Category: Then And Now

We do them out of fun and for that alone these “then and now” posts are sadly the first ones to be put on hold should other projects come up. It frustrates us, but we have little choice. The last was published in 2018 (yikes!) but here we (cautiously) announce...

There’s been a real scarcity of “Then and Now” posts at BIGDoer.com lately. For years they’ve been a staple here, and we did a good number of them, but for the last while our output has slowed to a near trickle. Worry not, we’ve not totally forgotten about the genre....

Flashback, September 2017! We’re in Eastern Saskatchewan, in the town of Unity (no, the “community of Unity”), a copy of a vintage postcard in hand. We’re here to shoot a trademark BIGDoer.com then and now and that old picture is the fodder. The subject of our attention, what’s seen in...

Yes, we’ve been neglecting the then and now posts. We’ve read the many emails asking why. There’s a couple reasons. First, we’re busier than we’ve ever been documenting old historic places and as a result, sadly, other things we do have to take a back seat. We have to go...

Been a while. A very long while. Far too long in fact. So here, for the first time in eons, a couple years maybe, make room for another Superman then and now. We used to do them a lot, but have been neglecting the series lately. Anyway, here we take...

An old farm, forgotten, falling down, weather beaten, open to the elements, home only to pigeons, the wind and maybe unseen ghosts. It’s a sombre place, they always are, the property overgrown, the last occupants long moved away, passed on and but a memory. Without exception these two sentences pretty...

Nier Alberta was not so much a town, but more a locality. Think of it as a dot on the map, the centre of an area, perhaps with a post office, but not really by definition a community with houses and businesses. Located not that far north of Calgary, the...

We’re standing smack dab in the middle of Second Street West, Munson Alberta, much to the amusement of some locals, shooting a trademark BIGDoer.com then and now. We’ve come armed with an old photo, taken close to a century ago, have plopped ourselves down in the spot where it was...

East Coulee, in the Alberta Badlands, is split by the slow flowing Red Deer River. Space was limited in this deep valley, so homes and businesses, the highway and in years past, the railway, were all located on the north side, while on the south there were coal mines and...

Few have seen the film Wild Horse Hank. No blockbuster here, no awards won, no darling of the critics…still, it’s a pretty good flick. Just one that wasn’t seen by a lot of eyes. A late 1970s TV production, it follows the adventures of its namesake character, Hank, played by...

The images we’ll be viewing today were captured two decades apart. The location is Empress Alberta, the scene taking us to the old railway line that once passed by town. In the first photo, we’re witness to perhaps the last run on the soon to be abandoned branchline, an enthusiast...

Yes, it’s time for another BIGDoer.com movie then and now. Man, it’s sure been a while. In this one we visit a location seen in the film Brokeback Mountain, specifically Brokeback Meadows, in the real world a grassy swath on the flanks of Moose Mountain just west of Calgary. This...

Two photos shot at almost the exact same location but some sixty five years apart, each showing a passing Calgary Transit vehicle. The location here is the community of Ogden, along Ogden Road to be exact, the background showing a railway bridge and in the older photo, bits from a...

A BIGDoer.com then and now – where we take an old photo showing a building or street scene from way back when, return so the location seen and shoot an image that’s similarly composed. Fun or what? The subject this day is an interesting one and for the then bits...

Something close to forty or forty five years separate the two images used in this then and now. Our subject is the Homestead Museum, well their sign anyway, located deep in the Badlands of Alberta in the town of Drumheller. The old image comes via a reader of this website...

A good sixty five years separate the two images used in this then and now article. The scene is Rosedale Alberta, in the Red Deer River Valley badlands, first along the train tracks in 1948 and then again in 2016, the same spot, but with the rails now gone. The...

For this then and now we’re in the “almost” ghost town of Rowley Alberta. Home today to a couple people at most, in the past it was a much busier and more populace place. Many of the buildings in town, long vacant, have been lovingly restored. Included in that are...

Fifty years separate the two images used in this then and now. Our subject will be the Canadian Pacific Railway and the location, a spot by the Elbow River, in the community of Inglewood, just east of downtown Calgary. We’ve been supplied an old image showing a passing train and...