by the way
is unlikely to show
up in any tourist guides. The four clusters of tall
cement pillars, located on the city’s outskirts near
Sturgeon Road and Inkster Avenue, are a mystery
even to most locals. The piles are neatly set in grid-
like patterns, and each is stamped with a series of
numbers. Some believe the field was once a concrete
testing site. Others think it’s a tribute to humanity’s
alien ancestors, lending the site its other nickname,
Winnipeg’s Cement Cemetery
58
Winter 2018
CAA MAnitOBA
Pilehenge. In fact, the site was set to be developed in
the early 1960s by British-American Construction
and Materials Limited, a company that, among
other things, made concrete pipes, blocks and
piles—like the ones that remain on the site today.
BACM’s plans to build a manufacturing plant here
were scuttled before they began, and the cement
test piles—stamped with their height and date of
manufacture—are all that remain. —Conan Tobias
ConCrete Jungle