Team BIGDoer first visited Coderre Saskatchewan in 2014 and a decade later made a triumphant return. On the follow-up visit there were parades, speeches by dignitaries and a holiday declared. Well, the town dog showed up to see the goings on but soon left to chase a leaf blowing in...
This post is originally from 2014 and presented in that context: It appears time is running out for the 100 year old Eastern (Deutsch-Canadier) Block on busy MacLeod Trail near downtown Calgary. Neglected and showing its age, the building has been vacated and boarded up recently. The future is uncertain...
Here’s an old post from years back, pulled from the remains of a badly crashed archive, fixed up, edited and made new again. The photos show a Fairbanks Morse model H16-66 locomotive and it’s a rare beast indeed. Today it’s one of two left. It’s first seen in High River...
There are four Picklejar Lakes, each lovely in its own unique way and all nestled in an amazingly picturesque cirque. They’re a popular destination for both hikers and anglers, and getting there is a relatively easy task. The trail up, for the most part, has a moderate grade and is...
Let’s focus attention on the little community of Carbon Alberta and more specifically, the town’s grain elevator row. Down there by the tracks, or in the present context where they and those structures used to be. Those prairie sentinels, the train station, the railway itself and the section house far...
In the days before 7-11s and Circle Ks (or earlier Mac’s), you might shop for convenience goods at local mom and pop corner store located right in your own neighbourhood. They were everywhere and a place to pick up a jug or loaf on the way home from work. The...
Hiking the Bustall Pass trail should be on everyone’s bucket list and the scenery is so amazing that it’s difficult to describe. We’ve done it multiple times and it’s always mind blowing. Winter or summer, it’s just as awesome. There’s little wonder that it rates as one the best must-do...
The tiny-dot-on-the-map community of Robsart Saskatchewan goes back just over one hundred and ten years, had an early but brief foray with success, and today is a shadow of its former self. It’s home to many more ghosts than people and this made quite evident by simply wandering its empty...
This little adventure happened while we were out on BC’s gorgeous Vancouver Island late last year and for the first time in eons, we had nothing to do, report on or to document. It’s a lazy afternoon and served no purpose but to be fun. Greetings from Comox Fisherman’s Wharf,...
It’s abandoned, weather-beaten to all hell and found at a lonely prairie crossroads. Our subject, Notre Dame de Savoie Catholic Church is well over a century old now but last used for services some sixty years ago. So empty longer than used. It’s showing its age and keep in mind...
The two photos that make up this Then & Now were shot from the same position, but at least fifty years apart. It’s repeated here all too often, but it’s a great thrill to stand where an old photo was captured, and take one that’s similar. Call it weird. In...
Here’s something a bit different, a disused golf course and it’s right in the city. Located in an older Calgary neighbourhood, the facility, Highland Golf Course (alt: Highland Park Golf Course) closed down a dozen years ago now. Most of the photos seen here date back to February 2016 and...
Middle of Nowhere: a place far away from other people, houses, or cities (Merriam-Webster). Many spots in Saskatchewan are in contention here! Today’s subject might just claim that proverbial title, and it’s pretty far removed from everywhere. There are people in the area – just not that many – and...
Flashback to early 2013 and some bad snapshots! Farmer Jones Carz was a Calgary institution for decades, a used car dealer selling el-cheap-o transportation and doing it in an unashamedly quirky style. They sold vehicles that no other self respecting lot would touch and seemed truly proud of the fact....
It’s just a former rail siding, and nothing more, with the name of Oberlin Alberta. No town here. Its claim to fame, at least at the time of our visit in spring 1997, were the two grain elevators that stood along an abandoned railway line. Like so many other prairie...
Hello Rosebery BC! It’s the summer of 1989 and yours truly (for those who don’t know, this means Chris, half of Team BIGDoer, who’s writing this particular post) was single and living out in Vancouver BC. Awesome place in many ways, but too expensive and chaotic. Anyway…after working non-stop for...
Flashback to 2014! It’s a glorious Alberta day and our goal is to find and photograph a special location from the 1994 film Legends of the Fall. Target: the Ludlow Family Cemetery. There’s no roads to guide the way and only faint cart tracks or cow paths through the grass...
Flashback to 2014! The old train station in Manyberries Alberta has been around for well over a century now. Somehow it’s survived when so many others like it have been relegated to history and when visited by us being cared for by a couple that called it home. It sits...
The old grain elevator stands alone in a field, battered and beaten after having been abandoned for many decades. We’ve seen a lot of structures like this in our travels and few are as sorry looking as the one seen here. Still, it has a rather odd dignity and elegance,...
Numerous scenes in the 1976 movie Silver Streak were filmed in and around Southern Alberta. Interestingly, they all play US locations. As you might guess, we searched out these spots, many years back in fact, and used them for a number of now outdated Then & Now posts. Those ones...
Presenting another random pick from our huge library of photos and once again we’ve cheated the devil. There’s nothing embarrassing, damning or incriminating here. There’s a surprising number of photos in our collection that fall into one or more of those categories, so it’s bound to happen. Just not today....
Today we’re hiking at Glenbow Ranch Park and it’s just a short distance from the big city. West of Calgary’s, just off the 1A and towards the Bow River. There’s a good number of hiking trails here where one can get away from it all and without having to go...
Today we’ll visit the historic Ainsworth Cemetery in a shady and peaceful setting overlooking Kootenay Lake. There among the trees, a bit up the hill above former mining camp, it’s a perfectly serene location to spend all eternity. We’re in BC’s East Kootenay region, itching to explore and connect with...
It’s no secret we’re vintage RV obsessed. Original or restored, something pulled or driven and no matter the make, we’re interested. Of course, its Bolers and their little fibreglass trailer brethren that seem to occupy our thoughts the most, but anything of the type will do. Here’s a nice GMC...
The Greenhill Hotel has been a prominent landmark in Blairmore Alberta for just over a century now. This structure, distinctive with its columns and barn-like gambrel roof, is quite a standout. It’s located between the road and railway tracks and noticeable not only by its design but by location. You...
The scene presented in this post was captured on the road home and the timing attributed to dumb luck. Burning down the highway – hard left into town, hard right along the tracks, and something magic unfolds. There’s the Pioneer grain elevator, there’s a passing train and the sun, a...
Bow River Loop SE Calgary: it’s an in-city hike but doesn’t always feel it. The route described here passes through parks, green spaces and natural areas, so it insulates one from all the urban nonsense. The city is all around, but here it’s a place of cottonwoods and grasslands, instead...
The quest: search out locations in Alberta used in making the blockbuster movie Superman 1978 for a series of Then & Now posts. Or rather a do-over of Then & Now posts. The Team did a good number on this very subject far in the past but it’s time for...
Seen under the Blush Spa sign in Cranbrook, BC. It’s the summer of 2022 (July I think), we’re coming back to our home base in town after some backroad adventures, and there it is. Today, it’s a drive-by capture, done while still in motion. Good thing we keep a camera...
Over the years we’ve explored hundreds of forgotten farm houses, in cooperation with landowners, and never tire of it. Here’s one in a building material we’ve not encountered before in such an application, and we think you’ll agree it’s something special. Something a bit odd and out of the ordinary,...
Kenopsia: "the eerie atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but now vacant or abandoned."
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Ghost Railways: Fort Macleod Alberta
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