Category: Short Subjects

This old farm house is probably one of the most photographed abandoned buildings in the southwest corner of the province. We’ve seen countless pictures of it from any number of photographers and we’ve shot our share too. No doubt that it’s easy to find accounts for some of its popularity....

We call it Trainspotting. There are other names for the pastime, but we like that one best (loath the term “railfanning”). In its simplest form…one grabs a camera, finds a place overlooking some train tracks, snaps away and there you have it! Of course there are those who take it...

Not much is left of this cabin. Located deep in the woods of the Crownest Pass Alberta, along an old pack trail, and towered over by precipitous peaks, it’s connected to a small coal mine operation of which little information is known. We did dig up (get it) a few...

There’s a series of old wood truss bridges scattered across the back roads and secondary highways of British Columbia. Distinctive in design and framed with massive timber beams, all tied together with metal bolts and rods, they look a bit outdated in today’s modern world, seemingly more fitting for a...

Team BIGDoer has this fondness for dive motels. You might call it strange. As accommodations go, they’re low cost, which is a plus for us professional historians (yes, it’s a career) who dream of minimum wage as some sort of glorious income nirvana. We’re budget minded, we have to be,...

In 2013 we studied the former town of Mitford Alberta, located just west of present day Cochrane (links to those posts below). One of the earliest communities in the area it was established 1880s. It was also one of the first abandoned too and was completely gone by the turn...

The location is far eastern Alberta and the town is Sibbald. A faded sign taped to the door reads: “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 I just read that? This ancient...

Loaf & Jug were a small chain of corner grocery stores in Calgary Alberta. Little information is available on the firm (alternately called Loaf and Jug or sometimes Loaf ‘n’ Jug), but piecing bits and pieces together it seems that they were in business from the early 1970s to perhaps...

What’s this? A ghost sign from an old Radio Shack, a firm that closed down in Canada over a dozen years ago, this one being exposed during renovations at Calgary’s Westbrook Mall. We’re looking at a time capsule here, a reminder taking us back to when the “Shack” was the...

Fishburn United, a tiny country church found along a lonely Alberta backroad, southwest corner of the province, where the mountains and plains meet and not far from the Crowsnest Pass. Built well over a hundred years ago, it was originally a shared facility used by those of the Presbyterian, Methodist...

Time for a brief stop at the former Moccasin Flats Gas and Confectionery in Bellevue Alberta. It’s a place that’s been on our radar for sometime now – of course every old and empty, overgrown and boarded up building is – and while this stop was brief we fully expect...

Presenting the almost perfect timeless scene: a vintage truck, former service station and an old school wood grain elevator. Taken not twenty or thirty years ago, but in 2016. One corner in Bashaw Alberta, a small community approximately in the middle of the province, founded about a hundred years ago...

Calgary is perhaps not the best place for an outdoor water park, what with all the strange and unpredictable weather and rather brief summer season. None the less, one such business operated in the southern half of the city for a time. Presenting: the the Banzai (or Bonzai) Water Park,...

Unfinished Railway Line Calgary and file this under obscure. We’re looking at the roadbed remains of a Canadian Northern Railway branchline that was to break the Canadian Pacific Railway’s monopoly in southern Alberta. Some sections, including this one inside Calgary city limits and being encroached on by development, were built,...

A rare beast indeed, at least in this part of the world and of course based strictly on our own sometimes rather limited experiences, is this Diamond REO dump truck found in the Alberta Badlands. This make came about due to a merger of the REO and Diamond T companies...

The Mountain Mill United Church is located in a gorgeous pastoral setting, a secluded wooded river valley near the foothills of southwest Alberta, close to the communities of Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass. At just over a century old (built in 1906) the building is still used from time...

Join us for a very quick look at the Stranraer Saskatchewan United Church. Dating back to the 1920s, it’s simple and charming, made all that better given its location in a picturesque little valley on the otherwise flat and broad plains. Regular services were last held here many, many decades...