In 2007 the government announced the closure of multiple large schools around the province. These included Briercrest (now a museum), Limerick (community center), Willow Bunch (repurposed as a factory), Ecole Ross School (repurposed as office space) and Crane Valley. As you can see, most found new life but the Crane Valley did not.
In 2010 people from BC bought the Crane Valley and Willow Bunch schools in an attempt to turn them into wizarding schools. Not a joke. The people lived in the Willow Bunch school and gutted the school of anything worth salvaging while leaving Crane Valley to the elements. This venture stirred up the people in the area and ultimately failed. From what we have been told by locals, they eventually moved away.
Willow Bunch was sold to a new company that is using it to package wheat crunch, a local snack. Read more about wheat crunch HERE. We are told that the school was stripped by previous owners but it was able to be fixed as the structure is good.
Crane Valley was mainly unused for a while except for a grow op which was later abandoned. The school had roof issues and water was getting into the lower levels. Freeze and thaw every year from the flooding was wrecking havoc on it.
We explored the school in 2015, at this point, the grow op had ended and the building was not very vandalized. It was in an interesting state of decay as most items were left behind in classrooms but with a failing roof it had moldy and decaying ceilings.
In 2019 it was purchased in hopes to revitalize the community, read about it here. We are not sure if anything happened with this dream as the building has since sat abandoned and vandalized. It sat like this for a while until a visit in 2024 where a tall chain-link fence was installed around the entire school. This leads us to believe the RM took it over and it was cheaper to build a fence rather than demolish it but it could be the current owner ready to restore the building.
