We’ve been to Rowley Alberta before. Many times in fact. An “almost” ghost town, full of history, photogenic as heck, tiny and just a few blocks square, it’s populated by a mere handful of residents. Not forgotten or dilapidated even though most buildings are empty, it’s all kept up to...
The road in is gravel, dry ‘n’ dusty. Same as all in the area. And all are similarly devoid of traffic. Stop, roll down the window and you’ll be greeted with silence. The location here is rural, well away from any town. Look all around…nothing to see but fields and...
These are the words oftentimes heard when describing long forgotten places…”if these walls could talk”. It’s a catch all phrase really, some might say an overused one at that, when one’s thought are overwhelmed – “this empty old farm house…if these walls could talk”. Still, more often than not, it...
Wrentham Alberta, a teenie-weenie little village, the term “metropolis” never once used to describe it. In the far south of the province it was founded around a century ago when the railway arrived. The population, well, it’s a mere handful, hearty folks all, as people who dwell in these small...
It was never a town to speak of, more a locality, some crossroad, a dot on the map, a reference point for a general area. There might have been a post office here, perhaps a rural school close by, maybe a church or two, but not an organized community in...
Nothing beats a good small town museum. Team BIGDoer is huge fan and think you should be too. They’re hidden gems, wonderful places to learn about local history, the people who came before, those tough and resilent folks from times past, on display at these venues the things connecting them...
This post should have been published last week. We meant to publish it last week. Really, honest to God we did. We started work on it, got about half way done, then something darn distracting stole us away for a couple working days. It’s only Chris & Connie holding down...
To say we have a “couple” articles in the works would be a gross understatement. We’ve been busy exploring and photographing all over the west, at some crazy accelerated pace, Chris & Connie seemingly possessed or something and accumulating a huge number of photos and information for new posts. We’re...
Flashback…it’s sometime in the latter half of the 1980s. It’s race day at Valley Motorcycle Park, an “MX” (motocross) track found in a shallow coulee on the Alberta Plains. It’s a busy event, groups of riders coming in from all over Calgary and area eager to challenge the track. The...
Seen here, odd bits and pieces, random stuff abandoned in nature found while out exploring Minburn and Two Hills Counties east of Edmonton. We’re there to documented some specific subjects and these were discovered travelling between them. There’s old farms, forgotten metal, empty buildings found on some street in a...
Starland Alberta. Not a town. Nothing more than a siding along a former rail line, the only thing here, a lone grain elevator. It’s relatively modern one, a bit unusual in some ways, which we’ll touch on soon enough. Think of it as a transitional design of sorts, from the...
Deep in the depths of winter, on our visit, there’s peace and quiet here. The barn and horse corrals are empty. The bunkhouse, the cookhouse, it’s similarly so. Everything’s in place, ready for use, but there’s no one about except us. The silence, the stillness is palpable. Soon on however,...
This adventure has us motoring down a lonely back road, one that seemingly goes nowhere. It runs arrow straight, the car raising a cloud of dust as it cuts across the great plains of Alberta, past endless fields of stubble. Then dipping into a low valley it twists and turns....
It’s happened again. It happens all too often these days. We’ve given the okay to go inside some abandoned place and document it but with one one big stipulation. That is, we speak of it vaguely, making doubly sure we don’t give anything away in the photos or text that...
Here’s instalment number four, where we put feet to pavement and document all the houses left in Calgary’s downtown core. Yes, I said houses, so single family dwellings, or ones that were formerly so but perhaps re-purposed, not in outlying neighbourhoods, but in the very centre of the city. The...
The small community of Magrath Alberta is home to a nice and varied collection grain elevators from various eras. There’s four here, down over there where the tracks used to be. A couple are traditional wood “prairie sentinels”, one’s a fairly modern, albeit modest sized, concrete silo type elevator. And...
Saint Nicholas, a devout religious figure from the early days of Christianity, and to many today, the face of everyone’s most favourite holiday ever, Christmas. Said to be a miracle worker, benevolent, a helper of the poor, advocate of the hopeless, the destitute, the damned, his life’s work was in...
The community of Beachwood Estates, High River Alberta, is doomed. It has been for a while. Once vibrant and full of life, the place is now empty, every last soul forced to move away. The boulevards are quiet, the dwellings quiet, nothing but total silence and come nightfall, total darkness....
The old farm we’ll be touring with you here was last occupied in the 1990s but is little changed from the early days. Electricity? What’s that? Warmth came from an impressive wood stove and a dirty old oil heater. Cooking took place on that same wood stove. There wasn’t even...
Once a subject is photographed and the images processed, we enter the research phase. This can take no time at all or it can be a long, painful, drawn out process. For most gigs it falls somewhere between the two. Regardless, budget constraints means we often can’t commit to more...
We’re in Pincher Station Alberta, passing through, heading west for a couple days of rest and relaxation. Timing is everything, and as it happens, we’re here and so is a train. Pull over, brakes on hard, jump out and run around like someone who’s mistakenly kicked a hornet’s nest. Catch...
Once a year C&C and a group of close and very dear friends get together for a “ghost town tour”. We pick an area and explore. It’s hectic and is more about the fun and comradery than anything else, even if the cameras still get a good work out. Often...
