The strange beast seen here, basking in the sun on the first day of 2015, is called a locomotive crane and is used in railway maintenance of way service. They are used lift or place what ever needs to be..well…lifted or placed. Self propelled it can travel from work site...
Plain and simple, we’re a bit confused. This is a Boler, is says so and anyway we know so by its recognizable form,, but it also says it’s a Bigfoot, which is another trailer brand altogether. And what in the heck is a luxury edition? We don’t recall ever seeing...
The coal mines we’ll be exploring here, found near Donalda Alberta, date from the first half of the twentieth century and were two of hundreds of such operations that once existed in the province. Smaller mines in particular, as these are, could be found all over, supplying their local markets,...
Here’s something we’ve personally never seen before: grain cars, presumably spotted there for loading, sitting at the old Cargill, now Canada Malting, grain elevator in Beiseker. We’ve been driving past the building with regularity since the 1990s and this is a first for us. Any time we’ve checked the siding...
The pair of pictures seen here, the first supplied by a legend of photography, Harry Palmer, the second from us, show the same Calgary skyline scene some thirty years apart. A lot has happened between the shooting of his photo in 1983 and ours in 2014 – many new towers...
In the final installment in this series we look at broad range of old cars and trucks, dating from the 1920s and up, found on our spring 2014 Saskatchewan trip. The province is that good, a real treasure chest of fun and excitement for those who search out vintage vehicles...
The central structure in the large complex seen here is a vintage wooden grain elevator. Located in Coaldale Alberta, it dates from the 1930s while the metal bins that flank either side are much newer. Today a specialized firm works out this facility and they store grain, feed, fertilizer and...
In production from 1934-1957, Galt #8 was the last coal mine in the Lethbridge area. Remains seen today include a head frame, water tower and work shops. Once owned by the CPR, now in private hands, the operation sits right beside the famous Lethbridge Viaduct train bridge, the longest and...
While traveling forgotten back roads, as we are apt to do, we often unexpectedly and completely by chance stumble across some really interesting finds. We’ve discovered long abandoned homesteads or farms, or their remains, vintage equipment and old cars and trucks by the score. Included in the latter category are...
With scant time to spare before the sun set completely, fellow history buff Jon Dirks and I take a few minutes, in waning light, to explore a barn near the town of Gleichen, east of Calgary. A barn is a barn right? Sure, but this one is a little different...
While searching through some old photos we found this unpublished image showing a “big” 17 foot Boler (when designed Canada still used the Imperial system). Well, we’ll have to fix that and post it. This example was found in the Calgary Community of Lynnwood way back in October of 2013....
The 1985 Disney film The Journey of Natty Gann is set in the dark days of the 1930s depression and tells the story of a young girl and her travels. She, with her father, live in a dumpy old hotel in Chicago, but he soon heads west, alone, in search...
Just over century old, the Horseshoe Dam (also called the Horseshoe Falls Dam) is located along the Bow River in the foothills west of Calgary. This massive concrete structure was the very first sizable hydroelectric facility in Alberta and to this day continues to supply power for the province’s needs....
This “urban” hike we follow a route which parallels the Bow River southwards from a point just east of downtown Calgary, a journey that takes us through a huge number of varied environments. We pass though and by grimy industrial areas and railways yards, neglected city parks, wooded river flats,...
Digging into the archives from a few years back, we find some photos showing a massive railway bridge located on the CPR’s busy east/west mainline in the former town of Mitford, very near Cochrane. This structure is old and in times now gone, it once saw the passing of many...
Someone must love their little Boler. Check out the plate seen in the window of this 17 foot example, found in the old and established Calgary community of Inglewood. This trailer has been outfitted with air conditioning. That option was never offered by the factory, at least based on the...
Conrad Alberta still merits a dot on most maps, even though there is really nothing left of the town, save for a couple homes, the moribund remains of a CPR branch line and the old station sign next to the tracks. The community was established in the 1910s and never...
Waking up bright and early on a cool May morning in Shuanavon Saskatchewan, we make our way to the nearby railyards to see what we can find. We’re not disappointed and find some old boxcars and other vintage railway equipment to document along with two massive old school wooden grain...
When the subject “what’s the toughest heavy truck ever made” comes up, the name Hayes, of Vancouver BC, is sure to make mention time and again. These over-built nearly indestructible monsters were well regarded by those who owned and operated them, and while you could find them at work nearly...
Even though it was a fairly large scale and long lasting operation, surprisingly very little is left from the Bluebell Mine located in Riondel BC. In production, sometimes intermittently, from the mid-1890s all the way to 1972 it was for that time the very cornerstone of the local economy. Now...
Of all the little fibreglass trailers out there from the throngs of manufacturers that did or do make similar looking or similarly sized RVs to the Boler, the Lil’ Bigfoot by Bigfoot RV stands out as the most look-alike of all. It’s a near carbon copy, almost a clone. From...
Interior then and now shots are tough! With everything so tight and close in and all those complex lines it’s near impossible to make things look right. Move a fraction to get a better angle on axis X and you’ll ruin Y. Fix Y and ruin X and so on....
The two photos seen in this then and now article were shot from the same spot, only some forty years apart. The location is the Calgary community of North Glenmore Park and what we’re looking at is a simple street scene. There’s an intersection in a residential area, a small...
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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