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...
Contact Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie… If you’re asking the hard questions, please consider making a donation first… Or ____ We usually respond quickly during the work week, but weekends and holidays are for adventure. More… BIGDoer.com on Facebook BIGDoer.com sitemap
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...
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...
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...
Many towns across the prairies once had small community airports but the numbers are thinning. Included in the tally is the one in Hodgeville Saskatchewan, the remains of which include a road sign, a concrete foundation and one standing structure. The latter was presumably the office and control centre (the...
The spectators gather, drinks in hand and the engines roar to life. Brave warriors with their metal steeds take position and the flag drops. Let the CARnage begin! There’s the acrid smell of grease and stinking exhaust, the sequel of tires, the sickening sound of tearing metal followed by shrieks...
Here’s a nice in-town loop hike that’s easy and offers up lots of variety. There’s parkland and natural woods where you’ll forgot you’re in the city. Underfoot it’s paved pathways and dirt singletrack. This is the Bowness and Baker Parks Loop, which also includes a foray into Wood’s Douglas Fir...
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
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Empress Alberta at the 4th Meridian
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St Peter and Paul Church 1918
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Radio Shack Westbrook Mall (Calgary)
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Ghost Railways: Fort Macleod Alberta
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Berte George’s William’s Grocery Lethbridge
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Union Bay (Vancouver Island) Coal Wharf
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1 Day: Denman & Hornby Islands (BC)
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Crossley Slides: A Corner in Erlton
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Ioco Port Moody BC (Ghost Town)
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Historic Fort Macleod After Hours
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Ghosts of the Crowsnest Subdivision
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Moose Jaw SK Train Station (~90 Yrs Apart)
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