I wish we could take it over. I wish we could make it private. I think we could fix it without a problem. There's lots of people that would donate time. Bobby MacMur greets visitors in the former workers' dormitory, which now houses artifacts and a cafe, one of the Claybank Historical Society's only sources of income. Her dream is to open a museum. I think it'll be forgotten quicker than we think, right? Like if the buildings go to ruin, if you don't really know what you're looking at, like as soon as you can't see those stacks from the highway, right? it's going to be lost. While the plant belongs to the government, the surrounding land is owned by the Claybank Historical Society. The canyon is not just a clay extraction site, it's also a natural wonder little known to the public. Visitors can pay to explore trails, and according to the Historical Society, this might be the only way to raise the money needed to save the site and its history. Bonnie Allen, CBC News.