Inside a Manitoba ghost town, a group of ladies works to keep it alive

It's eerily quiet in Lauder, Manitoba. Abandoned homes line the streets, a rusty swing set in an overgrown yard creaks in the wind. The town is a ghost of what it once was, yet inside there is a small community that is thriving.

Lauder is home to just six residents depending on the time of year.

"People you know definitely work at trying to stay as long as possible, but there becomes a time when those things have to change," said Bonnie Clarke, one of the last few remaining residents in the area.

For more than 76 years, Clarke has lived around Lauder and has watched it change from a quaint country farm town to what she describes now as a ghost town.

"It definitely has become inevitable that it cannot survive," she said.

Lauder was established as a railway town more than 130 years ago in 1891. While never a large town, it boasted a modest main street with a hotel, a variety of stores, and four grain elevators that kept the community bustling.

An undated postcard image of CPR Avenue in Lauder, Manitoba. (Winnipeg Photo Co. Napinka, Man, 1906-1916)

"It was quite a busy place," Clarke said, recalling her childhood in Lauder. "Lots of people at that time, I would say at least 100 or more during my growing up years."

When the major rail lines abandoned Lauder, the closure of its grain elevators, stores and the school weren't far behind. Lauder residents say the last grain elevator burned in a fire years ago.

Researcher says Lauder's story all too common in prairies

Gordon Goldsborough, head researcher with the Manitoba Historical Society, has visited and documented thousands of abandoned places in Manitoba.

He said Lauder's story is all too common.

"I have seen towns that I knew to be much more prosperous in the past, and I have seen them even in my short lifetime degrade into something that is, well, frankly almost gone," he said.

Gordon Goldsborough, head researcher with the Manitoba Historical Society, has visited and documented thousands of abandoned places in Manitoba. He's pictured outside Winnipeg on Sept. 10, 2024. (Source: Danton Unger/CTV News Winnipeg)

Goldsborough said the vast majority of Manitoba's southern prairie towns are a product of the railways – their economic and social driver was anchored around the trains and grain elevators.

For many of these communities, the loss of the railway launched a domino effect.

"All of these things happen in a series of declining changes," he said. "The grain elevator closes, the grocery store closes, the school closes… before long, all there's left are maybe a few houses."

He said with few resources left in town – like health care or groceries – the aging population is forced to leave for larger urban centres. And no one is left to replace them.

It's a pattern he fears will continue to repeat itself.

An undated postcard image of the four grain elevators in Lauder, Manitoba. (Winnipeg Photo Co. Napinka, Man, 1906-1916)

"I think it's going to continue, and many communities that say are still thriving today will be gone in the foreseeable future," he said.

‘Where there's a will, there's a way’: ladies group a lifeline for Lauder

Despite all this, a community is still thriving in Lauder. That's thanks to the Lauder Ladies Group – a group of residents past and present that have become the town's lifeline.

"People I don't think would actually believe what possibly can go on here with so few people," said Clarke, who has been a member of the group for the past 50 years. "Where there's a will, there's a way."

And there is definitely a will in Lauder. The close-knit group of friends not only keeps the town alive, but they also keep it busy with rummage sales at the community hall, church services inside the Lauder United Church, fundraisers, and even parades.

The Lauder Ladies Group takes part in a parade in August 2024 as the 'Real Housewives of Lauder'. (Source: Kim MacKenzie/Lauder Community events/Facebook)

"We persevere and we try to make things happen," said June Timms, a member of the group. "We're just not quite ready to give up yet."

The group has brought a glimmer of hope for the community, bringing back former residents to the area like Clarke's youngest sister Lana Minary.

"It feels like time stands still," she said. "I come back and I still feel like the little girl that I was."

The Lauder Ladies Group meets at the Lauder Inn, the town's old two-room school house that has since turned into the community hub. It is pictured here on Sept. 3, 2024. (Source: Danton Unger/CTV News Winnipeg)

Minary left Lauder when she graduated from high school in the 80s and only recently moved back to the area with her family.

"I think there's a lot of pride in Lauder and I think that's what keeps this community thriving," she said. "You reminisce, you laugh, you cry. They're here for us when we've lost family and we're there for them. That's what a community is and should be."

It's thanks to this community spirit that Clarke said she will continue to call Lauder her home.

"I think that's why people such as myself continue to strongly hold on to what you have left."