It was off to Grauland for me for my first of 2024 trips to Jim Garand’s always photogenic region, which also serves at the home for his M1 Poses store (tucked neatly out of the way in the sky). The last time I visited, the region was home to a setting featuring ancient stone ruins awaiting exploration, set with a somewhat tropical environment; it’s a theme which-sort of continues with the iterated I visited in January – albeit featuring ruins of a very different kind.
For this setting Grauland presents an almost flat island; whether temperate, tropical or sub-tropical is hard to say at first glance, although there are clues to suggest the former is likely the case, rather than the latter two, and on which stand the remnants of what may have been a sizeable industrial operation.
Quite what that endeavour might have been is open to to imaginative interpretation; to one side of the island, old pumpjacks stand in a field of wild grass, the “nodding donkey” head of one still rising and falling as the little group comes close to resembling a drove of their four-legged namesakes grazing quietly. They suggest that oil might have been a focus of efforts here; however, two of the surviving structures suggest something else to have been the mainstay of work here.
To the west of the island, and partially build on blocky concrete stilts over the water, stands a massive elevator / silo building with eight massive silos forming two column- like rows supporting the high roof built over the great hall between them – a hall now oddly home to a grove of trees which reach from main doors to the iron stairways climbing the far wall to provide access to the upper levels of the building as they stand out over the watery shallows. An outer wall of these levels, complete with their glassless windows staring across the island and out to sea, proclaims the building to belong to Black Stripe Grain, Inc., although it is a little hard to imagine the eight massive silos being home to mere grain – so might the building’s labelling by a cunning disguise? As I said, this is a place open to imaginative interpretation!
A short distance from this huge elevator with its silos stands a hopper for loading bulk goods onto railcars. Again, its looks suggest it was used for something other than grain, but such has been the passage of time here, who can really tell? And it is clear that a fair amount of time has passed here.
The rail line that once proceeded out from the hopper and – one assumes – over a low-lying trellis across the waters to – well, somewhere – now lies rusting and broken. With rails no longer carried over the water but instead sloping down into it, the line is blocked by derailed boxcars and a rusting carriage which might once have carried a workforce to and from this place.
Contrasting the sense of human desertion present across most the island, the east side of the complex remains relatively intact, with concrete wharves still in good working order and offering berths to a large boat – perhaps a trawler pressed into other duties – which appears to be in good working order, and a smaller cabin cruiser to which time has been less kind.
But again, while the wharves remain relatively pristine compared to the rest of the island thus far described, the same cannot be said of the warehouse / factory built alongside them. With one side either collapsed or ripped open, it is in a sorry state, now apparently the haunt of graffiti artists visiting the island, whilst the intact section its upper floor reveal it to have once been a literal body shop or sorts, the sad remains of its produce scattered on decaying pallets, sitting in aging crates or hanging from rusting irons.
Elsewhere there is yet more evidence of past use and hints that further buildings once stood here whilst the workers at least enjoyed some amenities. For example a single, lonely bus sits out on the dirt, its paintwork slowly fading in the sunlight or being slowly corroded by rust. It’s presence suggests it once spared workers the drudgery of walking too and from the rail carriage(s) which may have once brought them here.
But civilisation has not entirely deserted this place. As noted above, the old factory has obviously has the attention of street artists, whilst between the towering “granary” and the factory sits a concrete-side tank. although it might be surrounded by iron railings which may have once suggested it to be a place of potential harm and has machinery alongside it which dips the snout of a pipe into it, the waters within it are clear and blue enough to encourage whoever visits to turn it into an outdoor swimming pool, regardless of its former use. Several places to sit have also been established around the island, further suggesting it receives frequent visitors, something backed-up by the RHIB drawn on up one shore, a picnic basket and blanket close by.
Desolate yet remaining strong hints of life, carrying a sense of mystery among its deserted buildings, this iteration of Grauland has much to say about itself whilst at the same time holding back enough of its history to set the imagination wandering as much as feet might wander through its structures and open spaces.
SLurl Details
- Grauland (Liberia Isle, rated Adult)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 