Neidpath is a tiny ghost town on the vast Saskatchewan prairies and is home to a pair of fine looking grain elevators that are the subject of this report. Abandoned for decades, these old structures have seen better days, but it’s that very thing, that they are so run down...
Join us for this winter walk as we circle pretty much the entire town of High River on the Happy Trails pathway system. We’ll pass through residential neighbourhoods, one badly damaged by last year’s floods, commercial strips, and one section where no development has taken place at all (yet). We’ll...
The two old locomotives discussed in this report, Canadian Pacific Railway #1418 and #1424, once pulled crack passenger trains but today are retired and on display at a riverside park in Medicine Hat Alberta. Their paint is faded and rust is bubbling up here and there, but these fine old...
This history exploring can be tiring work. There’s the endless road, it just goes on and on and on; there’s the walking and climbing, the jumping of fences, dust by the dumptruck load, all manner of dangers to think about, bugs and heat, and wind and rain. A person can...
The MacDonald Avenue Bridge, or simply the MacDonald Bridge, spans the Elbow River east of downtown Calgary and is just over a century old. We look at it, first in the early 1980s via an old photo sent to us by a reader, and again in 2014. While the structure...
This post has been updated and can be found here: Pointless Challenge (Reworked). Fun stuff… Coleman Alberta (Sam’s Service Station). Slocan British Columbia 81 Years Apart. Edmonton Transit: 95th Street. If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us! Date of adventure: November, 2014....
Join us as we spend a day with the Battle River Railway in central Alberta, tagging along with the train crew to tour the line and touch on exactly what it is that makes a company like this tick. We’ll look at the men and their massive machines, and the...
Besides hiking and climbing up ridges and mountains, and exploring old and abandoned places, Connie and I also bike. Like we don’t have enough hobbies already! This is an activity we don’t feel we do enough of, a situation that we are hoping to change in 2015. We need to...
The title of this this report, “Warner Elevator Row”, as of mid-November, is technically incorrect. Something bad’s happened to the buildings that make up the complex in the town of Warner Alberta, something unexpected, out of the blue and only recent. Yup, they’ve demolished two of the prairie sentinels that...
The near century old Notre Dame de Savoie Catholic Church, weather-beaten, abandoned and forgotten, stands at a lonely prairie crossroads. Last used for services some fifty years ago, the building has seen few visitors since then – only the occasional passing coal mine or oilfield worker, farmers or history enthusiasts...
It’s a summer evening and I’m exploring gritty industrial areas of Calgary in search of trains and anything else of interest. And I’m in looking for Bolers too. Interestingly, we often find them, many over the years in fact, tucked away in the back lots of factories and such. An...
This short subject post we check out a rather…well…wonky looking train bridge in the town of Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. Located along the Southern Rail’s Cooperative former CNR Avonlea Subdivision branch and spanning the Moose Jaw River, the bridge still sees use. Admittedly the dip in the roadbed approach and the...
We’ve visited the former CPR Bassano Alberta Railway Station located in the small town of Beiseker several times before. It’s recently been placed on its foundation after sitting on blocks beside it for some years and we wanted to check this out. We were curious. Why, after a long lull...
This adventure we head to Glenbow Ranch, a nice natural oasis roughly halfway between Calgary and Cochrane, to hike a number of trails within the park (there are many. We’ll trek in an eastbound direction and paralleling the Bow River for the most part, taking in the Glenbow, Yodel Loop...
A short couple years ago we documented the Big Pink Trailer of Barons Alberta, an amazing retro camper that I wished I owned. This RV dates from around 1960 and was made in Ontario. Built of aircraft aluminum, it’s in surprisingly good shape and looks fine even now, especially given...
At one time many towns across the prairies had small community airports, most of which it seems are now closed. Included in that tally is this one in Hodgeville Saskatchewan, the remains of which include a road sign, a cement foundation and one standing structure, presumably the office and control...
Located close to Chancellor Alberta and within sight of the town’s grain elevator, the two graves (or grave markers) seen here belong to railway workers who perished on the job. Who they are and what where the exact circumstances of their death is a bit of a mystery. We’ve heard...
A pair o’ Bolers, one of them a 17 foot model, the other 13 foot example, the latter all stripped down and devoid of interior, were found in an alley in the community of Inglewood. The smaller one is clearly being refurbished, something that can be done to these trailers...
