Sixty eight years separates the two images used in this Then and Now comparison. We set the scene in Rosedale Alberta, in the Red Deer River Valley badlands and we’re a bit east of Drumheller. The view is along the train tracks in 1948 and the 2016 shot is from the same position. The railway is now gone, but the hills in back are eternal.
The original image is from a postcard and shows people’s belongings pilled up next to the tracks during a flood. The background area appears partially underwater and there’s flow ice visible as well. The railway line is slightly higher than surrounding land and this afforded these temporary refuges a little respite. Unless the waters rose more…
Rosedale Alberta 1948 & 2016: the same location 68 years apart. Across time with Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)
Let’s thanks our own “Johanna (Connie) Biggart” for sponsoring this and many other posts at BIGDoer.com. Be like Connie…
Rosedale was founded with the coming of the railway about a hundred and ten years ago. Coal mines drove the local economy for many decades but they’re relegated to history. Today, the community is home to several hundred people and was amalgamated into the town of Drumheller in the 1990s.
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A group of houses and businesses are close by, but unseen in either photo. Some sections of town are behind that hill in the back and there’s more a bit to the west and northwest, all off frame. It looks as though there is nothing here, but we’re only looking in the wrong direction.
The Rosebud River is just to the left of the tracks, but similarly unseen in the photos. At this point it’s very close to where it joins the Red Deer River (also just behind that hill) and it’s that latter waterway which cut the wide valley here.
The 1948 flood is thanks to to an ice jam several kilometres to the east and down stream on the Red Deer River. This caused it and any rivers/creeks feeding it, in the immediate area, to back up and spill their banks. We found numerous documents that spoke of the Red Deer River flood that year and it affected a lot of people in low lying areas.
It’s not clear who the people are in the old photo. There are two if you look close, a man in a hat with trench coat and a lady in a kerchief plus long coat. Nor is it clear where they and their belongings came from. Presumably they resided in a house nearby, but today the nearest one is a couple hundred metres from this shooting position. At the base of the hill in back, but it’s not there in the old photo.
Various boxes, furniture and possessions are piled by the tracks. It all looks hastily placed and that’s understandable since floods don’t make appointments. Notice they stacked it all just far enough off to the side so as not to place them in the way of a passing train. Not that they were necessarily running at the time. The flood probably affected the tracks in many places and undermined roadbeds were a distinct possibility.
Research suggests it was days before the waters receded. What happened to these people’s lives as a result of this flood? It was tough time and you know this for sure. Did they recover and get on with life? Just another day in the Red Deer River Valley? Or did it impact them in a way that saw them forever changed? Did they move, for example? It’s not the first flood here, but perhaps one of the most damaging.
Vogue Studio of Drumheller produced the postcard and it seems they were quite active in the 1930s to 1940s period. Most, if not all their work showcases the local area, and while a few colour examples were produced, much of it is black and white. Despite spending much time researching this firm, not many details of the company, outside the little tidbits shared here, are known. Still, their work lives on via posts post like this.
The copy reads: Rosedale Flood April 21st, 1948 (hey, it’s April 21st today), Vogue Studio, 41. It comes from Peel’s Prairie Provinces and it’s a resource of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Team BIGDoer sourced the Then image for this particular post, but readers also contribute many.
If you have an old photo showing a scene that would be a good starting point for this kind of treatment, please reach out. So ones taken by yourself or someone in your family. We’ll revisit the site, shoot something similar and write about it in a article. You’ll get credit and big thank you from us, plus we’ll all (likely) learn something in the process.
Finding the exact location of the Then photo was pretty simple and ditto for lining things up. This was one of the easiest Then and Nows we’ve done and most are far more difficult. We find the locations through research (if not told, and we always request minimal info) and by simple footwork. It’s more fun and challenging that way.
These tracks were part of a Canadian National Railway line running between Saskatoon Saskatchewan and Calgary Alberta. Put down in the 1910s, by the Canadian Northern Railway (Alberta Midland charter), it closed in the 2000s. They only pulled it up a year or so before our Now photo. That the rails are gone is pretty much the only significant change over time, and the rest of the scene today looks much as it did.
You might notice a mighty BIGDoermobile in our photo and they tend to sneak into these posts without us even noticing. All incarnations of this legendary vehicle are noteworthy for their ability to go anywhere, in spite of being lowly econo-boxes.
This is a repost of an old article and we brought it back with updated info, but using the original photos. We have hundred of posts that we should resurrect and will do that over time.
We hope you enjoyed this little visit to Rosedale Alberta and stay tuned for more Then and Nows down the road. We’re always shooting new ones and have quite a backlog.
Thank you so much for your fantastic articles and photos. Alberta and BC are dear to my heart. I could spend 24/7 here with you! I especially love the before and after articles. Keep up the great work guys!! I was born and raised in Calgary in the 50’s so this history is my passion. Joanne Winchester Honer.
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Date of adventure: April 21st 1948 (Vogue Studios) and January, 2016 (us) – reposted April 21st, 2025! Location: Rosedale, Alberta. Article references and thanks: University of Alberta Archives, Canadian Trackide Guides, University of Calgary Archives and Medicine Hat & District Genealogical Society.
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