Presenting JB Fletcher’s, Ainsworth British Columbia, and it’s seen roughly forty five years apart. This former general store was photographed by Beautiful British Columbia Magazine back in 1978 and a comparison shot captured by us a year or so ago. It’s a timeless scene! The store had only been closed...
We’re in Bellevue Alberta, southern part of the province and right in the front ranges of the Rockies. Here’s the business district and in the background the incredible scar on Turtle Mountain. Welcome to the Crowsnest Pass region (our home away from home) and it’s most noteworthy feature, the Frank...
It’s time for a little fun on the Lethbridge Pathways system! On the route shared today, you’ll be under the cottonwoods, down by the the Oldman River and always in the shadow of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s towering Viaduct (aka the High Level Bridge). There’s wooded groves, open green spaces,...
Boler! / Exploring History / Hikes And Summits / Old Things / Other Fun
by Chris Doering · Published January 1, 2024 · Last modified December 13, 2024
Coming Soon (part two): more amazing places the Team has visited and will be posting about in the coming year. As always, it’s a varied menu of subjects, to keep things interesting, and here’s the list. There’s mining remains, lost cemeteries, roadside memories, something “super”, mountain adventures, things the railway...
Boler! / Exploring History / Hikes And Summits / Other Fun / Then And Now
by Chris Doering · Published January 1, 2024 · Last modified September 15, 2024
Coming Soon (1st installment): presenting places we’ve explored the last little while and the posts that will come from these incredible adventures. We’re talking a wild assortment and we’re sure you’ll enjoy every single one as much as we did documenting them. We simply love what we do, and beyond...
Jellyfish of Comox Harbour: wasting away the day wandering the marina and in search of interesting things to photograph. There’s personal craft, fishing boats and these are the reason for our visit, but one can’t help be mesmerized by the large number of odd translucent creatures floating about. They’re a...
Here’s a Then & Now with a BIGDoer family connection and it was only twenty seven years in the making. Presenting our kid and his kid (our grandkid) both at ten years old in the cab of the same excursion steam locomotive. The original was captured in Donalda and the...
The bridge is old, narrow and spans the mighty Columbia River. There’s lights at each end for one-way alternating traffic and for decades, long ago, it was the only way get to the other side. Autos or foot traffic. A long crossing of many hundred metres, it was an ambitious...
Welcome to another (hopefully) fun and informative BIGDoer.com Then & Now! In this instalment we’re looking at downtown Fort Macleod Alberta and comparing two shots taken roughly seventy five years apart. This community is timeless and incredibly appears little changed over time. Take a look for yourself! The Then photo...
Catching a Boler in motion out in the wild does not happen often and requires luck on your side. They’re elusive foes at the best of times and when it plays out it’s by random chance. The stars have to align. Today was just such a day and here’s one...
This easy and enjoyable hike happens not terribly far from Calgary in the West Bragg Creek trail network. Via a loop and making use of several interconnecting trails it takes in the goal of lowly Boundary Ridge. It’s a bump that barely rises above the surrounding countryside, but is still...
Sometimes we’ll just watch trains and if any show up that’s great and if there’s none that’s fine too. We’ll pick a spot somewhere within sight of the tracks, camera in hand, drop a blanket, bring a book, and perhaps a little snack. Then we wait. Sometime the efforts are...
The Boler Bar High River Alberta: they have the coffee and we got the sticker. It’s a good day! We have a special fondness for Bolers, but you already knew that, and repurposing one into a mobile coffee kiosk seems like a stroke of genius. The two were meant to...
The subject in today’s Then & Now is the quaint-looking Chinook Motel, Sentinel Alberta, in the scenic and historic Crowsnest Pass. With Crowsnest Mountain a backdrop, we’ll first look at it in the 1960s, thanks to an old postcard image sent in by a reader, and then again some fifty...
