Monthly Archive: October 2016

Ranchmen Motel Medicine Hat

Dive Motel

Team BIGDoer has this fondness for dive motels. You might call it strange. As accommodations go, they’re low cost, which is a plus for us professional historians (yes, it’s a career) who dream of minimum wage as some sort of glorious income nirvana. We’re budget minded, we have to be,...

Avro Anson World War Two

Gravitas

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...

N&FS Railway Columbia Gardens

The Railway

One of the shorter short-lines in the country, this little stretch of track still serves a very crucial purpose. In that sense it’s no less important than the big transcontinental players. A busy firm, the line’s only customer, uses it to send much of their output to market. Once every...

Boler Trailer Calgary

Highway Boler

We’ve stumbled across our share of Bolers. Hundreds and hundreds of them in fact, perhaps even more – we’re not keep a running total. While we do catch them out on the road now and then, it’s overall pretty rare. The great majority we find are stationary and seen in...

Railway Derail

Prairie Sentinels – Flaxcombe Saskatchewan

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...

Vulcan CPR Demonstration Farm

CPR Demonstration Farm

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...

Turtle Mountain Crowsnest

Hillcrest-Mohawk #5

Time to take in another trademark BIGDoer.com history hike! This outing takes place in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta, and allows hikers to summit a modest height bump, which we’ll call Hillcrest Mohawk #5 Hill, that long ago was home to an underground coal mining operation. Using old mine roads...

Autocar Coal Hauler

Autocar Coal Hauler

Our subject today, a monster truck, in retirement but looking fine and in fully running condition, that once hauled coal in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta. A shiny bright blue, an almost playful colour belying its brutish, all business/no-nonsense demeanour, it’s taken out once in a while for a shakedown...

Beautiful Rummel Lake

Rummel Lake

Another spectacular hike in the Smith Dorrien/Spray Lakes area of Kananaskis. This outing is a fairly easy going one on a well defined rail, with gentle grades and modest elevation gain. The goal is Rummel Lake, with wonderful Turquoise waters in a basin below a towering peak. But wait, there’s...

Aspen Crossing Train Ride

Train Day at Aspen Crossing

It’s Train Day at Aspen Crossing! Come join in on the adventure and ride the rails in an eclectic mix of of old-school passenger cars sourced from all over North America. The consist, pulled by a vintage diesel locomotive, travels across the rolling prairies not terribly far from of Calgary,...

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