Category: Then And Now

The historic road/rail bridge in East Coulee Alberta has stood since the 1930s and spans the muddy Red Deer River. Last used about four decades ago, it was built by the railway to access nearby coal mines and later it carried vehicular traffic as well. This wood structure is an...

Flashback to September 2017 and we’re hanging out in Western Saskatchewan. In the town of Unity to be exact and with a vintage postcard in hand. Our mission is to shoot a BIGDoer.com comparison and we’re certain that old image will be fodder for an interesting small-town adventure. It always...

In this Then and Now we’re visiting the “almost” ghost town of Rowley Alberta. It’s a little north of Drumheller. Today, this dot-on-the-map community is home to a few people at most, but in the past was a more populace and much busier place. Many of the long vacant buildings...

Located in the Calgary community of Scarboro and overlooking downtown, there’s grand structure of sandstone dating back over a century. We’re speaking of Sunalta School and if you drive along Crowchild Trail near 17th Avenue SW you won’t miss it. There, on the east side at the pedestrian bridge. At...

Today we’re looking at the old Hotel Alexandra in Drumheller Alberta. In the comparison, it’s seen first in the 1930s, and again in 2025. While it still looks much the same today, it’s not a hotel anymore. You can still stop in for a cool refreshment and a nice meal...

The Red Lion Hotel in Cadogan Alberta closed a few years back. It’s kind of sad to see it play out like this, a once busy place now empty and quiet. It sits on the corner of Caversham and 4th Street, on what was the business district in town. In...

Today’s Then and Now historic comparison is of the Strome Hotel (former Selkirk Hotel) in little Strome Alberta. It shows little change after seventy one years, as you’ll see in the photo, and at the time of our visit, not open for business (sadly). The owners called it quits about...

The town of East Coulee is in the Alberta Badlands and split by the slow flowing Red Deer River. Space is at a premium in this valley and if you visit, you’ll see this first hand. Homes and businesses, the highway and in years past, the railway, were all located...

East Coulee Alberta is former coal mining town and the setting for today’s Then and Now post. You won’t see the community though, and instead we’re down at the railyards. Or former railyards in the today sense. In hand is a 1930s view and we’re duplicating the shot. The old...

Presenting a Eaton’s Earlsfield Catalogue Home from the 1910s, in a derelict state sadly, and found down a Western Saskatchewan backroad. The mighty T Eaton company dates back to 1869 and were a retail juggernaut that sold just about everything at some point. You name it and for a time...

Among the mighty peaks of British Columbia’s West Kootenay region, in a little place called Rosebery, there was a most unusual railway operation. For a time. On account of challenging topography, the Canadian Pacific Railway (under the Nakusp and Slocan Charter) built a branchline physically isolated from the rest of...

Originally published in 2015. Hello all and in this article we’ll be looking at a little school house located in the village of Netherhill Saskatchewan. Constructed over a century ago, it’s been many, many decades since classes were last taught here. It later functioned as a fraternal hall, for a...

In today’s post we’ll look at the Nordegg #3 portal at the Brazeau Collieries Coal Mine Heritage Site, about 110 years apart. This structure is a sealed entryway to a maze of underground workings and just one element in this sprawling coal plant. You can tour the complex and if...

We captured the Now image used in this historic comparison of downtown Cadillac Saskatchewan while shooting an installment of the Beer Parlour Project in town. It happened at the Cadillac Hotel, sort of out of view in this shot and back right in the distance. We’ve included a link from...

Today we’re looking at the Venini House, in Calgary’s Scarboro neighbourhood, and shooting a BIGDoer.com Then & Now. Woohoo! The goal of these posts is to compare or connect with something from the past and the creative process is wildly fun. 1) First, we take an old image sourced by...

We’re standing on the same spot as some unknown photographer did fifty one years ago and making a BIGDoer.com Then & Now Historic Comparison. What a thrill! In this ongoing series, we take an old image, track down the location and then do our best to duplicate it as closely...

Today we’re armed with an old photo showing a scene in Calgary Bankview and it’s from long ago. We’re going walk about the community and search out a couple things and places in that photo. The University of Calgary, who supplied the image, says it dates roughly from 1920, but...

One section of the Lougheed Hotel in Lougheed Alberta, was formerly the Armitage Hotel in nearby Sedgewick. They moved it about a century ago and that’s quite an accomplishment. It’s a twelve kilometre journey on a paved highway today, but back then it was barely more than a cart track....

Presenting another BIGDoer.com Then and Now historic comparison (in this case with a Calgary Transit theme). In these, we revisit a location seen in an old photo, shoot a now image similarly composed and then post about it here. We’ll babble on and on about what’s seen, what’s changed and...

Today’s historic comparison is of the Nagel House in the Rural Municipality of Happyland Saskatchewan. What’s this…Happyland? That’s awesome! We’ll see this majestic old home over a century ago, with the family and others out front, plus again more recently with no one about. Once full of life, it now...

Today we’ll compare two similarly composed photos of Nordegg Alberta and they’re separated by many, many years. The first is from 1937 and the other 2024, which of course is ours. The goal of these direct Then & Now historic comparisons is to stand exactly where the original photographer did...

The Calgary neighbourhood of Bridgeland is home St Matthew Lutheran Church and this fine looking structure is well over a century old. We’ll look at it twice, first in the mid-1950s (when called Jehovah Lutheran Church) and then again today. Over seventy years later it looks the same and so...

Sixty eight years separates the two images used in this Then and Now comparison. We set the scene in Rosedale Alberta, in the Red Deer River Valley badlands and we’re a bit east of Drumheller. The view is along the train tracks in 1948 and the 2016 shot is from...

Hooray, it’s time for another BIGDoer.com movie Then and Now. In this one we visit a location seen in the film Brokeback Mountain, specifically Brokeback Meadows and in the real world it’s a grassy swath on the flanks of Moose Mountain just west of Calgary. This site, with a bit...

There’s something in the water in Didsbury Alberta, or so one would think in looking at the century+ old image used in this comparison. Take a peek and it’s evidently clear that something was going on in town long ago. There’s a big line up of moms and tots in...

The building we’re documenting today is well over a hundred years old, and early on, but very briefly, functioned as the Ogden Hotel. They offered lodging and the Beer Parlour, thanks to its strategic location and circumstance, did well. More on this on a moment. During World War One the...

This railway themed Then and Now takes us to the East Kootenay region of British Columbia. A gorgeous place! Team BIGDoer was sent an old photo showing a train along the Canadian Pacific’s Kootenay Central lines in the 1970s and given permission to use it in a comparison. Woohoo, and...