Monthly Archive: April 2015

Bolers and Trillium

At the Trillium factory

The company that makes Trilliums today (officially Outback Trailers by Team Trillium of Calgary), also repairs, renovates and fixes up older fiberglass trailers. And it’s not limited to examples bearing the Trillium name, other makes are done as well, including, of course Bolers. Seen here on a warm February 2015...

Calgary Fire Station #1

Calgary then and now – Fire Hall #1

Built just over a hundred years ago, the old Number One Fire Hall, located in Calgary’s downtown core, was last used by the fire department in the 1970s. Now surrounded by looming office towers, it almost gets lost in the clutter. Today it’s a car rental outlet and appears in...

Photographing gas plant

Turner Valley gave us gas!

The Turner Valley Gas Plant was the first in Alberta, the one that started it all, and today is museum you can visit. We join a group of passionate amateur photographers (perhaps some pros too), from the Foothills Camera Club, who’ve arranged a private tour of the complex and invited...

Pine Ridge Kananaskis

Death Valley – Pine Ridge

In this early season warm up hike we follow the Death Valley Trail then loop back on the Pine Ridge Trail, where we gain some modest elevation, before dropping back down to our starting point. Our “summit” goal is a long and low undulating hill, Pine Ridge proper. Aligned in...

Chancellor AB grain elevator

Gas plant tank car loading platform

Old industrial remains are a natural attractant to the BIGDoer.com crew and in this post we take a quick look at an old tank car loading station. Located deep in the middle of nowhere on the Alberta prairies, it sits along an abandoned railway branch line. The station was fed...

Stavely AB grain elevator

Prairie Sentinels – Stavely Alberta

As traditional style wood-cribbed grain elevators go, this example, located in the small prairie town of Stavely Alberta, is both huge and relatively new. Towering over a very busy highway, this massive “prairie sentinel” is seen by thousands of passing motorists each and every day but I doubt many pay...

Bre-X Minerals

Bre-X

Once the darling of the mining sector, Bre-X Minerals of Calgary was later the subject of one of the largest stock swindles in Canadian history. Born of obscurity, the company quickly rose to great heights before crashing back down – spectacularly. Millions, no billions of dollars were lost on one...

Prospector Trail Exshaw

Prospector (a plan B hike)

This was a plan “B” hike, quickly decided upon given our original goal, a modest sized hill/mountain would soon be surrounded by clouds and likely covered in snow due to ever worsening weather conditions. Better stay low, and better avoid any steep slopes. We didn’t know this when heading out,...

Stettler Alberta P&H

Stettler P&H

The old Parrish and Heimbecker (P&H) grain elevator in Stettler Alberta has seen close to a hundred years pass, boy it looks great, and today is a museum you can tour. Located right across the tracks from the Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions (APRE) station, tour trains, some of them steam...

Tiny Boler trailer

Tucked away Boler

One very distinct advantage to owning a Boler, given their small footprint, is that they can be placed nearly anywhere on a person’s property without getting in the way. They can be stored in the back yard or take up little space on the driveway, or one can do like...

CPR Alyth Yards

Trainspotting then and now – Calgary Alyth Yards

In this train themed then and now we position ourselves at the east end of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s huge Alyth Yards Calgary, in an attempt to duplicate a photo, sent to us by a reader, that dates from the 1980s and shows that very location. Not only were we...

Vulcan AB grain elevator

Vulcan elevator row

What a huge difference a couple short decades make. Back in the 1990s when the first photo in this then and now series was captured, Vulcan Alberta had a huge and much celebrated grain elevator row. It was giant – count them – there are five singles and three sets...

House in downtown Calgary

Eight Houses

This is a follow up report to one we did approximately a year ago, where were do a casual survey of all the houses, either lived in, empty or converted to businesses, left in Calgary’s downtown core. There are not many left. We lost one since that last report, and...

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