We’re always on Boler patrol, and when out for a walk keep our eyes open for our sometimes elusive quarry. Still, we find more than our share, and while having keen senses helps, in the end it’s mostly by dumb luck. In some instances, like here, it pays to be...
Pioneer Acres Museum in Irricana Alberta had a large collection of vintage cameras donated a couple years back and asked the Team to help build a display around them. No problem! Doing this kept us busy during Covid and now that things have opened up again our little project can...
The last train to Nakusp British Columbia was close to thirty five years ago and with that a chapter closed. The line into town remained in service just shy of a hundred years, so it wasn’t a total wash. As a memorial to this past, the wonderful folks at the...
This hiking adventure happens in the extensive Bragg Creek Trail Network near Calgary. How convenient that it’s just a hop, skip and jump away from the big city! The route is comprised of a number of different trails pieced together to form a nice loop that goes up and over...
Welcome to a little dot-on-the-map community called Meeting Creek Alberta, home to a gorgeous train station and two wooden grain elevators. All date back to when the town was young and as historic holdovers from another era demonstrate a timeless scene. These further remind us that railways were once the...
It’s time for another random pick and the devil’s been cheated yet again. We simply close our eyes and choose an image from our huge collection, any image, that’s never been published before and post it here. Be it good or bad or even embarrassing, we’ll show you. So far,...
The photographs used in this Then & Now post, showing an overall view of the the small community of Rosebud Alberta, date from 1982 and 2015 respectively. The location is a hill overlooking the village, which affords a good view of pretty much the entire place. No urban sprawl here....
Just over eighty years separates the images used in this BIGDoer Then & Now, and while the mountains seen remain timeless, the foreground view shows much change. You’d never even know it was the same place if one were to only focus there. We’re along Main in little Slocan BC...
While on road trips, we take the occasional break, usually in a small town, and stretch our legs. Then as it happens, certainly more than it should, a little trailer appears and this example was captured captured heading northbound in Nanton (Alberta) on the number two. The busy highway runs...
We brought Murray’s Camera out of retirement. After who knows how long in the Pioneer Acres Museum (Irricana Alberta) collection, it’s time to dust it off for a fun photoshoot taking place in town. For old time’s sake. Murray used to be involved with the museum and well liked, so...
There were once hundreds of underground coal mines scattered across Alberta, but most were gone by the 1960s. Some we’re in service of industry and the material used for power generation, by steam locomotives, for steel making and a million other uses. Others supplied domestic coal, used for heating homes...
When we can’t hike in the woods, we walk in town – whatever town we’re in. One pleasant fall weekend found us in Claresholm Alberta, partaking of a little adventure that had us making a loop of the quaint prairie community. We’ll visit all four corners of town and there’s...
If you were to do an image search using the query, you’ll be shown a graceful arch-supported structure used by trains and in a stunning mountain setting. Deep in the British Columbia Rockies it’s been the subject of hard earned photos and some are so impressive as to obtain icon...
Why in the world did they do that? It’s great the old building was given a new lease on life, but wasn’t consideration given to saving the sign? An iconic part of Edmonton’s Jasper Avenue since forever it’s now partially obscured by new construction. That new addition…well…the aesthetics are not...
In one of the photos below you’ll see Marilynβs doll carriage from her childhood and the abandoned farm house documented in this post, was her home at the time. The old family homestead has been vacant for about sixty years but still holds many memories and here a cherished toy...
Here’s one from back in 2019, a Boler found in a small town storage lot. It’s a photo that somehow slipped through the cracks and until now, had not seen the light of day. That’s how it goes sometimes where you’re dealing with an archive a billion photos deep (
A request comes out of the blue. Could you drive our old motorhome from one spot in Calgary to another close by? We’re into vintage campers β that’s well known – so I guess they though us perhaps the best people to call. Bad idea folks! Anyway, the conversation plays...
This installment we’re looking at two scenes down by the tracks in Okotoks Alberta and captured fifty years apart. There’s been change, the passage of time guarantees it, and the only constants are two steel rails extending off in the distance. The trains still run, but the grain elevator is...
