DeWinton – De Winton – Dewinton – I’ve seen it spelled many ways. This small town, officially De Winton I am told, is close to and directly south of Calgary but it sees few visitors since it’s well off the main highway and can only be accessed by a back...
Welcome to Azure Alberta, home to a house or two, an abandoned rail line, and a single grain elevator, the subject of this report. This structure has been privately owned for around fifty years and this accounts for it’s remarkable condition. Used during that time as a grain storage facility...
This Boler trailer was spotted in Coleman Alberta, in the Crowsnest Pass in May 2012. It represents one of the longer length 17′ models, which seem to be a lot less common than their shorter cousins. Out of every ten or so short ones seen, we see but a single...
The KTAS D08 is one of the true classics. Introduced over a hundred years ago, this phone was produced in quantity for many decades after and even today, modern facsimiles of this iconic design can be found. Made by KTAS or Kjobenhavns Telefon Aktieselska (hope I got that right) in...
Pinball! Once a year at the Calgary Pinball and Arcade show, we get to play. And we do it old school, with real pinballs, the stuff to make a serious pinhead jump with delight. The classics are all there – Williams, Bally and Gottlieb – the good stuff (and some...
May is a tough time for us. The weather is nice and in the valleys everything is green and vivid and alive. Up high where we want to go however it’s often still winter and this severely limits our options. Knowing that, but having spring fever, we elect to scout...
The area just southeast of Calgary has a remarkable number of grain elevators still standing and this makes it an natural attractant to us history explorers. We’ll visit a number of towns in the region, some abandoned and forgotten, some alive with small populations, all very interesting. For this trip...
Perhaps half the Bolers we’ve seen appear in original condition, that is at least on the outside. The other half seem to have gone through some sort of rebuilding or refurbishment. Almost completely in pieces, this work in progress will likely become an example of the later sometime soon. This...
We’ve been meaning to do the Buller Pass hike for a long time. I’ve often been told just how spectacular the destination is and let me tell you, those people were right. The trail, from start to finish, does not disappoint. The route, known officially as Buller Creek trail, takes...
The ghost town of Retlaw is situated in the dry belt region of south central Alberta and sits along the former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Suffield Subdivision branch. Well off any major highways the place is seldom visited and is accessible only by a dusty back road. What little that...
Rarely do we capture a Boler while on the road. Usually they quickly pass us by heading in the opposite direction, but here we are lucky and find one going the same way we are. This one has been customized with cowboys and cacti, offering up an interesting western motif....
Approximately forty years separate the two pictures shown and in that time the small town of Aldersyde Alberta has changed a great deal. Well, at least in the area around the railway tracks has and one would be hard pressed to say this is even the same location. But it...
What’s the story behind that mysterious huge brown complex seen off the highway between Aldersyde and High River? I don’t know how many times, on trips to South Kananaskis, that I’ve passed by the place and asked myself that very thing. I never seemed find the time to stop…until now...
Technically not all the trucks shown here are fully restored, but all are complete so we’ll include those ones anyway. This is a continuation of a previous report and here we showcase some fine examples seem at the Pioneer Acres Museum in Irricana Alberta. We could not photograph every truck...
Bannock did not originate with the indigenous people of North America, but it was embraced by them. It’s a simple and hearty flat bread of Scottish origins, that is super easy to make and travels well. And it’s surprisingly tasty. There are many ways to prepare it, but in this...
From a distance, a Boler and a Trillium look very similar and so it’s easy to confuse the two. Up close however, that changes. The Trillium is more square overall than it’s egg shaped counterpart – square shaped, squared windows, square-ish tail lights – all say Trillium. This particular one,...
Pioneer Acres in Irricana is an gold mine for those who love mechanical things, In spite of having a huge collections of trucks, machinery and bits related to farming and settlement of the area, this museum flies under the radar and does not seem to be well known. It should...
The Pat Burns Coal Mine is situated deep in the mountains far up the Sheep River valley, and is certainly is the most stunning location of any coal mine this author has seen. While the operation was ultimately a failure, it’s certainly a winner for explorers like us. What a...
The following report is a two-parter that combines some of our favourite activities, hiking and history exploring. This adventure finds us on the Sheep River Trail, a long distance route that parallels its namesake river for many dozens of kilometres. The section we followed takes us from the Junction Mountain...
This abandoned bridge caught us by surprise. We were heading for another such structure in the area, the old CPR span over the Bow River near Cecil Alberta, when this one came into view. When heading north on Highway 524 near Hays Alberta, this structure can be clearly seen in...
