If you are out exploring mountainous or wooded areas of Alberta and come across strange and curious brightly coloured cloths tied to trees, you have discovered a First Nation’s prayer site. We find these every now and then while out hiking or biking, some in what appears to us to...
The town of Forestburg, located in central Alberta, is home to three very nice wooden grain elevators. These types of structures as we all know are pretty rare, but this group in some ways is quite unique and interesting. For one they all sit alongside a still active railway branch...
Sunalta School is located in the Calgary community of Scarboro, just west of downtown. This fine structure was made from locally quarried sandstone, one of many old schools in the city built from this material and is just over a century old. We’ve been given an old photo from the...
We’ve spent so much time focusing on all those old wooden grain elevators that we’ve completely missed something – the huge inland terminals that reflect the current state of the Canadian grain industry and perhaps a new subject matter for this website. Maybe, just maybe, these modern hunks of concrete...
The Inglewood Wildlands Park, from the 1930s-1980s was the site of an oil refinery, the only remains of which include a small brick shed and some power line supports. The rest of the land is reclaimed and has been allowed to revert to a natural state. It’s hard to image...
While out exploring we take a quick break to document a slow moving local freight traveling along the CPR’s backwater Stettler to Lacombe branch. Three locomotives make short work of their small train, about ten cars long, which was spotted in the central Alberta community of Alix. Heading eastbound it’s...
This 13 foot Boler was found in an RV/motorhome storage lot in Lethbridge Alberta and appears so awfully tiny and insignificant when compared to all those huge camping trailers that surround it. In our experience it’s relatively rare to find Bolers in these lots as given their small size, and...
The world renowned Spruce Meadows equestrian venue operates, via a private contractor, a fleet of guest shuttles, comprised of vintage buses from the 1960s-1990s. These green and white beasts earn their keep taking people to and from parking lots and transit stations to the huge event facility located at the...
The fascinating things we find while out exploring the Alberta plains. Of course there are the ghost towns and abandoned farms, but we also stumble across lots of old, classic and interesting vehicles. Seen here is an odd-couple sharing the same patch of grass between two old wood buildings a...
We’ve taken two fairly random screen captures from the 1985 movie Journey of Natty Gann, ones we know were shot in an area we’re very familiar with and frequent, and then track down the locations seen to record how they look today. You might say this is a tall order...
The subject of this article is a fine old grain elevator found on farm north of Fort MacLeod Alberta. Formerly located in the small community of Woodhouse, not terribly far away, this tall and imposing structure was moved to this current location in the 1970s. We’ve been invited by the...
This post has been updated and can be found here: Shaunavon Saskatchewan ~70 years apart. More SK… Backroads Saskatchewan. Riding the Rails in SW Saskatchewan – Part One and Riding the Rails in SW Saskatchewan – Part Two. Coleville Saskatchewan Pool “A”. If you wish more information on what you’ve...
The Seebe Dam, called the Kananaskis Plant by its owner, is just over a century old and is located along the scenic Bow River west of Calgary, where the mountains meet the plains. We’re in the area for a hike and take some time to study this interesting old structure...
If you’ve driven the Crowsnest Highway, also known as Highway #3, through the Crowsnest Pass, you’ve perhaps noticed the “Little Church” in Bellevue on the north side of the road. Or maybe you missed it, it is after all quite small. This is the Back to God Chapel, aka Wayside...
Built in the mid-1890s and looking every bit its age, the old wood framed Chinese Laundry building (aka OK Laundry), in Fort MacLeod Alberta is under threat of being torn down. Leaning and sagging, the structure has clearly seen better days. Is it to be saved, or will it soon...
The massive railway bridge seen here has not been used for years and once belong to the Canadian Pacific Railway. It spans the Oldman River near Fort MacLeod Alberta and was partially damaged by the spring 2013 floods. This was just a cursory visit to gauge how the structure was...
This 17 foot Boler was found in small town Alberta and keeps a 1940s era International Harvester pickup company. The trailer wears a paint scheme that based upon our own rather casual observations seems to be the most common style seen on one of this size. Whereas the 13 foot...
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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