Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie

Herronton…this tiny little place, a blip on the map. A collection of homes, a small clustering, found along some dusty Alberta backroad. While not the middle of nowhere, in feel, it’s not far removed from that proverbial place. The population…it can be counted on one hand…maybe two (we saw no...

If we had but a single word, one word only to describe today’s subject, it’d be “funky”. We present to you the “dome home”, south of Calgary and perhaps the strangest dwelling we’ve ever documented. No shortage of personality here! A guarantee – every single person driving past it on...

This location is remote. Blinkin’ remote. Middle of nowhere, there’s nothing around for miles, the nearest living person is in another time zone remote. We visited the area and the population doubled. You get it…right? It’s isolated! At some out-of-the-way crossroads and today acting as a community hall for those...

There’s an impressive wood-framed trestle along the abandoned rail line at Waskatenau Alberta. Built of massive beams it’s been here for close to a century and spans a little water course just outside town. The rail’s still in place across it, but it’s been many years since they’ve been polished...

The community hall was heart of any small town, village or region, its social centre. Anywhere there was a population you’d find one of these structures. Typically long and rectangular, usually plain and unassuming, they were located somewhere close to “downtown”, or at some important crossroads intersection in more rural...

As old-school wood grain elevators go, this one, found in the town of Bentley Alberta is a relative youngster. Still, it follows a very traditional design and in construction, layout, function, so pretty much everything, albeit in a somewhat more massive form, it’s not all that dissimilar from ones much,...

The one room school. At one time, long ago, there were thousands of these little learning institutions scattered across rural Alberta. There was so many in fact, I doubt an accurate count is even possible. Often located along some remote middle-of-nowhere backroad, every so-many clicks or so and depending on...

There are three very interesting bridges spanning the mighty Columbia River all a stone’s throw from downtown Trail British Columbia. One is over a hundred years old and not long for this world, it’s going soon, further upstream and under construction is a structure that will replace the former. A...

A barn is a barn is a barn. In most minds one is the same as the next. It’s a rectangular-ish shaped building, usually, used for agricultural purposes sitting in a farm yard, more likely than not painted red and with a distinctive “barn roof”. It’s the latter, a multi-pitched...

Located next to bustling MacLeod Trail, tiny St Paul’s Anglican Church ranks as Calgary’s oldest. In fact, when built, it wasn’t even within the borders of the city (well then, a town) and was well south, the community eventually growing around it over time. Ir dates back some hundred and...

Almost every last town, village or hamlet across the vast Canadian Prairies was at one time home to a building much like the one we’ll be looking at today. Towering over everything, the flat expanse of the land, the community itself, they were always located in a prominent spot usually...

Victoria Park, just southeast of and across the tracks from downtown Calgary was for much of its history a working class neighbourhood. One of the city’s earlier communities, almost all the many homes that once stood within its borders are long gone, replaced by endless parking lots in support of...

Gravitas: a work of sculpture by Keith Harder. Located in a farmer’s field in Southern Alberta, it’s made of bits and pieces of vintage World War Two Anson aircraft. From the ground it looks like a scrap pile with no order or layout. Just a jumble of old planes forgotten...

Today we visit the lone grain elevator in Flaxcombe Saskatchewan. In the past there were a number of such structures in the community, but this is the last one. It’s a rare beast, here, and especially so when taken in the scope of the entire province – it’s one of...

The home, the barn, everything seen in this yard once served a rather unique and special purpose. Operating as a fully functioning “demonstration farm”, near Vulcan Alberta, and tied to the Canadian Pacific Railway, it was a show piece from a century ago promoting the region’s agricultural potential. Come, see...