One could easily pass by this house and barn, giving it no thought at all. Looking much like every other farm, there is not much here to draw your attention away – it’s a nondescript farmhouse along a dusty old road. In other words, instantly forgettable. However these buildings have...
It’s amazing how often Boler trailers turn up in out of the way places. Like the one here, seen in the small town of Mossleigh Alberta in September 2012. Had we blinked we would have missed it and we only noticed it by chance (which begs the question, how many...
Mossleigh Alberta lays claim to not one, but three classic wooden elevators and this must be one of the last original elevator rows left in Canada*. All appear in good condition, with one recently being re-sided. I kind of ignored the latter, since it no longer looks original and does...
In hindsight I think it was a bit foolish to try this peak. Normally, it’d not be challenge, but for this trip I was dealing with a problem – pain, stiffness and soreness. You see some six weeks prior, Connie and I were involved in a serious accident after retuning...
Glenbow was a town. Once. Now it’s a open field nestled in a valley beside the railway tracks and the Bow River. Save for the one building still standing (barely), it would be hard to imagine anything was ever here. But on close examination, little details come forward. A pile...
This post has been updated and can be found here: CPR Bow River Bridge (Abandoned). They’re saying… ”…Chris & Connie do an amazing job on studying their subject matter.” Rik Barry (Time Air Historical Society). Remote… Taunton/Fortner Bridge. Green Door Ranch Then and Now. 80 Years Empty. If you wish...
Chris rushed in excitedly and showed me this comparison, but after a short pause, his look changed. It's that confused expression one gets just before the face-palm, when they realize something they did just doesn't add up.
One year shy of a century separates the two images but as it turns out, they're not even of the same building. The top is Westmount School and the bottom McDougall School, both in Edmonton and not far from each other.
It took this long to realize we'd been shooting at the wrong place all this time! The two schools were built in the same year and very close in design, so it's still an interesting comparison. We had a good laugh and we'll give Chris a mulligan on this one.
Looks like we're going have to head back for a do-over.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photos: 1924 and 2023. Submitted by Connie.
It's amazing how many of these Canada Centennial Maples Leafs still exist out in the wild across the prairies. We could fill an album with the ones we've photographed. It seems rural folks embraced patriotism with more fervor than their urban counterparts, but that's just an observation.
This example was found in a small Saskatchewan town. When they placed this up above the community hall there was a certain optimism that's not seen now. Today, only a handful of people call the community home, and it's that close to being a true ghost town. Almost sixty years in place and this memorial to a 100 year celebration is still here.
If our readers have found any of these while out exploring, please share in the comments. We'd love to see them.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2014. Submitted by Connie.
Billy Clark’s Cabin in Meadow Creek BC and it dates back over a century. Now at the local museum it formerly stood in a valley a little to east and on the shores of Duncan Lake (now Ducan Lake Reservoir).
Billy was a trapper, hunter, and woodsman. All he had was this tiny log house, a small plot of land, the surrounding wilderness, and his wits for survival. Nothing more. That spirit of self reliance seems to be a lost art today.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2022. Submitted by Connie.
Both Chris and I both grew up in the malaise era for cars and get giddy when we spot one from that time out in the wild. It's like meeting an old friend. This '80s beauty was found out in a hiking area of Kananaskis and by all appearances, looks to be driven regularly.
The malaise era is marked by cars with uninspired design, quirky traits, hobbled performance and often questionable quality. Depressing stuff. This Cutlass is probably one of the better GM cars of the time, and both Chris and our son Will have owned examples in the past.
Have a malaise era story or photo to share? Post it in the comments!
Out in nature with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2023. Submitted by Connie.
We come over many rises on a the prairies and on doing so surprised by many interesting things. This one caused a double take.
This lonely locomotives sits at the then very end of track outside Leader SK and was out of service at the time. Guess they socked it away out of sight to forget about it. We found photos showing it in service the year before our visit but here it was cold and dead.
Since this photo was taken, the Great Sandhills Railway has extended the track across the road and set up some kind of transloading operation. In years passed, the track (under CP ownership) continued west all the way into Alberta, but that's a distant memory.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2014. Submitted by Connie.
The messages have been coming fast and often. No, the book we produced a couple years back is not being published after all, in spite of appearing on many websites recently. Oddly some are showing it with the cover from another volume altogether. Please don't order and it must be a glitch.
The other two books shown in our capture are available however (and are awesome) and were produced by some friends. Interestingly, Chris contributed to each and those you can order.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Submitted by Connie.
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