Category: Other Fun

Once lauded by investors and the darling of the mining sector, Bre-X Minerals of Calgary was later the subject of the largest stock swindle in Canadian history. Born of obscurity, the company quickly rose to great heights before crashing back down and doing so spectacularly. Kaboom! Billions vanished in one...

(A BIGDoer.com Classic) When it gets icy-cold we’ll find things to do inside and if below minus twenty that might include a little mall walking. It’s important to keep fit somehow during an arctic blast, even if it means channelling our inner senior citizens. One freezing day in March of...

A BIGDoer.com Classic from 2018. Presenting Moodonna & Child, a print (serigraph – a silk screening) by artist Manwoman of Cranbrook British Columbia and discovered in the window of a thrift store in Calgary Alberta. It’s both a completely random and magical find. Saw it, knew what it was, bought...

The Calgary neighbourhood of Alyth/Bonnybrook is industrial, but interestingly there’s a few houses (or former houses) in the mix. Businesses have repurposed some for other uses, offices for example, but a number are still homes. So they’re lived in…these people reside among all those fabrications shops, grain terminals, warehouses and...

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...

The Beer Parlour Project, by Chris Doering, Johanna (Connie) Biggart and Rob Pohl. We’re channeling an unbridled passion to document old-time, small town hotels and hotel taverns. It won’t just be photos of these historic structures and we’ll be connecting with patrons too. The buildings, the people, the history and...

Twice over the summer of 2023, we had the privilege of hanging with the Reynolds Raiders of Big Valley Alberta. For fun. We’re in town shooting an early episode of the Beer Parlour Project with view camera photographer Rob Pohl at the Big Valley Inn and boy, were we green...

Sometimes it’s fun to go in with no set plans or goals in mind. Who doesn’t love the pure and unadulterated joy than comes with discovery? Today, and for the whole day, we’re hitting up Denman & Hornby Islands out in the Strait of Georgia on British Columbia’s West Coast....

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,...

The location is Vancouver Island in British Columbia and specifically MacMillan Provincial Park. It’s a little east of Port Alberni and this spot home to an amazing stand of massive trees many centuries old. These are the giants of Cathedral Grove and we’re happy to show you around. Today’s subject...

We went a little camera crazy at Pioneer Acres Museum in Irricana Alberta during 2020 and 2021. It started during the deep, dark depths of the Covid Pandemic and it took a year, plus a lot of work to complete the resultant display. The museum acquired a literal van load...

This yearly event is heaven for silver ball aficionados and it’s been happening since 2016. Twenty twenty-two marks our second visit to the Edmonton Pinball & Arcade Expo and as a good time, all the boxes are checked. It’s pinball overload and we’ve not only here to document the goings-on...

Which Way to Wainwright? We’ve come to this spot (marked Philips Alberta on maps) to watch trains, but they no-showed and instead kept an eye on something else playing out not far from the tracks. How curious! It seems a transport with a military load bound for a nearby Forces...

A ride on any of the BC Inland Ferries is an adventure and we do it every chance we get. It’s hard to explain the appeal and silly perhaps, yet if we’re out that way and there’s a route that includes a ferry crossing, we’ll choose it over any other....

The Team’s out in Big Valley Alberta and having stupid fun in a downpour photographing some elderly motorhomes. What’s not to like? At any rate, it was being done for a project that ultimately got shelved (long story), but at the time we didn’t know it and jumped in with...

The quaint little town of Stavely Alberta is found just over one hundred kilometres south of Calgary and to those travelling the #2, most noteworthy for its huge grain elevator there beside the highway. It can’t be missed and the tall blue/green structure looms over “downtown”, passing motorists and the...

There’s some interesting sidewalk tiles underfoot in this British Columbia community. If you know where to look that is. They pay homage to various classes of Canadian Pacific Railway locomotives and are located on 10th Ave S Cranbrook, in downtown. From what we know they were placed fairly recently and...

Here’s a look at second oldest Calgary Stampede Dream Home (from 1959 – at the time called the Stampede Give-Away Home) and in outward appearances it looks much as it did when new. This lottery has been going on so long it’s become essential to the Stampede experience and tickets...

Ahead, it’s random things seen while exploring this prairie community, over two frigid mornings around sunrise. Thank you Mother Nature for this wonderful opportunity and there’s nothing more fun than freezing one’s appendages off. I can’t feel my fingers! This is Three Hills at dawn, in February, and in hindsight...

It’s called the Great Beater Challenge, a convoy of the damned taking place over two days and about a thousand kilometres. The concept is simple: cross your fingers and drive a junker cross-country down some of the most remote roads ever and survive the ordeal. Interestingly most cars made it...

The city of Trail British Columbia is FULL of character. This West Kootenay community clings to the side of a hill and here we’re looking at one of the most interesting parts called the Gulch. The Historic Gulch. It’s a fine evening, in spite of the stifling heat, the sky...

We brought Murray’s Camera out of retirement. After who knows how long in the Pioneer Acres Museum (Irricana Alberta) collection, it’s time to dust it off for a fun photoshoot taking place in town. For old time’s sake. Murray used to be involved with the museum and well liked, so...

If you were to do an image search using the query, you’ll be shown a graceful arch-supported structure used by trains and in a stunning mountain setting. Deep in the British Columbia Rockies it’s been the subject of hard earned photos and some are so impressive as to obtain icon...

Imagine our thrill on seeing someone at this property…someone who looks like they should be there. A quick introduction, some confusion over our motives (honestly, this is what we do), and we’re in. However, the light’s failing, we’ve got the wrong camera and no tripod, so we’ll have to make...

Here’s a stupid just-because post about nothing much in particular. While passing through a small town, some cool trucks are spotted and vintage grain elevators are their backdrop. To that we say yes and YES! We have a timed appointment with a very special building in the area (more in...

The CPR mainline passes right through the Calgary community of Ogden and if you’re into a little trainspotting there’s plenty of public places there where one can view the action. When in need of a fix we’ll head out that way, even if a busy schedule often dictates we can’t...

Today we’re looking at a small town motel, or rather what’s left of the business, after it closed long ago. From certain angles it still looks the part, if not a bit run down and showing its age. Picture a road weary traveller one dark stormy night, desperate for shut-eye...