This location is about as remote as it gets. We’re in Western Saskatchewan, here specifically part of “Census Division #8” (imaginative name), a broad expanse of prairie, a place that never was home to that many people. Picture gently rolling fields of grain that go on forever, a dusty road...
Tiny little middle-of-nowhere Hoosier is hanging on for dear life. A handful of people still live here, give or take, with more on farms in the immediate area. And while the CO-OP and Post Office slash Coffee Shop are open, it’s hardly thriving. There are just as many empty or...
Churches have always been a favourite here and we search them out like bloodhounds. Be they active and in use or closed up and forgotten, grand in form or humble, city or rural, no matter the religious denomination, they’re on our radar. Today’s target is Holy Trinity Catholic Church and...
This is about as remote a place one will ever visit. The land is level and almost featureless, fields of grain stretching off in every direction to the horizon, all connected together by an orderly grid of township and rural roads. And there’s the sky, the big, big sky. It...
It’s not a true ghost town, but in many ways looks the part. A handful of people live here, but the near-empty main street has all the traits of a forgotten place. There’s a number of former commercial buildings flanking the wide boulevard, all closed and boarded up, most prominent...
Seen here, a lonely county church, Brush Hill Reformed, standing vigil on a remote Alberta crossroads. It’s a century old and not unexpectedly, is showing its age. No one comes here anymore, there are no services. It’s been a while since that happened. The place is boarded up, unused, it’s...
Stand in front of this old farm house and spin about slowly. Look around, look all around and know what it’s like to be alone. Totally and utterly alone. There are scant signs of human habitation for miles and miles around (repeat ad-nauseam), the vast nothingness stretching all the way...
Herronton…this tiny little place, a blip on the map. A collection of homes, a small clustering, found along some dusty Alberta backroad. While not the middle of nowhere, in feel, it’s not far removed from that proverbial place. The population…it can be counted on one hand…maybe two (we saw no...
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A pair of newly delivered Plymouth Locomotives at the Atlas Coal Mine, East Coulee Alberta in 1957 and one of the two in 2018. The location of our photo was Katie's Crossing out near Edmonton. A burger place (and they were good). Katie retired a few years back and the business is now closed.
Into the early 1980s, this locomotive and its twin shuttled coal from the upper Atlas workings to the loading tipple across the river from East Coulee. That structure is now part of an amazing museum, the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site.
Original: Calgary Herald Collection at the UofC.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. 👇 _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
A fascinating slide from the Crossley collection, showing the aftermath of an aircraft incident on Upper Arrow Lake near Nakusp BC. It's a Kodachrome from 1953 and like many of his slides, shows damage from age.
There's a backstory thanks to Arrow Lakes Historical Society & Nakusp & District Museum...
"Damaged seaplane flown by pilot Ian Sommerville sits in Upper Arrow Lake after having crashed in front of Kuskanax Point, Nakusp, July 1953. Sommerville and passenger Don Pye (president, Rotary Club of Nakusp) were saluting passengers on the MV Beaton ferry as its was passing by the Rotary Club's picnic on the adjacent beach. Fishing boats in background rescued Sommerville and Pye, who were uninjured. The plane partially sank as it was towed to shore because a damaged pontoon took on water."
The aircraft is a 1930s built de Havilland Hornet Moth.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. 👇 _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Date: Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
From 2015. This ancient truck was teetering on the edge and not long after this photo it fell into the lake. That's our good friend view-camera photographer Rob Pohl, and in spite of our differing styles, we share a passion to document prairie history. _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
The Beer Parlour Project will be at the Wildwood Hotel & Silver Spur Saloon, Wildwood Alberta on Friday October 4th and at the Coal Branch Hotel, Robb Alberta, Saturday the 5th. Starting in the afternoon for both and staying well into the night. If you have memories of either to share, stop by and get interviewed by Chris or get your portrait taken on Rob's old-fashioned view camera.
Arturo Pianzola will be joining in on the fun as a guest photographer and shoots both film and digital.
https://www.BeerParlourProject.com A collaborative effort between Team BIGDoer & art photographer Rob Pohl. Documenting small town hotel watering holes.
Seen: the historic (closed) Shaunavon Hotel, Shaunavon Saskatchewan. Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. 👇 _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Photo: 2024. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
From 2017. Here's a different angle of the often photographed grain elevator in Dorothy Alberta and from up high here, it's almost like looking down at a model.
Here, for your approval, it's a shot of the 1920s “Alberta Pacific” grain elevator, closed and abandoned over seventy years ago.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. 👇 _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
A 1960s shot from Crossley's front yard. You've seen those fantastic slides, heard us chat about the fellow and now we'll drop by his place. Here's the view from his front gate looking north on MacLeod Trail Calgary @ 25th Ave and if we stood on this exact spot in Erlton today, we'd be dodging traffic.
How the city has changed since and the tower looks so lonely! Note the little corner store across the street. Another photo from this same position, but looking south, shows a second corner store was less than a block away. We'll share that photo later. Crossley lived in his house until it was removed to make way for the LRT and the widening of MacLeod. He even documented it being torn down and we'll share one of those photos in a future posting.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. 👇 _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
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