A couple years back we were commissioned by a good sized publisher to do a piece on the subject of farming. It was to be a grand article about the people and machinery that make things happen, covering the complete “A to Z”, so seeding to harvest and everything else....
There is nothing more exciting than poking around an old metal collection. It’s doesn’t matter the size of it, or what’s inside, it’s always a magic experience. All those ancient cars, trucks and machinery or whatever to photograph, these rusted monuments of days past, formerly someone’s pride and joy or...
Proof that Boler-radar, that uncanny sense, something akin to the “force” that tells one a Boler is in the area even if unseen or mostly so, is strong stuff folks. Take in this one, a Boler well set back from our position, so far a 500mm lens did little compress...
At the extreme western edge of Inglewood, backing on the Elbow River, beside the tracks, and in the shadow of downtown, stands the old Penguin Car Wash. The building has been empty for a good half dozen years, give or take, a shell of a place open to the elements...
We have this strange fascination with small towns. They have such character and charm. Still, it’s even deeper than that, so while we can’t quite put our finger on the deep down reasons why we do it, what ever it is draws us in like a magnet And the best...
Where Highway Ten crosses the Red Deer, at a place called Cambria, turn and glance north for a second. Over there, upstream, not far away and super easy to see, giant hunks of concrete sitting there in the middle of the river. Strange monoliths these, the remains of two bridges,...
That chunk of Kananaskis in the north is generally the domain of the all terrain vehicle. Still, there’s a number of places that can be hiked in the area without the two modes clashing. Lesueur Ridge, right at the K-Country Border, just west of the Forestry Trunk Road (Hwy #40),...
We walk. A lot. When the urge hits us, we pick a random spot somewhere in Calgary, or in some small town close by, point ourselves in whatever direction, put boots to pavement and just go. Take this street, take that street, follow this path or that, the direction matters...
We’re easily distracted. We’re out on a road trip going where ever (we put a lot of miles behind us as you know), see something we like and have to stop and take a few snaps. It happens all the time, trust me, and is simply the way we function....
God, the weather was awful. The bone chilling cold, howling wind, freezing rain and driven snow, a miserable weekend in the making. Or so we thought. It’s April 2017 and we’re out exploring back roads of Alberta and Saskatchewan with a rag-tag group of friends, in these horrible conditions, taking...
This here fine spring day finds us in Mossleigh Alberta, a pint-sized town just a bit southeast of Calgary. There’s all kinds of railway themed stuff here and old grain elevators – this is what we’ve come for. Today, we’re here to act as a guide for a train buff...
Perhaps a year or so back Team BIGDoer was approached by Rueben Tschetter, a well respected film producer and videographer with Cache Productions, Red Deer Alberta. Seems he’d been watching some of what we were up to – exploring abandoned places and ghost towns and chronicling the experience – and...
Some unremarkable photos here, nothing special technically or artistically, just a big fat blah in every way. If not for the subject that is. There’s the magic. Look at this place, look close, a cute little house in a small Saskatchewan town, sealed up for many years. Peer inside, the...
This here is a scared place folks. The building seen in back of Connie, home to a furniture store, was long ago a factory where Boler Trailers were produced. Yes, in this very building, just off 16th Avenue Northeast Calgary (visible from the “Trans-Canada”), they pumped out those little egg-shaped...
by Chris Doering · Published November 22, 2017 · Last modified April 2, 2019
Coming soon to BIGDoer.com! Here’s some new stuff we’ve been working on, a sampling of what’s in the pipeline, places documented over the last number of months that will be posted here soon enough. We’re itching to show you! Included are abandoned things, old farms and ranches, some of them...
Hunchback Hills, in one of the quieter areas of Kananaskis, are an interconnected series of bumps worthy of a visit. You can hike all of them as part of an extended horseshoe route of sorts – best done by those with good nav skills. Or you can make an out...
A drive down a dusty back road finds us in Loverna Saskatchewan. We’ve arrived! The community is that close to earning the title of “ghost town” and wandering quiet streets, we pass empty buildings, some near collapse, vacant lots, forgotten churches and other scattered remnants of human habitation. The silence,...
At a bend in the creek, in a secluded little coulee, we find the remains of the GBB Ranch. There used to be a lot of structures here, a good sized house, numerous sheds, outbuildings and corrals and other stuff. Today, there’s a collapsed barn, a couple pieces of old...
Came this close – I mean a hair width is wide in comparison close – to calling this post “Bury me when I die at the Alberta Railway Museum”. Heck, I even hinted at it in a preview of this article. As a train buff I’d relish the opportunity spending...
On a frigid weekend, April 2017, Chris ‘n’ Connie roll into east-central Saskatchewan accompanied by friends. We’re here filming a documentary “Forgotten Prairie”, a production highlighting this crazy obsession we have with all things abandoned and old. This day’s stop is the tiny little (almost) ghost town of Hoosier Saskatchewan....
The Red Deer River Valley is one of the more stunning places you can visit in the province. Those awesome Alberta Badlands, a wondrous setting, geologically interesting, historically fascinating and of course visually mind blowing. It’s pure magic for the senses. And because of all these qualities, it can be...
It’s a frigid and blustery weekend, April 2017. There’s this biting cold, a constant numbness. We’re here on on the plains of Saskatchewan, north of this little town, west of that one, a place sparsely populated, fields stretching off to the horizon in every direction. All around, the trying conditions,...
Here, in some random back alley, in some random Calgary neighbourhood, March of 2016, it’s a Boler for us to discover. It’s a thirteen foot model, looking a little ragged and sitting in front it’s a dirty old toilet. There’s nothing more photogenic than that! Bolers were made in a...
They call it the Canmore “Engine” Bridge. Here in a thoroughly spectacular setting, it spans the mighty Bow River and while used by pedestrians and cyclists today, it used to support a railway line that once served Canmore’s coal mine. Yes, they mined that stuff here – and in fact...
This is the year we didn’t hike (much). Conditions were partly to blame, suffering heat in the summer and all that lung-clogging smoke from forest fires across the west lasting for weeks on end. Both are Kryptonite to us. Then there was gigs – many, many, that all seemed to...
There’s not much in Buffalo Alberta – never was. Today, there’s a few houses, one or two appearing empty. There’s a thoroughly modern community hall, but mostly the town is made up of vacant lots. And there’s the abandoned rail line just over there. As for businesses there’s one, the...
If one were to drive around Calgary back in the 1970s and 1980s there was a good chance you’d pass by a Bob’s Burgers outlet. There used to be a dozen or more of them across the city (we used old phone directories to come to that number), making them...
If you have a thing for history and find yourself in North Battleford Saskatchewan the Western Development Museum is a must see. It’s a fantastic facility, good sized, well regarded, with numerous exhibits indoor and out. One highlight is a representation of a 1920s era pioneer village just like one...
Modest in stature Mt Ware, in the rolling foothills of Kananaskis a bit west of Turner Valley, has attributes unbecoming its size. There’s steep slopes, often rocky and loose underfoot topped by a narrow craggy summit, barren and windswept, more befitting a major peak than the minor bump that it...
There’s countless places like Queenstown Alberta scattered across the Canadian Prairies, little farming communities once full of promise that today seem to be hanging on by a thread. Not ghost towns in the true sense, they’re something close. There’s life, but it’s not always obvious. Imagine it. Streets to nowhere,...
Kenopsia: "the eerie atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but now vacant or abandoned."
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