Wishart no longer has services, no hotel, no grocery store, no gas station and no school. Typical small town in Saskatchewan where the main street businesses close as people move away. What's different about this town is the massive school they have. A two-storey brick building at the edge of town. This school hosted grades K-12 with kids from the area. Hard to believe there was enough population to support such a building but there must have been or they would not have built it. We are not sure when it was built but we know in 2007 the Horizon school board voted to cancel Grades 10-12 at Wishart school. Kindergarten through Grade 9 was to continue at Wishart but it looks like by 208 the school was closed.
The school sat abandoned for many years but it was sealed up and very little vandalism occurred. We explored the building in 2010 and it was in fairly good condition, with hardly any graffiti or vandalism, no smashed windows, and light fixtures in place. It looked like those who did come in just signed the blackboards and left. That changed a couple of years later when the windows were getting smashed which led to anyone getting in.
In 2016 the building was purchased for $250,000. The couple that bought the school had goals to revitalize the building. From what we read they wanted to turn it into a community with areas to create art and have a self-sustaining community. They called it "Wishart Projects" and it was going to take years to complete. You can read more about the goals here. They worked on securing the building by boarding up windows, fixing up the roof, tearing up floors, and fixing water issues. There was quite a bit of activity around the school until there wasn't.
It appears sometime around 2022 activity stopped. The building sat and it wasn't long before the boards were torn off and windows smashed. Open to the elements and anyone who wanted to enter the building, it began to decay and become vandalized again. There have been no attempts to secure the building and it appears this project may have been abandoned.
