"Tessier church finds new life as gallery"
WAYNE GIBSON
of The Crossroads

"It was like a parade," said Liza Gareau Tosh, as the Tessier United Church she purchased rolled into its new location last week on the Main Street of Harris.
Tosh, an artist and former teacher, has big plans for the decommissioned sanctuary, and hopes the result will be a venue where both the arts and sense of community are valued.
"All the children were waving as the church went by. The weather couldn't be more perfect. I think when you're excited, it kind of spreads to everyone," Tosh said of the Tuesday move which attracted crowds in the street to watch the building get hauled into town.
The decision to purchase the church was relatively spontaneous after Tosh found out it was up for sale in September 2007. She had already laid eyes on another church and begun daydreaming what it would be like to showcase art inside if it ever became available. Just one look at the Tessier building, however, convinced her she had found what she was looking for.
"I could not believe what I saw - it was perfect," Tosh said. "It had a lot of wall space, and not an extremely ornate church, but definitely aesthetic. To me, it was just the perfect gallery, but because of my music background, I saw it as a great concert hall as well."
Within a few weeks, Tosh had made the deal and was developing her vision.
"I grew up in a town that was all about arts and culture," said Tosh, a native of Bellevue, Sask. That background convinced her of finding property within Harris itself, as opposed to moving the building onto her farm nearby and creating a completely isolated venture.
"I just felt it should come to a town where things are already happening and build on where people have vision already - to make it a community project by bringing it to my town instead of my farm."
Tosh is already well immersed in the cultural fabric of Harris. She is one of the original members of "The Pull of the Land," the popular musical written by Harris residents Beth Robertson and Elaine Kowpak. Following its success, Tosh was commissioned to paint murals inspired by the musical on buildings throughout Harris. The public nature of those projects have made the artist fond of the almost collaborative feel she senses from other residents.
"I liked the social aspect of it," she said.
Tosh hopes to build on that when the church is opened as Routes Gallery next spring, playing on both Harris' location and its cultural activities. Every month, she would like to host a musical talent - as many based in Saskatchewan as possible - and set up art exhibits and workshops with the artists. She even wants to re-establish the Saturday night dance hall events that used to be a common social activity in decades gone by.
Tosh remembers, as a teenager, wishing she would be able to give back to her community through the arts someday.
"I've got a list of people that I know - the two degrees of separation, and I'm hoping that it will build from there. I know some former students who are in bands and they are already scouting things there," she said.
At the end of each harvest year, she plans to launch an annual 'Good Time Show.'
"Within three days, I had it all in my head," she said.
Meanwhile, Tosh will focus her attention on getting the building ready for all this future activity. The building itself - a 30 foot high structure that measures 50 feet in length and is made of heavy fir tree - appears to have endured the move remarkably well, so the improvements are largely cosmetic. Tosh plans to keep the pews and use them in a variety of ways depending on the kind of event.
The two lots purchased along Main Street require some landscaping and a few improvements need to happen to make the building wheelchair accessible.
Tosh is also working on a website to promote the new gallery.

Wayne Gibson Kindersley Clarion Kindersley, SK (306) 463-4611 (306) 463-6505 fax

"Church gets new life as Gallery"    by David McIver
of The Rosetown Eagle

Tessier's Knox United Church travelled to Harris on Oct. 28 to become a
multi-purpose arts centre.  New owner Liza Gareau Tosh of the Valley Centre area is calling it

Routes Gallery.