In spite of their close proximity to many places we frequent, we’ve seldom explored the Porcupine Hills in Southern Alberta. They’re always within sight when driving major highways in the area yet to us remain mostly a mystery. There’s scattered history in those hills, that we know, and many hiking...
Tranquille BC Sanatorium near Kamloops: opened in 1907 to treat tuberculosis, closed as a mental health facility about 75 years later, mostly empty ever since and said to be haunted. It’s on private land and in talking with an employee(?) of the agricultural firm working on the property, the entire...
The Fort Motel in Fort MacLeod Alberta does it old school and offers road weary travellers vintage motor court style accommodations. You might view it as dated or tired, but to to us it’s a charming throwback and wonderfully kitschy. What ever your opinion, it’s a style of motel that’s...
Let’s explore the grain elevator row in Arrowwood Alberta across time. First we’ll look at it many decades back, and with all but one of these iconic buildings now gone, we’ll present a more recent view. The change has been dramatic and a touch sad too. Once they’re history a...
Depending on the write up you might see it called Sunrise Hill, Rainy Summit Overlook or maybe both will be used (like here). It’s an outlier of long Powderface Ridge and can be reached in one of two ways. The first is via a side-path off the popular and aptly...
St Francis in the Woods is found out in BC’s Kootenay region and dates back well over a hundred years. Secreted away down a seldom used back road, this quaint little church seems far removed from the modern world and while no longer used in a spiritual capacity, it still...
The Crowsnest Pass of Southwestern Alberta draws us in like a magnet and we’re regular visitors. If you’ve followed our exploits for a bit, however, then you already knew we had a romance going on. Today our subject is the CPR Crowsnest Railyard at Summit Lake, at the west end...
We’re in Three Hills Alberta doing a research project and have a few hours to spare after finishing early. What to do…what shall we do…? How about a little walk about and let’s get to know the community a little better. Sounds like a plan but given it was a...
“Thanks” to prevailing winds, smoke from distant forest fires will sometimes blanket the city of Calgary during the summer. It’s just how it plays out and the skies will often remain hazy for days or even weeks on end. Heaven help those with respiratory problems and even for people who...
We’ve driven through beautiful Kaslo British Columbia countless times but any stops made in the community have always been brief in nature. It’s odd, because it has all the traits of a place we’d really like to get to know, yet here we are. There’s so much history and it’s...
Random Pick: It’s just as the title suggests and we simply close our eyes, select a previously unpublished photo and post it here. Be it good or bad, profound or embarrassing cringe. So far it’s been pretty decent stuff, but one day it’ll be awful and we just know it....
Pointless: “Devoid of meaning (or) senseless” Merriam-Webster. Yup, that’s this post nicely summarized and while it might seem silly, we love stuff like this. If it’s got an obscure angle, like here, we’re on it even more and although a serious time waster, we can’t help ourselves. Presenting the Pointless...
The Marblehead Underground Quarry is an expansive, graffiti covered chamber, that up until the late 1930s produced dimensional building stones. These blocks were shipped out by rail and used in the construction of commercial and institutional structures in the region and all across the west. We’ll list a couple of...
It’s Boler Bob, a little egg-camper from the 1970s spotted for sale in the Crownest Pass of Alberta in August 2021. It’s not ours, so please don’t message us. It happens every time we post – remember we have this weird obsession and only photograph them. These trailers are always...
These Alberta Government grain cars have been roaming the rails for forty+ years and approaching retirement, but a select number have found a new home on the Battle River Railway. While looking worn out, and graffiti covered, they’re still serviceable and help alleviate car shortages on the line. That they’re...
This hike to Myrtle Mountain, in the Kimberley Nature Park Trail Network (Kimberley British Columbia), visits a number of superb viewpoints. Look out over town, the broad Rocky Mountain Trench and up the St Mary’s River Valley – it’s all wonderful scenery. It’s a fair sized loop with a bit...
Kenopsia: "the eerie atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but now vacant or abandoned."
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