Contact Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie and the BIGDoer.com Society! If you’re adding to the story, have something interesting to say, spotted an error or omission, want us for a job, workshop or to purchase a photo or commission an article or commercially share one, who want...
Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie/BIGDoer.com Hundreds and hundreds of articles! Over one point three million words! Over 25k photos! Tens of thousands of hours invested! Tens of thousands of visitors per month! On the menu every day: Abandoned Places Hiking Adventures Vintage Machinery Historic Sites Then &...
It’s been a custom for years to offer a gift to anyone who is the owner of a subject that appears on this website. We’re a poor broke society, so it’s a small token, but we hope it shows how much we appreciated the opportunity. We have a blast photographing...
Presenting: Rosies and The Griffon Spitfire. Here’s a bunch of folks, friends, family and associates, getting together for a charity photoshoot (and admittedly a good time) with a sleek World War Two fighter as a backdrop. The girls are stepping into the past and playing the part of a storied...
In the days before 7-11s and Circle Ks (or earlier Mac’s), you might shop for convenience goods at local mom and pop corner store located right in your own neighbourhood. They were everywhere and a place to pick up a jug or loaf on the way home from work. The...
Hiking the Bustall Pass trail should be on everyone’s bucket list and the scenery is so amazing that it’s difficult to describe. We’ve done it multiple times and it’s always mind blowing. Winter or summer, it’s just as awesome. There’s little wonder that it rates as one the best must-do...
The tiny-dot-on-the-map community of Robsart Saskatchewan goes back just over one hundred and ten years, had an early but brief foray with success, and today is a shadow of its former self. It’s home to many more ghosts than people and this made quite evident by simply wandering its empty...
This little adventure happened while we were out on BC’s gorgeous Vancouver Island late last year and for the first time in eons, we had nothing to do, report on or to document. It’s a lazy afternoon and served no purpose but to be fun. Greetings from Comox Fisherman’s Wharf,...
It’s abandoned, weather-beaten to all hell and found at a lonely prairie crossroads. Our subject, Notre Dame de Savoie Catholic Church is well over a century old now but last used for services some sixty years ago. So empty longer than used. It’s showing its age and keep in mind...
The two photos that make up this Then & Now were shot from the same position, but at least fifty years apart. It’s repeated here all too often, but it’s a great thrill to stand where an old photo was captured, and take one that’s similar. Call it weird. In...
Here’s something a bit different, a disused golf course and it’s right in the city. Located in an older Calgary neighbourhood, the facility, Highland Golf Course (alt: Highland Park Golf Course) closed down a dozen years ago now. Most of the photos seen here date back to February 2016 and...
Middle of Nowhere: a place far away from other people, houses, or cities (Merriam-Webster). Many spots in Saskatchewan are in contention here! Today’s subject might just claim that proverbial title, and it’s pretty far removed from everywhere. There are people in the area – just not that many – and...
Flashback to early 2013 and some bad snapshots! Farmer Jones Carz was a Calgary institution for decades, a used car dealer selling el-cheap-o transportation and doing it in an unashamedly quirky style. They sold vehicles that no other self respecting lot would touch and seemed truly proud of the fact....
It’s just a former rail siding, and nothing more, with the name of Oberlin Alberta. No town here. Its claim to fame, at least at the time of our visit in spring 1997, were the two grain elevators that stood along an abandoned railway line. Like so many other prairie...
Hello Rosebery BC! It’s the summer of 1989 and yours truly (for those who don’t know, this means Chris, half of Team BIGDoer, who’s writing this particular post) was single and living out in Vancouver BC. Awesome place in many ways, but too expensive and chaotic. Anyway…after working non-stop for...
Flashback to 2014! It’s a glorious Alberta day and our goal is to find and photograph a special location from the 1994 film Legends of the Fall. Target: the Ludlow Family Cemetery. There’s no roads to guide the way and only faint cart tracks or cow paths through the grass...
Flashback to 2014! The old train station in Manyberries Alberta has been around for well over a century now. Somehow it’s survived when so many others like it have been relegated to history and when visited by us being cared for by a couple that called it home. It sits...
The old grain elevator stands alone in a field, battered and beaten after having been abandoned for many decades. Weβve seen a lot of structures like this in our travels and few are as sorry looking as the one seen here. Still, it has a rather odd dignity and elegance,...
Numerous scenes in the 1976 movie Silver Streak were filmed in and around Southern Alberta. Interestingly, they all play US locations. As you might guess, we searched out these spots, many years back in fact, and used them for a number of now outdated Then & Now posts. Those ones...
Presenting another random pick from our huge library of photos and once again we’ve cheated the devil. There’s nothing embarrassing, damning or incriminating here. There’s a surprising number of photos in our collection that fall into one or more of those categories, so it’s bound to happen. Just not today....
Today we’re hiking at Glenbow Ranch Park and it’s just a short distance from the big city. West of Calgary’s, just off the 1A and towards the Bow River. There’s a good number of hiking trails here where one can get away from it all and without having to go...
Today we’ll visit the historic Ainsworth Cemetery in a shady and peaceful setting overlooking Kootenay Lake. There among the trees, a bit up the hill above former mining camp, it’s a perfectly serene location to spend all eternity. We’re in BC’s East Kootenay region, itching to explore and connect with...
