Category: Exploring History

We always knew this building housed a corner store sometime in the past, but never delved any deeper until now. Many times we passed it by, but mostly ignored it since we always had other things to do. Then one day some work exposed old signage and it was just...

A BIGDoer.com Classic from 2018. It just might hold title as Calgary’s oldest service station still original in form and function. Or maybe the oldest period, no matter the qualifications. Here, tucked away in a corner of Lakeview Community, set back from all the hustle and bustle of the city,...

When was the last time you saw an independent computer shop like Canada88.com? You can bet it’s been a while. They were once a thing, but mostly have gone the way of the dinosaur. It’s always been a tough racket, in the past or now, and even the big electronic-chains,...

A BIGDoer.com Classic from 2019. There are ghost towns and then there’s Carolside Alberta. It’s a community so totally gone, that it’s as though it never existed. While there’s odd little bits underfoot to hint of what was, if one looks real close, there’s not a single structure left standing...

On a dreary fall day we’re wandering cart tracks and cow paths searching for ghosts of the Suffield Subdivision. We’re speaking of a former Canadian Pacific Railway line that once ran from nowhere in particular and on to someplace you never heard of. It travelled through remote and lonely country...

The “Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, from the 1907 book “Songs of a Sourdough” (US: “The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses”). “Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows…” This famous work is purely fictional, although it is loosely based on people,...

Today, we’re exploring this tiny stone house, a cramped two-story affair built long ago. Far from the hustle and bustle of the world, it’s off-the-beaten-path locations like this that pique our curiosity. Why, when, how, who? It’s the stuff we’re into and even if we can never paint a complete...

If we asked you about structures associated with Canadian railways in the old days, you’re likely to mention stations, water towers or maybe roundhouses. Everyone knows of them, even if few (of any) still exist. A building that was once as common, yet lesser known, is the section house. These...

Today we’re looking at remains of the Hermitage of Saint Elias, a former Monastery connected to the Eastern Orthodox Church. The location is a wooded grove and it’s all hidden away along a lonely Northern Alberta back road. This cluster of small cobbled-together buildings are in varying states of advanced...

Long ago, there were once thousands of little one-roomers like Liberty School scattered across rural Alberta. There were so many that we doubt an accurate count is even possible. Typically located along some remote middle-of-nowhere backroad, they were in service of students living on nearby farms or ranches. Their location...

The lonely grain elevator in Kirkpatrick Alberta is a survivor and has stood silent vigil for about a century. It outlasted the railway line that served it, and the various companies that owned it. This prairie sentinel has endured while so many other wooden elevators have fallen. Normally torn down...

Loaf N’ Jug were a small chain of convenience stores in Calgary Alberta in the 1970s and ’80s. The business never really flourished as envisioned, and at best are a faint memory in the collective consciousness of long-time residents of this city. To everyone else, they’re an unknown. Competition in...

This home, this barn and everything else you see on this property once served a unique purpose. Operating as a fully functioning “demonstration farm”, near Vulcan Alberta, and tied to the Canadian Pacific Railway, it was a show piece from over a century ago promoting the region’s agricultural potential. Come,...

The old grain elevator seen in this post is pretty much all that’s left of Sharples Alberta. The location is a shallow valley, scenic, sort of unprairie-like and home to a meandering creek. It’s a nice, idyllic setting. This building has stood abandoned for greater than forty years and while...

One day, out of the blue, Connie asked about the number of houses left in downtown Calgary. This happened some years back (2014), and given neither of us had so much as a clue, a seed was planted. We chatted about some we recalled…perhaps…vaguely…at least four or five. Maybe more…eight?...

Today we’re looking at the former “Pool” grain elevator in little Coleville Saskatchewan. It’s not really an old one compared to many we’ve documented, but it’s still a part of history. We’ve visited it twice, first during a prairie downpour some ten years back and again more recently while shooting...

A huge number of railway branchlines were built across the Western Canadian Prairies in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Crazy as it seems, they planned even more and this includes the proposed line spoken of here. It was to run north from Empress Alberta and while considered...

We have a thing for bridges and admittedly it’s a strange interest. We search them out at every opportunity. This former bridge was a mighty one and an incredible piece of engineering. It’s found along the former Empress Subdivision of the Canadian Pacific Railway and very near the Saskatchewan –...

The Buffalo 2000 grain elevator was a bold design for the time and if it worked as anticipated, would herald in a new era for the Alberta Wheat Pool. Data suggested it’d be a success, and building this one would put theory into practice. It was not just envisioned as...

On the west arm of Kootenay Lake (British Columbia) and close to Nelson, there’s remains of an ancient tugboat. This craft, the wood-hulled SS Hosmer, was launched well over a century ago and for decades employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway. It hauled barges for that firm, loaded with rail...

For today’s subject we touch on a little known, but fascinating chapter in Alberta’s history. We’re speaking of a person, one Anastasia Holoboff (or Holuboff, sometimes Holobova, less common Golubova) or as most knew her, Anastasia Lords. She was the one time spiritual leader of an Alberta based Doukhobor group...

Today we’re looking at a structure built as a wind-powered grist mill, but never used in that capacity or even completed. It’s unique in form, with an almost European flavour and last functioned as a blacksmith shop on the farm. Come join us as we explore it and the the...

The location is far eastern Alberta and in the little community of Sibbald. There off Highway #9. A faded sign taped to the door declares: “Warning, nude entertainers appearing within premises. Some patrons may find this offensive. No minors. Picture ID only. $10.00 cover charge. Sibbald Bar & Hotel.” Did...

St Peter and Paul Church is found along a dusty Alberta backroad and in a spot well off the beaten track. It’s in a picture-perfect setting and the idyllic scene presented here is straight out of a painting. There’s delicate, wispy white clouds and powder blue skies, fields of golden...

Small towns on the Canadian prairies, like Torrington Alberta and many others we’ve visited, are no strangers to adversity. Something big happened, starting in the 1990s, that changed them all forever. It’d did happen all at once, but in the span of a few short years, the landscape changed. Things...

What’s this? The ghost sign of an old Radio Shack store? Really? That firm closed down in Canada decades ago and any memories have long been relegated to the deep, dark recesses of the mind. Such connections to the past are usually hidden away in the subconscious and remain dormant...

Join us as we explore abandoned areas of Riverview Hospital (formerly Essondale Hospital), in Coquitlam, British Columbia. It’s a former mental health and addiction facility dating back well over a hundred years. The site has a somewhat unsettling feel about it and the buildings are frequently featured in horror films...

(2013) We spot a berm cutting across a farmer’s field south of Fort Macleod (Alberta) and this piques our curiosity. It looks railway related, and as it happens that’s indeed true. At the time we didn’t know of any lines in the area (we’re often blissfully unaware), but with a...

We’re in Union Bay British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, and looking at the remains of a giant wharf used for transloading coal. So, from trains onto waiting ships and barges. It remained in use from the 1880s into about 1960 (or 1961) and most everything removed a few years after....