In the summer you are unlikely to find us on Eagle Hill. Normally we use this trail only in the shoulder season when other more desirable routes are still covered in snow, but here at the height of summer we have a different reason to tackle it. Less than two...
Waiting patiently for a train that will never come, the lonely little grain elevator seen here sits abandoned and unloved. It’s located in the ghost town of Dorothy, deep in the Alberta badlands east of Drumheller. Somewhat off the beaten path (so perfect for us), it’s a lonely little dot...
Nanton Alberta is located south of Calgary along Highway 2. Looking much like any other small prairie town, it stands out today in that it’s home to four grain elevators. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so odd some years ago, but now these prairie sentinels are pretty rare and finding even...
Always remember to charge your camera batteries!!! For if you don’t you’ll find that it dies at the most inopportune time, like when you are deep in a gorgeous valley that just begs to be photographed. Oops, I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again! On this trip we do a...
In this post we take a look at some old gold mining equipment, an abandoned locomotive on an old rail line, a forgotten graveyard and a small glacier located deep in the mountains. These all date from 2003 and 2004 and prove that old leftovers don’t always need to be...
While exploring old buildings and sites we occasionally come across stray cats. Some are quite wild and very unhappy to see us, while others like one-eye here, are very social and friendly. Clearly he’s a fighter and beside his missing eye he had battle scars all over his entire body....
In spite of being located not terribly far from Calgary, Brown Lowery Provincial Park is still not that well known. It’s a small oasis of wilderness in amongst farms and ranches and is home to lots of wildlife and a large network of hiking trails that you can enjoy. Often...
The face of railways in Western Canada changed in the mid 1990s. Prior to that time the two major carriers were required to maintain most prairie branchlines, even if that line was a money loser (most were, even with subsidies). The government felt it was essential that they be kept...
If you’ve been a previous visitor to this site you already know I’ve taken a great interest in time lapse photography, although my equipment and the videos I have produced are strictly amateur hour stuff (I have fun though). The work you see here is what I wish I could...
Often seen from a distance, what we initially think is a Boler turns out to be Trillium – like this cold little trailer seen in a storage yard in Black Diamond Alberta. This is a more modern example from that maker, called the Trillium Outback, which has a Boler-like feature...
These photos, taken in 1992 and 2004, show some of the remains at the ghost town of Bankhead Alberta. Located inside Banff National Park, mining and other industrial activities were once tolerated here and what you see in this report is evidence of that. Quite a change from today where...
When the weather is ugly and it keeps you out of the mountains or if you’re not feeling terribly ambitious but want to get out of the city, the Friendship Trail is a nice choice. It’s a short little paved path that connects the small towns of Turner Valley and...
Hire Chris and his associates as your genealogist, history detective or research agent. As you can see by the “exploring history” articles written for this blog, Chris is fascinated with the past and is a real sticker for details – he digs up the real facts. As a “history detective”...
Connie’s challenge to me, find a Boler trailer on Google Streetview. It’s the Boler spotting game to the extreme and after many months and countless wasted hours virtually travelling throughout southern Alberta – success!! The example seen here was seen in Longview Alberta and was visited in person on December...
Chris rushed in excitedly and showed me this comparison, but after a short pause, his look changed. It's that confused expression one gets just before the face-palm, when they realize something they did just doesn't add up.
One year shy of a century separates the two images but as it turns out, they're not even of the same building. The top is Westmount School and the bottom McDougall School, both in Edmonton and not far from each other.
It took this long to realize we'd been shooting at the wrong place all this time! The two schools were built in the same year and very close in design, so it's still an interesting comparison. We had a good laugh and we'll give Chris a mulligan on this one.
Looks like we're going have to head back for a do-over.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photos: 1924 and 2023. Submitted by Connie.
It's amazing how many of these Canada Centennial Maples Leafs still exist out in the wild across the prairies. We could fill an album with the ones we've photographed. It seems rural folks embraced patriotism with more fervor than their urban counterparts, but that's just an observation.
This example was found in a small Saskatchewan town. When they placed this up above the community hall there was a certain optimism that's not seen now. Today, only a handful of people call the community home, and it's that close to being a true ghost town. Almost sixty years in place and this memorial to a 100 year celebration is still here.
If our readers have found any of these while out exploring, please share in the comments. We'd love to see them.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2014. Submitted by Connie.
Billy Clark’s Cabin in Meadow Creek BC and it dates back over a century. Now at the local museum it formerly stood in a valley a little to east and on the shores of Duncan Lake (now Ducan Lake Reservoir).
Billy was a trapper, hunter, and woodsman. All he had was this tiny log house, a small plot of land, the surrounding wilderness, and his wits for survival. Nothing more. That spirit of self reliance seems to be a lost art today.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2022. Submitted by Connie.
Both Chris and I both grew up in the malaise era for cars and get giddy when we spot one from that time out in the wild. It's like meeting an old friend. This '80s beauty was found out in a hiking area of Kananaskis and by all appearances, looks to be driven regularly.
The malaise era is marked by cars with uninspired design, quirky traits, hobbled performance and often questionable quality. Depressing stuff. This Cutlass is probably one of the better GM cars of the time, and both Chris and our son Will have owned examples in the past.
Have a malaise era story or photo to share? Post it in the comments!
Out in nature with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2023. Submitted by Connie.
We come over many rises on a the prairies and on doing so surprised by many interesting things. This one caused a double take.
This lonely locomotives sits at the then very end of track outside Leader SK and was out of service at the time. Guess they socked it away out of sight to forget about it. We found photos showing it in service the year before our visit but here it was cold and dead.
Since this photo was taken, the Great Sandhills Railway has extended the track across the road and set up some kind of transloading operation. In years passed, the track (under CP ownership) continued west all the way into Alberta, but that's a distant memory.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2014. Submitted by Connie.
The messages have been coming fast and often. No, the book we produced a couple years back is not being published after all, in spite of appearing on many websites recently. Oddly some are showing it with the cover from another volume altogether. Please don't order and it must be a glitch.
The other two books shown in our capture are available however (and are awesome) and were produced by some friends. Interestingly, Chris contributed to each and those you can order.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Submitted by Connie.
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