We’re not sure what’s more interesting. Could it be that Linclon Avenue/Ζ§eventh Avenue Northwest, in Calgary, has a century (plus) old identity crisis? Or perhaps it’s due to the poor spelling skills of certain cement workers from long ago? Their words, incidentally, should read Lincoln and Seventh respectively, had someone...
This is an in-town hike, but that the route mostly travels through parks and green spaces belies the fact. We’re in Camrose Alberta making use of the city’s extensive pathway system and linking together a couple loops into a nice little cohesive package. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and should you...
Nobody’s Home: Ramsay edition and we’re looking at a group of vacant dwellings in a historic Calgary community, before they were torn down. No mansions here, they were working class digs in a working class neighbourhood. After standing empty for years, here on a triangle-shaped chunk of land backing on...
The Legacy, in Lion’s Centennial Park Ponoka Alberta, is claimed as the world’s largest saddle bronc statue. Photographed while out for an evening stroll, this roadside attraction is a subject we never planned to share. We shoot a lot of images just for us, as was the case here, even...
We’re in Claresholm Alberta at the Bluebird Motel and comparing how the business looks today to an old postcard from about fifty years ago. Spoiler alert: it hasn’t changed! In this crazy fast paced world of constant flux, it represents a timeless scene. Our home one fall weekend it functioned...
Global News Boler: it’s one of our favourite little trailers spotted while channel surfing a couple years back and in the background of some news story playing out on the screen. It’s May 2020, height of the pandemic (first wave edition) and no doubt this topic, perhaps how it relates...
The location: Sundre Alberta. The mission: To hike! Today’s target: What we’ll call Sundre Loop, taking in a couple sections of town, the Snake Hill recreation area and with a final stretch paralleling the Red Deer River. It’s sounds about perfect for a lazy day, and in spite of where...
There we were, hiking in Southern Alberta, in search of history and on rounding a corner eye up something curious. Here’s a most beautiful setting overlooking a forested valley and on this spot two simple crosses mark this mine road memorial. We came to look at some coal mining remains...
Among collectors of classic vehicles there’s a fringe group that does things a little different. A little? Let’s label them crazy weirdos and leave it at that. There’s no ’57 Bel Airs for these folks, no T-Birds, no roided out muscle cars, but instead things called Fishbowls, Old Looks and...
We’re standing on 95th, a tattered paper in one hand and camera long past its prime in the other. This can only mean one thing – that’s it time for another BIGDoer.com Then & Now, this one touching on a theme we really like, an ordinary street scene. Printed on...
We’re visiting a charming county church built just over a century ago. Not all that far from Calgary, perhaps you’ve seen it beside highway while on your way to some weekend fun out in the badlands. It’s located a bit outside its namesake town, just before a dip down into...
Massive wood beams and what must be a million bolts make up this imposing structure, an abandoned train trestle found along a branchline closed decades ago. This is a former Canadian Pacific property in Northern Alberta, put in during the 1920s and witness to its last train in the early...
Kenopsia: "the eerie atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but now vacant or abandoned."
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Franco Media:
Moose Jaw SK Train Station (~90 Yrs Apart)
Anonymous:
Kart World or Kart Gardens? (2014)
Ross Hamilton:
Prairie Sentinels: Cadillac Sask
Anonymous:
Dominion Bridge Calgary (Ramsay) ca1960-2014
John Kinnear:
World of F.E.A.R Figure-8 (Abandoned)
Dale:
Forgotten Coal Town Cemetery
Rob Pohl & Arturo Pianzola:
Royston Wrecks (Vancouver Island BC)
Dale:
Shandro Historic Village (Closed)
Margaret Nemeth:
Bridge Hunting: Highway 13 Scotsguard
Anonymous:
Grain Elevators of Consort Alberta
John Kinnear:
Commander Mine 1935-1956
Cindy Miller Reade:
Prairie Sentinels: Coderre Saskatchewan
Margaret Nemeth:
Eastern (Deutsch-Canadier) Block (2014)
Jason Sailer:
Fairbanks Morse H16-66 (CPR #7009)
Margaret Nemeth:
Robsart Saskatchewan 61 Years Apart
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