Monthly Archive: September 2013

CPR Crossfield AB

Prairie Sentinels – Crossfield Alberta

There were once many grain elevators in Crossfield Alberta, now there is but one. Standing fast against time and progress, the town’s very last “prairie sentinel” is also its newest, surviving as a private seed cleaning plant. It’s sits along side a busy rail line, as though waiting to load...

Spot the Boler

Spot the Boler!

Can you spot the Boler in this collection of motorhomes and trailers? Sure you can! This a 17′ model which in my opinion is not as cute as it smaller cousin, the egg-shaped 13″ version we all know and love. This one was spotted in just north of Calgary in...

Bullpound AB train bridge

Bridge hunting – Bullpound Alberta

Our goal for this trip is the abandoned CPR railway bridge at Bullpound Alberta. Located in a remote section of the Red Deer River valley, far from any civilization, or even a road, getting there will require hiking in across empty featureless plains. Bullpound was nothing more than a nondescript...

Chancellor Alberta elevator

Prairie Sentinels – Chancellor Alberta

The hamlet of Chancellor Alberta is tiny a dot on the map. It’s home to a handful of people, an interesting community hall and sitting alongside an abandoned railway branch line, an old grain elevator. The latter two structures will be the subject of this report. First up is the...

Abandoned farm Wimborne AB

Wimborne farm

We called this the Wimborne farm, not because that’s the name of the people who lived here – we don’t know them, who they were or what’s their story. Rather, we simply call it this because it’s located near that small Alberta town. Like most abandoned farms we stumble across,...

Hiking Long Prairie Ridge

Sandy McNabb XC ski trails to Pine Ridge

Normally you’d only find us here either early in the spring or late in the fall, when more westerly trails, which are more interesting, are under snow or inaccessible due to seasonal road closures. With Connie feeling a little off due to her acupuncture treatment from the day before, she...

Boler trailer Alberta

Bright yellow Boler

This bright yellow Boler was seen in the small town of Crossfield Alberta and it looks tiny and almost insignificant when compared to the massive motor home sitting nearby. In fact, the latter appears ready to devour its little neighbour. It’s not known (to us anyway) if this vivid colour...

Brokeback Mountain Crossfield AB

Brokeback Mountain then and now – Riverton WY Monroe’s Grocery

The building we see here, doubling as Monroe’s Grocery in the film Brokeback Mountain, is actually located in the small Alberta town of Crossfield. In the movie the setting is Riverton Wyoming and both the exterior and interior were used in the production. In those scenes, main character Ennis del...

LW848 Kenworth

Old trucks and vehicles – August and September

For this report we’ll show some of the assorted old trucks and interesting vehicles we’ve stumbled across while out on exploring. We did not go looking for them, but rather they were all discovered by chance while out travelling the back roads of Alberta and BC, on our field trips...

Boler camper

Flower garden Boler

So many beautiful flowers – pink and red and yellow and orange blooms, all arranged around an interesting and and very unusual centre piece, a tiny little red and white Boler. How cute! This trailer was spotted in Fernie BC in September 2013. Boler: A small cute-as-a-bug fibreglass travel trailer...

Hanna AB turntable

Hanna Roundhouse and Turntable

Hanna Alberta was once a busy railway division point and the facility seen here, the old roundhouse and turntable, were used to service the steam locomotives that would work this section of line. This was an important place for the railway. Today the trains are gone, but the roundhouse remains....

BC Boler trailer

Bull River Boler

If you like to find interesting things to explore and photograph, travelling quiet secondary roads is often very rewarding. You’ll always stumble across something delightful – ghost towns, old trucks and machinery, photogenic farms, striking landscapes. And then there are the Bolers. These trailers seem to turn up with amazing...

Cascade Headwall Lakes

Headwall Lakes

This amazing day has us visiting the Headwall Lakes in Kananaskis, two lovely green pools nestled is a steep-walled valley, surrounded by grey and barren limestone peaks. Along the way we’ll hike easy logging roads, we’ll make your way across scree slopes and we’ll climb steep trails, all to get...

Mining ruins Hosmer

Hosmer Mines Ltd., Hosmer BC

For this adventure we explore the surface plant ruins of the Hosmer Mines Ltd. operation in (where else) Hosmer BC. While the mine only operated for a half dozen years, a lot remains of it, including several substantial concrete buildings and a long row of coke ovens. Clearly everything here...

Burns Farm front

The Burns Farm

In early August, Connie and I were out exploring a lonely section of Alberta, the dry belt region southeast of Hanna. It’s a forgotten and empty place with few inhabitants, ghost towns and seemingly more abandoned farms then those that are lived in. In other words, it’s the perfect playground...

17' Boler trailer

A Trillium, a Boler, a deer

While biking the Cranbrook to Kimberley rails-to-trails pathway we found both a Trillium and a Boler (and a deer) not far away from each other, in the small community of Marysville. The old rail line here takes a high path behind the town and from this lofty vantage point it...

Cranbrook BC Boler

Cranbrook Boler

I’ve noticed that you always seem to stumble across a Boler when you’re not looking for one and that’s proven here. This example was spotted completely by chance (as is often the case), while we drove around Cranbrook BC in September 2013. It’s in the common grey and white factory...

Flooded mine tunnel

Mining under Moyie Falls

It’s been many, many years…no…actually its been two decades since I last visited Moyie Falls near Cranbrook BC. I’ve been meaning to return and have made plans to do so many times over the years, but for one reason or another, something always got in the way that prevented this...

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