The Beer Parlour Project, by Chris Doering, Johanna (Connie) Biggart + Rob and Margarit Pohl. We’re channeling an unbridled passion to document old-time, small town hotels and hotel taverns. It won’t just be photos of these historic structures and we’ll be connecting with patrons too. The buildings, the people, the...
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Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie/BIGDoer.com Hundreds and hundreds of articles! Over one point three million words! Over 25k photos! Tens of thousands of hours invested! Tens of thousands of visitors per month! On the menu every day: Abandoned Places Hiking Adventures Vintage Machinery Historic Sites Then &...
It’s been a custom for years to offer a gift to anyone who is the owner of a subject that appears on this website. We’re a poor broke society, so it’s a small token, but we hope it shows how much we appreciated the opportunity. We have a blast photographing...
Presenting: Rosies and The Griffon Spitfire. Here’s a bunch of folks, friends, family and associates, getting together for a charity photoshoot (and admittedly a good time) with a sleek World War Two fighter as a backdrop. The girls are stepping into the past and playing the part of a storied...
Welcome to the Medicine Hat Vintage Trailer Rally 2023, at the Gas City Campground in Medicine Hat Alberta. Tag along in an evening spent roaming about the grounds and admiring all those cute little retro trailers. There’s many old school RVs here, but those little egg-shaped campers (Bolers, Trilliums, et...
The berms seen in these photos are some of the last remnants of the former Grand Trunk Pacific Railway line into downtown Calgary. Built in the early 1910s, the track came from Northern Alberta (near Edmonton), entered the city in the east, before bending northwards and paralleling the Bow River....
Today we’re looking at a structure built as a wind-powered grist mill, but never used in that capacity or even completed. It’s unique in form, with an almost European flavour and last functioned as a blacksmith shop on the farm. Come join us as we explore it and the the...
There’s not much left of this tumbled down old cabin in the woods. The location is the Crownest Pass of Alberta and it’s not too far from the British Columbia border. Found along an old pack trail, the structure is seemingly connected to a small coal mine on the same...
Calgary has an extensive pathway system and this urban trek makes use of the section running alongside the Elbow River. The adventure begins at the Glenmore Dam, winds its way north and heads into the community of Mission on the edge of downtown. The river is always in view or...
Presenting two photos captured some sixty sixty years apart and from the same location in Calgary. Each shows a passing Calgary Transit vehicle, and while the modes of transport seen in the comparison have changed, there’s an otherwise timeless quality to the scene. The location is the community of Ogden,...
The location is far eastern Alberta and in the little community of Sibbald. There off Highway #9. A faded sign taped to the door declares: “Warning, nude entertainers appearing within premises. Some patrons may find this offensive. No minors. Picture ID only. $10.00 cover charge. Sibbald Bar & Hotel.” Did...
The images used in this comparison were captured less than two decades apart and in all frankness, they don’t show much change. Except that the railway is history. The location is Empress Alberta and we’re right on the 4th Meridian at the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. There’s the old railway line that...
St Peter and Paul Church is found along a dusty Alberta backroad and in a spot well off the beaten track. It’s in a picture-perfect setting and the idyllic scene presented here is straight out of a painting. There’s delicate, wispy white clouds and powder blue skies, fields of golden...
This icy cold day we visited Fish Creek Park in Calgary for a little hike. Keeping chill thanks to mother nature! We’ve come prepared, but still, it’s no picnic…wait it was a picnic. These low temps meant we had the place pretty much to ourselves and while usually busy, it’s...
Flashback to 2014 and we’re exploring out near Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. Ahead and to the left…a childhood memory…a Bonanza Steakhouse? Steakhouse? That’s a stretch. It’s been at least twenty years since we’ve seen one and we thought them extinct in Canada. Remember: you’d pair a shoe-leather slice of Chuck and...
What’s this? The ghost sign of an old Radio Shack store? Really? That firm closed down in Canada decades ago and any memories have long been relegated to the deep, dark recesses of the mind. Such connections to the past are usually hidden away in the subconscious and remain dormant...
Join us as we explore abandoned areas of Riverview Hospital (formerly Essondale Hospital), in Coquitlam, British Columbia. It’s a former mental health and addiction facility dating back well over a hundred years. The site has a somewhat unsettling feel about it and the buildings are frequently featured in horror films...
(2013) We spot a berm cutting across a farmer’s field south of Fort Macleod (Alberta) and this piques our curiosity. It looks railway related, and as it happens that’s indeed true. At the time we didn’t know of any lines in the area (we’re often blissfully unaware), but with a...
