Monthly Archive: October 2014

Meeting Creek railway station

Meeting Creek station and elevators

This post has been updated: An Evening in Meeting Creek The old photos and a few snippets have been kept and are seen below… …Inside are a number of displays and bits related to the day to day operations of an elevator, including a very old drive engine, in the...

Fort MacLeod Post Office

Fort MacLeod AB then and now – post office

The two pictures we’ll be looking at in this report show the Fort MacLeod Alberta post office at two completely different times in the building’s history. The first image, scanned from an old postcard, was shot sometime in 1950s and we return some sixty years later to see how it...

Austin A40 Somerset

Saskatchewan: old vehicles and equipment part 2

In May 2014 we toured the southwest corner of Saskatchewan on a quest to find grain elevators, ghost towns and abandoned farms. We also came in search of vintage cars, trucks (especially), strange and odd motorhomes, locomotives – anything old and interesting that has wheels and an engine. And guess...

Picture Butte elevator

Prairie Sentinels – Picture Butte Alberta

Picture Butte, a small town located just north of Lethbridge, is home to one traditional wooden grain elevator, which is today’s subject. This massive structure, long since closed down by it’s original owner, but today being used by a local farmer to store grain, sits alongside an abandoned rail line....

Banded Peak

Powderface Ridge

This was not our first trip up Powderface Ridge this year, Earlier in the spring we hiked it, but a thick fog prevented us from seeing anything once at the summit. What a bummer, as we heard the views were stupendous. Even before we finished that first trip, we vowed...

Sulphur Springs Kananaskiis hike

Elbow Valley – Sulphur Springs loop

For this delightful foothills hike we follow the Elbow Valley trail east from the Ing’s Mine day use area, then loop back to where we started using the Sulphur Springs trail on the return leg. While much of the trip is in the trees, every now and then things open...

Boler camping trailer

South Calgary Boler

Boler spotting can be thought of as a big game of hide and seek. These trailers are often secreted away on someone’s property, in a backyard, in alleys or parked on tree lined driveways, and as such are often difficult to catch. A passionate player of the Boler spotting game...

CPR rail yard Crowsnest

Crowsnest railyards then and now

Some forty years separate the two images seen here in this report. In them we look at the CPR’s Crowsnest Line, in the town of Crowsnest, straddling the BC/Alberta border. The first photograph was submitted to us by a reader of the BIGDoer.com website, and was taken way back in...

South End of Lawson Kananaskis

South End of Lawson

A short and steep trail heads up to the South End of Lawson, aka Little Lawson or simply South Lawson, a rocky summit with stupendous views of Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Kananaskis Lakes and the Opal Ranges (among others). This destination is a highpoint on a long undulating ridge that...

Elevators Milk River

Prairie Sentinels – Milk River Alberta

The small southern Alberta community of Milk River is home to three very photogenic traditional-style wood cribbed grain elevators. It’s almost a “row”, which I know is technically four or more, but does it really matter here? Trivialities aside, finding this many elevators in one spot in 2014 is pretty...

Saskatchewan arch bridge

Bridge Hunting – Highway 37 Saskatchewan

This report we’ll be looking at another of Saskatchewan’s iconic bowstring arch bridges. In the 1920s and 30s around eighty of these graceful structures were built, and fair number remain today. Some are still being used for road traffic, some are pedestrian use only, and others have been abandoned like...

Maple Creek SK post office

Maple Creek SK then and now – post office

In this “then and now” we look at the Maple Creek Saskatchewan Post Office, first in 1911, via a photo from an old postcard, and then how the fine old building appears today. And it looks wonderful. This series was shot during our (now, almost famous) spring 2014 Saskatchewan grain...

Vintage Boler trailer

Innisfail Boler

This 13 foot Boler – or 3.96 metre if we must metric-ize it – and I usually do but admittedly the conversion here is downright awkward – was spotted on a blustery, miserable, cold and rainy day in the central Alberta town of Innisfail. It was not a day conducive...

Greenhill Mine Ridge

Greenhill Mine Ridge

The unofficially named Greenhill Mine Ridge or simply Greenhill Ridge, a modest sized bump that was once mined for coal, offers some surprisingly good views from its lowly summit. This hike follows a series of old roads, 4×4 tracks with the occasional bit of bushwhacking thrown in for good measure....

Grain elevator Rosedale AB

Prairie Sentinels – Rosedale Alberta

The small community of Rosedale Alberta is located in the scenic Red Deer River valley near Drumheller and is home to one relatively modern wooden grain elevator. This imposing structure, today is in private hands, yet it’s still painted in the colours of its former owner. Until recently there was...

Marion 360 shovel

Diplomat Mine site

The Diplomat Mine interpretive site is home to two gargantuan mining shovels, built on such a scale that it’s hard to even describe them. Even in person, their size is simply overwhelming. Both are quite old and each toiled away for years at the mine extracting coal and overburden day...

UGG elevator Gull Lake

Prairie Sentinels – Gull Lake Saskatchewan

Situated along the Canadian Pacific Railway’s busy east/west mainline, Gull Lake Saskatchewan is home to two old and very photogenic traditional style wood-cribbed grain elevators; and one newer high throughput concrete grain terminal. The former will be the subject of this report, the latter, being too new and not terribly...

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