Calgary’s Heritage Park is a wonderful living history museum. With so many exhibits and things to explore, it would be hard to see it all in a single day. Many movies and TV shows have been shot here, including the mid 1970s CBC mini series, the National Dream. For this...
Silently standing vigil for almost ninety years, the lonely grain elevator at Kirkpatrick Alberta is a survivor. It outlasted the rail line it used to sit along and has endured while so many other wooden elevators on the prairies have fallen. Privately owned, this is no doubt the reason why...
Dorothy Alberta is a charming little town – not quite a ghost town but pretty darn close. It’s home to a number of well known and often photographed landmarks, in particular its two quaint churches and the solitary grain elevator that looms over the highway. Under gorgeous blue skies we...
This Boler, held together in places with liberal amounts of duct tape, could perhaps use a little TLC. A 17′ model, which we have been seeing a lot of lately, it looks a little rough around the edges but is probably not that bad off. The beauty of a Boler...
Cloudy skies, cool temperatures and light rain all conspired to make for a gloomy day. It was not a promising outlook and it seemed a waste heading into the hills. With that in mind, perhaps this would be a good time to explore Calgary’s living history museum, Heritage Park. It’s...
This Boler was seen while travelling the up and down the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller Alberta. Spotted far off the highway, it was only dumb luck (or our Boler-radar) that allowed us to catch it. I am sure we could have driven past a hundred times and not...
We found another filming location from the movie Brokeback Mountain. In this scene, a flashback, a young Ennis is lead by his father to view the body of a murdered rancher. The movie location is set in Wyoming, but in reality the scene was shot in the badlands of Alberta,...
In this then and now series our subject is Rosebud Alberta, specifically the railway line and the town’s grain elevators. In the first image we see a CNR train passing by and for our attempt we do our best to capture that same shot. It’s difficult since all the structures...
This is only the second Triple E Surfside we’ve seen and this example was found only weeks after our first sighting. Among the “look-a-likes”, this model would only be confused with a true Boler from a distance, since it’s a little too squared in shape. Note how it’s chained up...
This post has been updated and can be found here: Looking Down on Wayne Alberta. Then & Now time! Old Slocan Highway. Calgary Then & Now: From Tom Campbell Hill. Crowsnest Pass then and now – Chinook Motel. If you wish more information about this place, by all means contact...
The location of this Boler was submitted by a reader of this blog and this person took up my challenge to find one of these trailers using Google Streetview. Essentially, one travels around randomly on their computer using Google Streetview, until they spot one. Try to find one yourself, it’s...
The second instalment in this series, pro photographer John Sharpe and I continue our quest to document old farms, buildings and abandoned things southeast of Calgary. It’s been a productive trip and we contently snap away, discovering lots of gems to shoot as we go. Driving about with no particular...
Calgary’s Heritage Park is a wonderful living museum with numerous exhibits and displays documenting this area’s fascinating past. There are far too many things to see in a single day so for this pass our goal was to document some of the park’s extensive collection of railway equipment. The big...
This trip has us exploring the flanks of Junction Hill in the front ranges near the Highwood River area of Kananaskis. A reconnaissance mission, one goal we had was to see if we could gain said summit via a series of old coal exploration roads on the east side of...
I’m hanging with pro John Sharpe and our goal is to discover old farms and other interesting places to photograph. With no specific route in mind we just point the van in a direction and drive. Finding ourselves southeast of Calgary between the towns of High River and Vulcan, we...
This year is looking to be a great one for Boler spotting and the tally as of May 2013 is twelve seen and eleven photographed, the most recent being this example here. In contrast, last year at this time we had documented only half as many overall. This Boler is...
On this adventure I was accompanied by professional photographer John Sharpe. We share similar interests, old farms and the like for example, and we’ve been planning a trip for some time now. That day finally arrived and this would be a great chance to get out and have fun, but...
At this time of year access to the mountains is limited, either by snow or due to seasonal road closures. This means we have to settle for hikes in the foothills, not that it’s such a bad thing. Any hike is a good one and while the views along this...