The building seen in today’s post is located in Lethbridge Alberta and in the neighbourhood of Staffordville. It was a grocery store for much of its history, with numerous owners over the years, but it’s now a home. We’ve come armed with an old photo showing it in 1980 and...
Bella the what? Boler…a cute retro camper made in Canada. Like many, this one has a name and it’s just a thing…usually something fanciful or silly, but meaningful to the person doing it. Although it may seem peculiar to those outside looking in, it makes perfect sense to members of...
We’re in Union Bay British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, and looking at the remains of a giant wharf used for transloading coal. So, from trains onto waiting ships and barges. It remained in use from the 1880s into about 1960 (or 1961) and most everything removed a few years after....
This short in-town walk begins in downtown Turner Valley (now part of Diamond Valley, a little south of Calgary) and heads up to a bluff atop “Snob Hill”. From up there you get a good view of the town’s historic gas plant. This walk is a pleasant diversion when you...
Sometimes it’s fun to go in with no set plans or goals in mind. Who doesn’t love the pure and unadulterated joy than comes with discovery? Today, and for the whole day, we’re hitting up Denman & Hornby Islands out in the Strait of Georgia on British Columbia’s West Coast....
Presenting two comparison photos of the same intersection in Calgary, but shot sixty-three years apart. The dates are 1961 and 2024. There’s been plenty of change, but would anyone expect anything less in a city with such explosive growth? New replaces old and it’s a brutally swift process. Today’s Then...
We’re going to do a little walkabout in the former company town of Ioco British Columbia and snap a few photos. Chris, along with two dear friends, were exploring out on the West Coast just over a year ago and this post came as a result. These other fellows are...
McKinnon Flats is a recreational area down by the Bow River and a little southeast of Calgary. More than anything it’s a launching point for personal watercraft, but there’s trails to walk or bike as well. Nice place for a picnic too, or to take in nature. The access road...
Roughly ninety years separates the two images seen in this then and now post. Today we’re looking at the former Canadian Pacific Railway station in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, seen first in a vintage postcard and then how it appeared in 2014. This fine old structure looks as good today as...
Kart World or Kart Gardens? The folks that ran this Calgary family-fun business sure made things confusing and a sign in front lists BOTH names. No matter which you choose, the place is now closed and the site (on this visit in 2014) was quickly falling into disrepair. You’ll hear...
Flashback to May 2014: the Team is on a grain elevator tour of southwest Saskatchewan and having a blast. We saw and documented more, but it’s Prairie Sentinels that we came for. Many were visited and the one seen this day is found in the small town of Cadillac (south...
In this Then and Now attention is focused on the old Dominion Bridge Factory in the Calgary neighbourhood of Ramsay. The first photo is undated but we believe it’s from 1960 (we’ll explain) and ours is from 2014. There’s many buildings in the complex but in the photos only one...
Kenopsia: "the eerie atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but now vacant or abandoned."
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Ogden Road Calgary 1950 & 2016
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Sibbald Gentleman’s Club (Closed)
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Riverview Hospital Coquitlam BC
Johanna (Connie) Biggart
Empress Alberta at the 4th Meridian
Johanna (Connie) Biggart:
St Peter and Paul Church 1918
Anonymous:
Radio Shack Westbrook Mall (Calgary)
Anonymous:
Ghost Railways: Fort Macleod Alberta
Anonymous:
Berte George’s William’s Grocery Lethbridge
Rob Pohl & Arturo Pianzola:
Union Bay (Vancouver Island) Coal Wharf
Rob Pohl & Arturo Pianzola:
1 Day: Denman & Hornby Islands (BC)
Wilfrid Lambo:
Crossley Slides: A Corner in Erlton
Rob Pohl & Arturo Pianzola:
Ioco Port Moody BC (Ghost Town)
Anonymous:
Historic Fort Macleod After Hours
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Ghosts of the Crowsnest Subdivision
Franco Media:
Moose Jaw SK Train Station (~90 Yrs Apart)
: The Cadillac Hotel in Cadillac Saskatchewan was visited by the team last summer. https://www. http://beerparlourproject.com/cadillac-hotel-cadillac-saskatchewan/: A chapter ends at the Fife Lake Hotel, Fife Lake Saskatchewan. Lawson, who has been running the place for 50 years is retiring this month & joining him is partner Gail, who has a paltry 48 years under her belt.
: Now that Rob's leg is a bit better, we're back on the road & will be out this weekend. https://www.beerparlourproject.com/
: We're back to posting and present the grand Imperial Hunter Hotel in Bassano Alberta.
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