Govan Hotel: A Refuge for Weary Travellers

"New up-to-date hotel, Govan, Sask.," c. 1908. Image source

Govan’s first hotel, the Silver Plate, was built by a Mr. Sherriff in 1908. The large, four-storey wood-frame building, painted light yellow with dark brown trim, could accommodate about 40 guests. According to a 1908 issue of the Govan Prairie News, it was built.at a cost of $30,000 “under the most difficult conditions known to pioneer life.” 

Every penny’s worth of material was drayed [hauled by wagon] over raw prairie for over 20 miles, much of it during weather that would freeze the proverbial monkey. Mr. Kinneard, the contractor, and the proprietors deserve unstinted praise for the undaunted energy lent to the project; and many years after all are beneath the prairie sod, the building will stand as a fitting monument to prairie life in Last Mountain Valley.

The dining room could accommodate 100 guests, and was considered one of the most beautiful and spacious in the West at the time. “The halls, waiting rooms, and offices are airy and well furnished,” the 1908 Govan newspaper wrote. “The bar has but few equals, being massively constructed with mahogany effect, presided over by C. L. Dalton, who is adept at suiting every taste. All in all, the Silver Plate is a credit to the Hub, a decided acquisition to the town.”  

Silver Plate Hotel, 1909 Source

Silver Plate Hotel, 1909 Source

The top storey of the hotel, with its dormer windows, was never finished. For a few years it served as a dormitory for bachelor homesteaders who wanted to live in town for the winter, but couldn’t afford to pay for a proper room. Snow sifted onto their fourth floor beds during the fierce Saskatchewan winters, no doubt making the men long for the comforts of home. 

Guests from all across Canada stayed at the Silver Plate, as did hockey teams from Lanigan to Cupar. It had several amenities, including a tavern (of course), a barber shop, a pool room, and a bowling alley as well as a room for travelling salesmen to display their wares. The hotel dining room was extensively used for banquets and various celebrations.

The Silver Plate Hotel in Govan, c. 1925. Source

In 1957, the unused fourth floor was removed to save on fuel costs and a flat roof was constructed. Three years later, in 1960, the Silver Plate was destroyed by fire under the ownership of Vance Pokletar. The "fitting monument to prairie life" did outlast its builders after all, but not by much. Shortly after the fire, Floyd Rattray and Peter Roland Jr. built a much more modest two-storey hotel on the site of the old Silver Plate, naming it the Govan Hotel. The wood-frame building had ten guest rooms upstairs, and a 78-seat beverage room and a 38-seat restaurant on the main floor. Peter and his brother Albert ran the hotel until 1966. After that, it changed hands numerous times. 

Restaurant at the Govan Hotel, c. 1990.

Jeremy Warren, reporter

In 2009, retired Calgary businessman Jack Landry and his wife Charlie, bought the Govan Hotel, changing its name to the Govan Inn & Bar. After extensive renovations, the hotel’s grand opening was held in mid-June 2010. Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter Jeremy Warren was the first guest at the hotel and wrote about his experience in a story entitled “Nothing to dislike about Govan” (July 3, 2010). “I arrived Thursday night and, after I sunk some change into the bar's jukebox, the couple handed me the keys to room No. 1,” Warren wrote. Landry told the young reporter that across Saskatchewan many small-town hotels and bars were closing their doors. When the bar in a neighbouring town closed recently, Landry said it felt like the whole town had shut down. “Bars are usually the only social centre in a small town,” he said. 

Govan Inn & Restaurant, c. 2010. Image source

Govan Restaurant, c. 2010. Image source

Jack and Charlie Landry plan to restore the Govan bar to its former glory and social importance in the community. By the summer of 2010, the couple had redecorated the bar and renovated the guest rooms, complete with new beds. There was still work to do on the hotel’s exterior, however. “Outside, the trim is peeling and the inn's street-front siding has turned a dull peach, contrasting with yellow along the rest of the building,” Jeremy Warren noted. “A computer printout – ‘Govan Bar Now Open’ -- in a front-street window corner is the only hint that one can find a drink inside. It is open and it is home for Jack and Charlie.”

