Railway Graves
Located close to Chancellor Alberta and within sight of the town’s grain elevator, the two graves (or grave markers) seen here belong to railway workers who perished on the job. Who they are and what where the exact circumstances of their death is a bit of a mystery. We’ve heard a number of stories and snippets from locals, most of which differed greatly from each other and were often contradictory.
About half spoken with say these are true graves with buried bodies and all, while others say that today they are simply memorial markers and at some unknown point those interred here were relocated somewhere else (but no one seems to know where).
All we know for certain is that these two fellows died as the line was being built (Update: there was only one – see new link below), so around 1912-13. Railway documents make mentioned of it, but don’t go into any details beyond that. The rail line here is the CPR’s former Irricana Subdivision branch which was finally abandoned in the 2000s.
A picture of these crosses appear in a Greg McDonnell train book (Stand Fast, Craigellachie!) which is what inspired us to go looking for them in the first place. Given the lack of photos on this subject, outside Greg’s and now ours, it’s clear that few people know they even exist. Greg was a great help in guiding us into the site, BTW. Even if close to “downtown” Chancellor, they’re hidden away enough that it would be easy miss them.
As this subject is a mystery, we’ll continue to research it more and would love to hear from anyone who may know the story behind them.
Update December 01, 2020. We know more now and have paid the site a revisit. There was one error in this post, noted above, and that was an assumption there was two people buried here. Two people – two crosses? No, just one. Read more about it here: Railway Grave (Revisted).
To read about the grain elevator seen, follow this link…
Prairie Sentinels – Chancellor Alberta.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found.
If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: September, 2014.
Location: Chancellor, AB.
Thank you for the close-up photos of this site! A nice day to photograph outdoors with a clear, blue sky and the colorful prairie landscape. A bright contrast to the tragic event that this site represents. The deceased are respectfully in my thoughts.
It’s sombre standing standing there. These poor fellows who died too early and now who sit there on vast plains all alone and forgotten. Think it’s time to honour them again and pay them a revisit.
It’s very sorrowful to see the graves of workers who died building the ABANDONED railroad…
There’s a irony here.
(via Facebook)
I lived in Chancellor for 2 1\2 years and never knew this was there.
I doubt many people do. They’re sort of hidden from view.
I used to work around the Chancellor area, never seen them before!
If you don’t know where they are, you’ll never see them.
Awe I am glad they have been found. they need some one to love them.
I’m thinking next year that Connie and I should tidy things up here.