Until this tiny beast showed up in our neighbourhood just a few days ago, I had never heard of this Boler look-alike. It’s called the Triple E Surfside but given it’s more squared lines I thought it was a similar looking Trillium at first (the most common Boler-ish brand seen)....
Setting the time machine back to August 1989, you’ll find me in Princeton BC looking at the remains of the old rail line that passed through here. Abandoned only months before my visit, all of the track remained in place as though waiting for a train to come. And the...
It’s the early fall of 1992 and I am on a road trip Northeast of Calgary. With no particular destination in mind I travel along random roads to see where they take me. Ultimately I end up in the Red Deer River valley near Drumheller, but before that I find...
At the gateway to Calgary’s Heritage Park are two locomotives. One is from the celebrated Selkirk class, a mountain conquering steam and smoke belching monster. At the time, her and her sisters were the biggest such engines on the CPR system and this example was one of the last steam...
In this, the third instalment in the “In search of Mitford” series, we hike into the location of the Bow River Coal Mine/Mitford Colliery to explore what’s left. The first was one of the earliest operations of its type in the province and quite short lived, coming into production in...
While not a terribly exciting hike, the route described here was none the less a delight for us. After all, it had been many months, back in 2012 in fact, since we got into the mountains, the heavy snow pack holding us at bay for that time. With that in...
Not one, not two, but SEVEN Bolers were spotted in a single day, in fact all within minutes of each other. And remarkably to see them all we covered only two city blocks! This is a personal record for us and since we started the Boler Spotting Game some years...
We used to do something called the "pointless challenge" 🤪 and miss those days. It was so much silly fun and often frustrating as heck. In these we'd invite people to send in random photos of obscure locations, but not give any information, and then we'd track where it was and shoot something similar.
Most of these came from old family collections, as was the case here. Anyone up to resurrecting the series?
In hindsight, why didn't we pose someone in our shot?
Pointless: “Devoid of meaning (or) senseless” Merriam-Webster.
If you like what we do and want to support this ongoing project (12 years now), go here: https://www.BIGDoer.com/help-the-society/ Thanks to Connie for making this post possible.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: ca1970 and 2014. Posted by Connie.
Captured on a cold, cold day many years ago. We've been passing this old house for decades and it's little changed in that time. At some point we expect to drive by and it'll be gone.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2017. Posted by Connie.
When retired old railway cars usually get cut up for scrap. Sometimes, however, they find their way into the hands of the general public or whomever. Flat cars make good bridges, and boxcars can be transformed into storage buildings and the like. Case in point here. We see them used like this often enough and in this case, it's part of a corral.
Incidentally, this boxcar dates from 1950 and this was found by tracing the old road number, which is still visible.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2017. Posted by Connie.
This central Alberta racetrack was never a commercial operation but instead just a fun place for car enthusiasts in the area to get together. Early '70s or thereabouts and it only lasted a few years. Even thought it's been abandoned for that long, there is no doubt what was here.
You know we like the the obscure stuff and this one fits the bill perfectly. Found by accident while backroad cruising and the history comes thanks to local car guy Mike.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2022. Posted by Connie.
On top of little Myrtle Mountain in the Kimberley (BC) Nature Park.
There's some good wilderness fun to be had here and nice views as you can see, but the real reason we came is mining history. The whole area near the ski hill was extensively worked over a century ago and we were looking for evidence of this. We didn't find much in the area searched, but it's a big chunk of property and we hope to return to cover more ground again soon. Of all the subjects we cover, mining related is a favourite.
Still, it was a good hike and that can't be bad. Look to the comments for more info 👇.
Exploring nature and history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2022. Posted by Connie.
It's a strange curiosity in south Kananaskis, there on a hillside and we have no idea who created it. We asked around and no one's completely sure about its history. In the past it showed the Canada 100 logo from 1967 but in 2017 someone changed it to reflect the country's 150th.
That's our friend Emily from DanOCan.com having a look.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2017. Posted by Connie.
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