Category: Then And Now

Here’s a Then & Now with a BIGDoer family connection and it was only twenty seven years in the making. Presenting our kid and his kid (our grandkid) both at ten years old in the cab of the same excursion steam locomotive. The original was captured in Donalda and the...

Welcome to another (hopefully) fun and informative BIGDoer.com Then & Now! In this instalment we’re looking at downtown Fort Macleod Alberta and comparing two shots taken roughly seventy five years apart. This community is timeless and incredibly appears little changed over time. Take a look for yourself! The Then photo...

The subject in today’s Then & Now is the quaint-looking Chinook Motel, Sentinel Alberta, in the scenic and historic Crowsnest Pass. With Crowsnest Mountain a backdrop, we’ll first look at it in the 1960s, thanks to an old postcard image sent in by a reader, and then again some fifty...

The Fort Motel in Fort MacLeod Alberta does it old school and offers road weary travellers vintage motor court style accommodations. You might view it as dated or tired, but to to us it’s a charming throwback and wonderfully kitschy. What ever your opinion, it’s a style of motel that’s...

Let’s explore the grain elevator row in Arrowwood Alberta across time. First we’ll look at it many decades back, and with all but one of these iconic buildings now gone, we’ll present a more recent view. The change has been dramatic and a touch sad too. Once they’re history a...

The Crowsnest Pass of Southwestern Alberta draws us in like a magnet and we’re regular visitors. If you’ve followed our exploits for a bit, however, then you already knew we had a romance going on. Today our subject is the CPR Crowsnest Railyard at Summit Lake, at the west end...

Pointless: “Devoid of meaning (or) senseless” Merriam-Webster. Yup, that’s this post nicely summarized and while it might seem silly, we love stuff like this. If it’s got an obscure angle, like here, we’re on it even more and although a serious time waster, we can’t help ourselves. Presenting the Pointless...

The the first image takes us back to 1974 and shows a Calgary Transit trolleybus heading south down Elbow Drive. There’s downtown in back. Forty years later we’ve returned to this location to see what’s changed and you’ll notice it’s been dramatic. The city skyline today, if not for a...

We’re down by the tracks in Coronation Alberta or rather on our visit, standing where the tracks used to be. From this angle and observed today there’s nothing left of the railway. Not a thing. Presenting two views captured from the same location but separated by many, many decades. It’s...

Shaunavon Saskatchewan is located in the southwest corner of province, it’s been around for just over a century and home to perhaps eighteen hundred people. Give or take, that is. There’s a quaint downtown with lots of nice old buildings and a few of them will be seen in this...

There’s some rather interesting architecture from the 1960s out there and this building is no exception. It’s completely circular and while not that over the top compared to some structures of the time, it’s still unconventional enough to be of note. Originally Calgary Builders’ Exchange, it’s now home to the...

Here’s how we make a Then & Now. 1) We first take an old image supplied by a reader or sourced by the Team itself and visit the location seen to document what things look like today. 2) We shoot a new photo, while doing our best to duplicate the...

Today’s location is downtown Coleman Alberta and in this piece we’ll be comparing two photos separated by maybe 75 or 80 years. It’s just an everyday street scene, here in this former coal mining town and really, it’s hardly worthy of attention, yet here we are. The prominent players in...

The location is a residential street in Bassano Alberta and we’re armed with an old photo to be used in a special way. That can only mean one thing, you know…it’s Then and Now time! Presenting two images showing the same location, the same subjects and and taken from the...

Presenting two photos of the CC Snowdon Building in Calgary, shot from the same spot and separated by over 100 years. There’s been change, as you’ll see, yet certain elements remain timeless. Even with the building that is our subject overshadowed by something much newer and to which its attached,...

The stately structure that is the focus of this “Then & Now” is buried deep within a Calgary campus and known as SAIT Heritage Hall. Earlier home to the Alberta Normal School and Provincial Institute of Technology, today it’s just one part of the sprawling Southern Alberta Institute of Technology...

Welcome to Main Street in Trochu Alberta and today we’re presenting two photos captured from the same location, but separated by a hundred plus years. As the saying goes, some things change and some stay the same, but here it’s more of one than the other. Much of what’s seen...

This will be a variation on the theme and the fun happens in Three Hills Alberta, on a wickedly frigid winter’s day, early 2022. Let me tell you, we did this one in record time! Rather than the usual comparison Then & Now type shot everyone’s all used to, which...

We’re in downtown Castor Alberta and armed with an old image to be used in another BIGDoer.com Then & Now comparison. Standing roughly on the same spot where the original photographer did about a 110 years ago, we’ll look into what’s the same (a little) and what’s changed (a lot)...

Today it happens down on the waterfront in Slocan British Columbia and for your enjoyment we present two comparison photos taken eighty one years apart. The first, captured in 1940, shows a railway barge setup and the other, how the location looks in 2021. The “then” photo comes thanks to...

This is a reworked Then & Now originally posted ten years ago and takes inspiration from by Mike Dunham-Wilkie’s well known train photographs of Wayne Alberta. His shots are from 1978. We’re reusing our original now photos, but have revised and updated the info. Ugly and somewhat outdated, the piece...

Here’s a comparison look at one little corner of downtown Viking Alberta thirty four years apart. The expression “some things change and some stay the same” truly applies here. Certainly many things have vanished since the original image was captured in 1988, but the scene still feels the same. This...

Mewata Armoury is located at the west end of Calgary’s downtown core and a well known landmark that’s stood here for over a century. Architecturally stunning, this brick and sandstone edifice is a ceremonial and training base for a number of Canadian Forces regiments/groups. Built during World War One, it...

Almost seventy five years separates the two images shown here and outside one obvious change, the scene has an otherwise timeless quality. Emerald Lake & Crowsnest Mountain, in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta, feature prominently in both and are a sight to behold. The then image is from a postcard...

We’re visiting the restored Meeting Creek Railway Station in central Alberta and shooting a slight variation on our popular Then & Now series. It’s a perfectly delightful spring evening, we’re here all alone and since we’re shooting a general historic piece on the building anyway, let’s have a little more...

Here’s a Then & Now look at the former Tri-Way Motel, now Kootenay Country Inn, out in Cranbrook British Columbia. Presenting two photos separated by about half a century and we’re going to chat a little about what’s seen. The business, and the whole scene for that matter, is timeless....

We’re deep inside Banff National Park armed with a vintage photo showing a train and our first goal will be to find the location seen. The person that supplied the image only had a hunch, but with a little detective work we felt confident it could be found. Using good...

Elevator Row Nanton Alberta: two photos captured down by the tracks (or former tracks, present day) and separated by close to fifty years. The railway line through town is history, that little shack is long gone, but some of the grain elevators seen in the then photo have been preserved....

We’re in bustling “downtown” Trout Lake British Columbia armed with a photo from about seventy five years ago to shoot a BIGDoer.com Then & Now. The fun’s about to begin, so give us a big WOOHOO! Our goal is twofold, and out of the gate we want to get as...