The subject for this then and now report is the National Hotel, aka the “Nash” in Inglewood, first how it was in the early 1980s and again how it appears today. This venerable old building back then was a dive, but today has been fixed up and will soon be...
The subject for this movie then and now is the 1985 flick Journey of Natty Gann. Specifically we look the brief “old road” scene, which was shot in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta. In it we see the two main characters during their cross-country trek and we return to that...
On this adventure we explore a forgotten community, Comrey Alberta, deep in the sparsely populated and seldom visited southeast corner of the province. This is surely the most lonely and remote frontier Connie and I have ever visited. The sense of isolation on visiting these vast open spaces is simply...
Today we hike in town. On a crisp fall morning we head out to walk a loop route with an out and back section, using the Bow River and Nose Creek pathways just east of downtown Calgary. We’ll pass through quiet wooded areas, charming residential neighbourhoods, trendy commercial strips, noisy...
Our very first Days of Heaven then and now (I am sure there will be more) interestingly and perhaps more so, strangely, takes in the ending scene from that movie. Sort of a backwards way to start a series, I guess, but what the heck. The filming location was Calgary’s...
Time has finally run out for Calgary Transit’s fleet of venerable MCI Classic buses and after some twenty five years of service they are being retired. In the last few years they’ve been used for peak service mostly and the number on the road varied depending on service levels and...
Another day, another Boler. We never ever tire of it (and hope you don’t too). This lovely little trailer was spotted, as we headed into the Sheep River area of Kananaskis to do a a hike, in the tiny community of Turner Valley, which is located just south of Calgary....
Not a lot of years separate these two photos but in that time the change has been dramatic. The trains are no more and the row of elevators has been reduced to one.
Down by the tracks in Arrowwood Alberta, 1997 and 2015. Interestingly the then photo is from us and this a rare case of Team BIGDoer shooting both. It was captured by Chris back when he was doing oilfield hotshot.
The last elevator standing is a former Alberta Wheat Pool facility and dates from the 1970s. That's it's fairly modern is perhaps the reason it survived into today and it's now used by a local farmer for grain storage.
Check the comments to know more 👇
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Posted by Connie.
Spotted while documenting The Great Beater Challenge, 2021 edition! Here, it's a little diversion into the near ghost town of Orkney Saskatchewan to look at a disused Patterson Grain Elevator. The structure dates from the 1970s and was built with features foreshadowing those used in high throughput grain terminals of today. Fast load systems and the like.
Check out that vintage yield sign and we doubt it's really needed any more. There's no traffic on these streets.
BTW, we got to chase the Beater Challenge 2023 and we'll post about it soon.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2021. Posted by Connie.
After we drop off a couple rolls for processing, we'll call home! A little corner pharmacy, in a nondescript Calgary strip mall, and it's sort of lost in time. Shot in 2016 and we find anachronisms like this fascinating!
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Posted by Connie.
St Francis in the Woods out in BC's East Kootenay region dates back over a century. It's sort of hidden away down a little backroad and is far removed from the modern world. While no longer used in a spiritual capacity, it still hosts community functions from time to time. Otherwise, silence rules.
Know more about this subject in a link posted to the comments.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2023. Posted by Connie.
The same stone house about a century apart and from almost the same angle. It came close to being a proper Then & Now, but interestingly, we didn't know of the old photo when we captured ours.
The house was only lived in for a few decades, starting about 1910 and abandoned on account of arid conditions.
A family of twelve (yes, two parents plus TEN kids) lived in this modest-sized dwelling. Those early pioneers were hardcore. A house in the middle of nowhere, farming conditions that at best were marginal, brutal winters, few neighbours, little of anything and a bus load of children to raise in a house the size of a garage. Give them credit!
Know more via a link in the comments.
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Photo: 2015. Posted by Connie.
The Fort Motel in Fort MacLeod Alberta, seen in an old postcard circa 1960 and again on a quiet evening late in 2023. It's one of many old style motor-court motels in this historic town and as you can see it's little changed over time. Too bad about that sign, though. The Fort Motel first makes mention in phone directories in the early fifties.
To know about our subject scroll down to a link in the comments. Hey Lethbridge Historical Society, thought you'd like this!
Exploring history with Off the Beaten Path with Chris & Connie. Posted by Connie.
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