View video of Govan's main street, February 2009, including the hotel (20 seconds in): YouTube link

© Joan Champ 2011

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Hotel Food: Home Cooking, Steak Pits and Wing Nights

Fine dining at the Maple Leaf Hotel, Maple Creek, 1914. Glenbow Archives, NA-3811-75

The hotel dining room was always a busy place in the early 1900s. Meals were served to boarders, traveling guests, local farmers and railway workers. For many years, trains stopped in small towns every day and meals were served to the crews. Annual Christmas dinners served in hotels were real banquets. Dining rooms were decorated with bunting, miniature flags and evergreens, and lighted with gas lamps and Chinese lanterns. The guests sat down to a lavish menu, the likes of which few had ever seen.  

Cecil Hotel dining room, Colgate, c. 1910. From Prairie Gold (1980)

Hotel cooks came from a variety of backgrounds. Chinese cooks were the mainstay of many hotel restaurants in the early days. The Silver Plate Hotel at Govan boasted of “an English chef who has few peers” in a 1908 edition of the Prairie News. The Hitt brothers, owners of the Griffin Hotel, brought their staff with them from the United States. “The Negro cook [Chloe] prepared the best food I have eaten anywhere,” one customer recalls in the Griffin local history book.  “[The owners] provided her with the ingredients for southern items such as beaten biscuits, yams and fried chicken.” Chloe married a “coloured” porter from Regina. When the Hitts sold the Griffin Hotel and returned to the States, she and her new husband went with them. 

Other hotel cooks were more “home grown.”  In 1923, Mrs. Mari Lewis was hired by the Vanstone family to operate the hotel dining room at Central Butte. Mrs. Lewis had spent three summers on cook cars preparing meals for threshing crews. She brought produce from the Lewis farm to help out with meals. “The turkeys came in very handy for the banquet we served to about 50 war veterans,” Mrs. Lewis’ daughter, Gertrude Lokier, recalled for the town history book. During the 1940s, on a typically busy morning at the Mont Nebo Hotel, Annette Taylor was up at 4 a.m.  She baked 25 pies – eight lemon, eight raisin and nine apple. After serving breakfast she headed for the town butcher shop, where for a dollar she bought a good sized beef roast. “By nine a.m. the roast was in the oven,” Donna Kolchuck writes in the Mont Nebo history. “At noon the aroma of roast beef, gravy and mashed potatoes was prevalent.” Mrs. Buhler, cook at the Fairlight Hotel, was a favorite with the commercial travelers who stayed at the hotel. They called her “Ma” for they knew “that regardless of what time they arrived, Ma would get them something to eat.” 

Steak pit, Whitewood Hotel, 2006.  Joan Champ photo

Today, small-town Saskatchewan hotels offer everything from bar food (chicken wings, nachos, dried ribs) to fully licensed family dining with great food. The steak pits that were added to many hotel dining rooms in the 1970s can still be found around the province today. At the Jansen Hotel & Steak Pit, for example, customers can cook their own steaks on the natural gas grill in the 22-seat steak pit area off the beverage room. 

One of the best kept secrets in Saskatchewan has to be the White Bear Hotel. People travel from miles around to the town of 13 for the extensive menu and unique décor. In the summer, visitors check out the flower gardens and fruit orchard where the White Bear Hotel grows its own pears and crabapples. In 2007, a visitor to the hotel wrote the following on his blog: “A big part of the reason we make the trip to the White Bear Hotel is the warm hospitality and good food at a reasonable cost. The couple [Wayne and Patricia Spence] who own and have run the hotel and restaurant for 29 years take pride in what they do and genuinely enjoy visiting with their patrons. What gets me is you would never expect to find good food like that in such an out of the way place. It seems to me this is why people travel to White Bear and patiently wait for 2 hours plus for their food. It is so charming and unexpected – one of those little surprises that make life interesting.”  At the time of writing this post, the White Bear Hotel was for sale.

White Bear Hotel, 2009. Photo courtesy of Ruth Bitner

© Joan Champ, 2011

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