It’s no secret we’re vintage RV obsessed. Original or restored, something pulled or driven and no matter the make, we’re interested. Of course, its Bolers and their little fibreglass trailer brethren that seem to occupy our thoughts the most, but anything of the type will do. Here’s a nice GMC...
The Greenhill Hotel has been a prominent landmark in Blairmore Alberta for just over a century now. This structure, distinctive with its columns and barn-like gambrel roof, is quite a standout. It’s located between the road and railway tracks and noticeable not only by its design but by location. You...
The scene presented in this post was captured on the road home and the timing attributed to dumb luck. Burning down the highway – hard left into town, hard right along the tracks, and something magic unfolds. There’s the Pioneer grain elevator, there’s a passing train and the sun, a...
Bow River Loop SE Calgary: it’s an in-city hike but doesn’t always feel it. The route described here passes through parks, green spaces and natural areas, so it insulates one from all the urban nonsense. The city is all around, but here it’s a place of cottonwoods and grasslands, instead...
The quest: search out locations in Alberta used in making the blockbuster movie Superman 1978 for a series of Then & Now posts. Or rather a do-over of Then & Now posts. The Team did a good number on this very subject far in the past but it’s time for...
Seen under the Blush Spa sign in Cranbrook, BC. It’s the summer of 2022 (July I think), we’re coming back to our home base in town after some backroad adventures, and there it is. Today, it’s a drive-by capture, done while still in motion. Good thing we keep a camera...
Over the years we’ve explored hundreds of forgotten farm houses, in cooperation with landowners, and never tire of it. Here’s one in a building material we’ve not encountered before in such an application, and we think you’ll agree it’s something special. Something a bit odd and out of the ordinary,...
Just inside Saskatchewan and we’re talking no more than a hair’s-width from the Alberta border, there’s a curious structure. You can’t miss it, standing sentinel just outside the little community of Alsask along the highway between Calgary and Saskatoon. Just a little to the north and it’s that big giant...
Patrons whose sponsored piece will be posting soon...
Byron Robb - Rob Pohl & Arturo Pianzola - Don Wilson - Johanna (Connie) Biggart - Dale - Francomedia.com - Brian D - Anonymous - Cindy Miller Reade - Richard Graydon - Margaret Nemeth
We couldn't run this website without your help and it's appreciated!
Where: Brickburn Hill, SW Calgary. Above Edworthy Park. When: ca 1912 and 2024, so 112 years apart! Who: people in the old photo include James βCappyβ Smart, Calgary's Fire Chief at the time (front seat, right) and brothers Carl and Tom Grasswick (driving and back seat right respectively). Both were auto racers of the era. More: The road it too overgrown to duplicate the original view today and the Bow River similarly hidden by trees. Brickburn Hill Road is now a walking trail but in the 1970s at least (before it became too thick with Caraganas), a popular toboggan hill for youth with a death wish. Chris has more than a few scars from sledding down it.
Anyone care to take a stab at IDing the car? It's believed it belonged to a Grasswick and both seemed pretty well off financially. Something nice probably. Note it's right hand drive and the tire chains used to tackle the steep grade.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. π Photo credit: UofC Archives. _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Date: Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
We've been buzzed by many planes while out doing what we do (and a hot air balloon once) but none were as pretty as this shining example. It's an oldie too. This vintage Stinson 108 dates back to 1947 and the glint of the sun of the polished metal was near blinding. It made an amazing sound and kept our cameras pointed skyward till gone. Not often do you see an amazing old bird like this and we thought it was worth sharing.
Over five thousand of this model were produced and more than a few are still airworthy.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. π _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Date: 2024. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
The disused school in Cadillac Saskatchewan at twilight. Historic photography is made easy when the skies are awesome like this and they were a daily occurrence during our visit. Out for a walk, there's no one about and not a sound to be heard. Welcome to our Fortress of Solitude.
Cadillac School: in use 1927-1986 but still kept up and captured while in the area for the Beer Parlour Project.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. π _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Date: 2024. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
This is one of the most viewed Then & Nows we've ever shared. Here's a 1960s and 2018 view of Rosebery BC. Back then, the railway served the isolated branch to Nakusp via a barge on Slocan Lake and this was the landing point. Today, any signs of this operation are gone but it lasted until the late 1980s. There were many train barges in the region but none as longed lived than this one.
What a gorgeous setting! This shot was captured while heading to our favourite ghost town of Sandon BC!
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. π Photo credit Ellis Anderson. _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
An old fashioned glass bulb fire grenade and had we not looked up it would have been missed. This was found in an abandoned farmhouse and it's a Fire Chief Scientific Fire Extinguisher (Winnipeg Manitoba). The instructions read: "In case of fire, throw at base of flames". It contained chemicals that when released created a gas that suffocated the flames...or any person near by.
This one has an automatic spring trigger and when acted on by heat, it broke the base of the bulb to release the contents.
Seems these were common in old farms in the pre-1930s but it's the first and only we've ever seen. Above the kitchen entryway door.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE in the comments. π _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Date: 2020. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
On the straight and narrow in Mendham Saskatchewan! Jump on down to the comments to see something interesting just down the road. The yellow stop sign seen goes back to the 1950s or earlier.
Like what you see and want more? Make some NOISE! π _______
Exploring history with Chris & Connie from Off the Beaten Path. Date: 2024. Thanks, Johanna (Connie).
Comments are currently turned off