Built near a century ago, the Hillcrest United Church (formerly Hillcrest Methodist) in the Crowsnest Pass held its last services in the 1990s and is today privately owned. This fine old building, located a street west of “downtown” Hillcrest, looks fantastic for its age and with Turtle Mountain towering above it’s in a wonderfully picturesque setting.
The building was heavily renovated in the 1980s and at that time, a basement was added.
Hillcrest is a former coal mining town and is home to good number of historic buildings. We have plans to document more of these, and this same church in greater detail, at some point in the future.
The day of our visit we were blessed with amazing Alberta blue skies. Lucky us, this seems to happen a lot for us.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or 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: July, 2015. Location: Crowsnest Pass, AB. This site can be viewed from a public road.
The hardware business is long gone but their old sign from about a century ago remains. We were doing a little walk-about in Three Hills and had a tip to look here. It's little things like this that we love the most, hidden reminders of things that came before and clues to the past that aren't so obvious.
More info in the comments👇
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2023. Posted by Connie.
The Canadian Pacific Railway at Summit Lake Crowsnest Pass in 1983 and 2023. The trains still run, but the railyard and associated infrastructure is a distant memory. Haze in the now photo is from distant forest fires. The old Summit Hotel can be seen in back in both and it's one of the few things still standing here from earlier times.
The Then photo come thanks to the John Bjorklund collection at the Center for Railroad Photography & Art and is used with permission. They sent us others and we'll hopefully be putting them to use later this year.
Go to the comments for more info 👇
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Posted by Connie.
Thanks to the The Val Family for making this post possible. If you like what we do and want to support this ongoing project (12 years now), go here: https://www.BIGDoer.com/help-the-society/
Two things that make us giddy in Hodgeville Saskatchewan and now both are gone. That majestic grain elevator dates from 1967 and sadly it was torn down a few years back. There's a Canada 100 logo high up there on the cupola.
The home made motorhome is something else and locals insisted it was powered by a radial engine salvaged off a De Havilland Beaver bush plane. How in the world? The fellow who built it passed on before its completion and soon after our visit it was scrapped. Rural folks seem to have this crazy ability to craft something they need out of any old bits and pieces lying around.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2014. Posted by Connie.
The Legion Hall and Monarch Garage, Loverna Saskatchewan, early 1990s (not 1970s as shown) and the same view in 2017. There's not much going on in Loverna these days, but long ago it was a very active and vibrant community. This was shot between takes while working on the Telus Documentary "Forgotten Prairie" by Rueben Tschetter.
Check the comments for more information. Original image thanks to and copyright Philip Brown.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Posted by Connie.
It's no secret Team BIGDoer is Boler obsessed but we're actually not owners, funny as it sounds. We can only dream and you know if we could, we would. The only thing holding us back from buying one, like the nice example seen here, is the cash to actually make the purchase and a proper vehicle to haul it around. Other than that, we're good to go!
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2021. Posted by Connie.
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A picturesque setting!
It sure is. The Pass is nice that way.
Such a beautiful little building.
In a wonderful setting.