Standing like sentinels over the Canadian prairies, grain elevators were once a ubiquitous site. But over time, hundreds have been demolished. To preserve those that still stand, there’s George Payette -- Canada’s last known grain elevator repairman.

“I just like the challenge of fixing them,” Payette told CTV Winnipeg. “Every day is a different challenge, one way or another.”

The wooden agricultural structures, which were once used to store and ship grain, are no longer needed in modern agriculture. But Payette and his team of two are keeping many of the prairies' oldest grain elevators standing and operational.

“It’s always busy,” Payette said. “And we never know from one day to the next where we’re going to be.”

The 55-year-old repairman was trained when the structures were still a prairie staple. Some of the elevators he now services are even more than a century old, the mechanics inside often unchanged -- but it’s usually the wooden foundations that cause the most problems.

Murray McKinney’s Manitoba farm sports a grain elevator that is believed to date back to the 1920s.

“Sure, we could replace it with one grain bin,” he said. “(But) we like to keep the old building going and it still works fine.”

In the 1960s, there were more than 700 operational grain elevators in Manitoba. Today, that number has dwindled to just 85 as traditional wooden grain elevators have been replaced with larger concrete structures. Today’s larger industrial farms, after all, require larger storage facilities.

But as symbols and landmarks, the old elevators are much-loved and frequently photographed. The Manitoba Historical Society is now even working to map them all.

“They’re disappearing rapidly,” Gordon Goldsborough, a University of Manitoba professor and the author of Abandoned Manitoba said. “Within the last couple of months, we’ve lost five in Manitoba alone.”

But fewer will be demolished if Payette has his way.

“It’s nice to see the buildings out there because it’s a landmark,” he said. “It’s nice to see them stay.”

With a report from CTV’s Manitoba Bureau Chief Jill Macyshon