The moving church had its own entourage of vehicles following it: moving-company vehicles, a SaskPower truck with a line-lifter to raise the power lines, plus relatives and other interested parties.
The high-voltage lines between Harris and Tessier did not need to be lifted. The church cleared it but seemingly not by much. It was a good thing the church didn't have a steeple, quipped Grant Martens of Rosetown, one of those following in its wake.
One set of lines just into Harris proved too difficult and the moving truck took the church south and into a pasture and then, with workers taking down a wire fence, back into Harris, skirting the school yard and up Main Street to park it beside the foundation. The workers rushed back and mended the fence. Finishing the job took two more days. Dirt was
brought in to brace the foundation wall as the building is quite heavy.  It was lowered gradually and finally rested on the foundation on Thursday.
Locals watched the moving spectacle on the road and especially in Harris, where it attracted adults and even children on a school day.  The entire move was videotaped for the CBC-TV French network by videojournalist Jennifer Dubé of Regina. It will be shown in the
documentary program Zeste, possibly in two parts, at a date to be announced.
Other media have shown interest, notably The Western Producer, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the Afternoon Edition on CBC Radio One. Future uses
Liza Gareau Tosh, known locally for her paintings and murals, envisions an opening date around the end of May. The gallery will be open regularly from Thursday to Saturday from 10:30 to 4:30, "the same hours as the museum," she said.
It is located on Main Street and on an angle to the street. The angle alone will distinguish it from the Catholic church located kitty-corner and from the United church next door on the side street to the east. While it will be a place to show her paintings, her plans are for much
more.  She wants the gallery to also host guest artists, travelling art exhibitions and art and theatrical workshops, the latter building on the theatrical work started with Harris Ruby Rush vignettes and The Pull of the Land plays.
That's not all.  Gareau Tosh envisions a total of 10 uses for the building.  For one, she plans to revive the Saturday-night dances. She appreciates the part the oldtime dances played in the social life of prairie towns years ago.  "They were huge in the community," she said recently.
While that makes for pleasant nostalgia when she has mentioned it, she said last week, "It's fun to look in the past, but it doesn't have to be in the past."  To bring those dances back will mean giving some dance lessons, she says, as young people don't know how to do dances like the schottische or the French m inuet. Liza has talked to some local musicians about being a house band for the dances.
For the music interest in Harris and area, she credits her father-in-law, George Tosh, for his work in music in Harris. He taught music and directed a 60-member band in the 1970s and early '80s.  She envisions having one dance as an after-harvest celebration.  Music-only events are also planned, such as jam sessions. She would like to expose people to roots music.
Storytelling events are another idea, where people give monologs or narratives.
"Telling our stories," she said, is very important.  Improvisational comedy is another desire.
Along with bachelor degrees in education and fine arts, she has had experience in improv comedy.  Liza wants to have variety among these different activities but also do
things with regularity so that people can know when to expect them, i.e. have art openings on Sundays, have comedy on Friday nights.
She plans to have a website operating in a month.  The inspiration for her ideas goes back to growing up in her home town of Bellevue: "The cultural side was central to the community, not the rink."  She benefitted from the exposure to the arts there and she would like to
give back in a way, to the community in which that she has come to live.

She has even thought of having weddings in the gallery.  The church is 30 ft. wide, 50 ft. long not counting the eight-ft entrance. It is 30 ft. tall at the highest point.  One of the moving company workers offered this comment: "It's in beautiful shape," said Vern McEwen of Wiebe Movers of Saskatoon. "It's a well-built structure. It will last longer than anything you build now."

Church services had been held in the distict outside of Tessier. The settlers wanted to have services in the town, states the history book Tales & Trails of Tessier. People met at Shatilla Hall on Feb. 25, 1909.  It was decided that  as there were more Presbyterians than members of
any other denomination, it was decided to have a Presbyterian mission in the young town.
Construction of Knox Presbyterian Church began in 1912 and finished in the spring of 1913. Cost was about $2,500. The mortgage was burned in 1924. It became Knox United Church in 1925.
The church was very actively used over the years. Besides worship services, it had choir practices and meetings for Women's Missionary Society, Sunday school and cradle roll to Canadian Girls In Training, Tessier Young People, mission bands (something like kindergarten), ladies aid and the Tuxis boys group.

Brett Coben was the last baby baptized in the church, on Nov. 1, 1998.  Bill Clayton and Debbie Coben were the last couple married there, on April 27, 2002. The church's last service was a celebration of its 90th anniversary, a joint service with Zealandia and Harris congregations, on April 27, 2003, reported Laurel Braid of the Tessier congregation.
About the church in Harris, she added, "It looks good where it is."