The grain elevator seen in this article is located at the Wilson Farm north of Drumheller Alberta, but once sat along the rail line in the town of Gartly, just to the north. Gartly is gone, the rail line is abandoned, but the elevator survives. Constructed in the late 1920s...
This wonderful hike follows the often dry Jura Creek though a deep slot canyon, cascading pools, gravel flats and boulder fields to an interesting and significant geological formation. Along the way, you can also expect to find fossils. This is not a strenuous hike, and in fact we picked it...
Some days we just like to take it easy. Rather than climbing a mountain, hiking to a beautiful lake, or exploring abandoned places, we decided to do something a little more pedestrian. This day we wanted to go berry picking, Saskatoon Berry picking, and the best place to do that...
Stoney Trail in Kananaskis is a good choice for those who crave a nice, easy mountain bike ride – fun, nothing hardcore or overly taxing. Even though the route follows a power line right of way, it’s still pretty scenic. There are no major hills to worry about and normally...
Three Hills Alberta has two standing grain elevators, a massive ex-Alberta Wheat Pool and an ancient ex-Parrish and Heimbecker. Standing directly across from each other, these two create a grain elevator canyon with the CNR’s north/south Alberta mainline passing right through the middle. Of the two, the AWP is in...
Just over two months ago many parts of Southern Alberta were under water. Unusually heavy rains, combined with melting snow pack in the mountains caused widespread flooding and many people were affected. The Bow River in Calgary, normally a pretty pristine and otherwise fairly calm river burst its bank in...
If you’ve driven highway 575 heading eastbound between Acme and Carbon, you have no doubt spotted the large train bridge spanning a deep and wide valley off to your right, at a point roughly halfway between those towns. This is the CNR’s Swalwell Bridge, a large concrete and steel structure...
Once upon a time it was a house, no it was a home, full of hopes, full of dreams, full of LIFE. Now there is nothing but lost memories and a wind that perhaps bears a ghostly resemblance to the noise of the family that once lived within. Here it...
Like almost every other town on the Canadian Prairies, Trochu Alberta was once home to many grain elevators. Today, all that left is a single survivor, a massive structure that looms over the half-vacant downtown core. Looking ready to load a line of rail cars it’s been many years since...
They’re coming to us! In the past, we had to go looking for Bolers, searching high and low and then searching some more. Now they find, like this trailer spotted from our front door. How easy was that? This one was seen in August 2013 in Calgary AB. Boler: A...
The four towns that are the subject of this report, Sheerness, Rose Lynn, Sunnynook and Carolside, are located in a remote corner of Alberta, far off any beaten path. Each lasted only a short while and in fact there is little to see today, but even so they still left...
Delia Alberta is a small community located just northeast of Drumheller. It sits along an abandoned Canadian National Railways line (tracks still in place on our visit) and was once home to a good number of grain elevators, all nothing but a memory today save for one, the subject of...
Outside of gatherings or conventions, finding two Boler Trailers together is pretty rare. This miss-matched pair was found in Sundre Alberta and being side by side it allows us to compare differences between the two sizes made. The left one is the smaller but more common egg-like 13′ model. Its...
Anyone who reads this blog knows we seem to have great luck finding rare, old or interesting trucks, cars and vehicles. This trip, on the Heritage Day long weekend, was no exception. We found ourselves in the Hanna area in eastern Alberta doing some field research, and this work had...
This could be a banner year for Boler spotting and while out walking in our own neighbourhood we find another of these little trailers. We’re approaching three dozen seen in 2013, this one in August. It’s hitched up to a car looking like it’s ready to go on a long...
Sure, these two “first class” establishments, the Seymour and New National in Hanna Alberta, are called hotels but for the last few decades mostly catered to the drinking crowd. It’s booze where the money is, although the rooms above may have been rented out at times as extended stay (often...
This old farm is a particularity photogenic one, discovered in an arid and remote corner of Alberta, along a forgotten highway. What makes this find even more interesting is that using our detective skills, we were able to dig up information on who lived there – amazing! Unlike most farms,...
Here’s another Boler trailer found completely by chance. Driving up Crowchild Trail, this one was spotted from that road, sitting in an alley that it borders on. It was seen in August 2013 in the Calgary neighbourhood of Sunalta. The tally for this year, including this trailer is thirty three...
A number of scenes from the 1987 Pink Floyd music video Learning to Fly were filmed on a ridge in Kananaskis, just east of Canmore. In the story a young native fellow climbs up the hill, only to jump off it before turning into a graceful soaring eagle. A metaphor...
This post has been retired, but a few select images kept for your enjoyment and an updated version can be found here: Glenbow Ranch Big West Loop. More fun and adventure… Calgary Pathways: Montgomery – Bowness. Chestermere Town Loop. Urban Trek: Bridgeland-Crescent Heights-Renfrew. Roaming Nanton. If you wish more information...
In this “soup” post we look at a couple of old cars, an abandoned and burnt out caboose, a CPR train station and a cave in the Crowsnest Pass gushing water. Each soup posting will showcase random pictures taken from our adventures. 1) The yellow car shown in the first...
In the final moments of the 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain, Ennis del Mar, played by Heath Ledger, looks at a photo and whispers the words “Jack, I swear”. Filled with sadness he recalls his deceased friend and lover and the adventures and intimate moments they shared. The picture in that...
Having attempted Wind Ridge and failing to summit the week before, we wanted to return to take another stab at it. On the first pass we got turned around due to flood damage in the area and instead of reaching our objective, we wandered around the ridge’s base wondering where...
This cute red and white Boler was spotted at the Hoodoo RV Resort in the Red Deer River valley near Cambria Alberta, not terribly far from Drumheller, in August 2013. Located alongside the river, the campground is one giant open field with nary a tree to shelter one from the...
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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