It’s a frigid and blustery weekend, April 2017. There’s this biting cold, a constant numbness. We’re here on on the plains of Saskatchewan, north of this little town, west of that one, a place sparsely populated, fields stretching off to the horizon in every direction. All around, the trying conditions,...
Here, in some random back alley, in some random Calgary neighbourhood, March of 2016, it’s a Boler for us to discover. It’s a thirteen foot model, looking a little ragged and sitting in front it’s a dirty old toilet. There’s nothing more photogenic than that! Bolers were made in a...
They call it the Canmore “Engine” Bridge. Here in a thoroughly spectacular setting, it spans the mighty Bow River and while used by pedestrians and cyclists today, it used to support a railway line that once served Canmore’s coal mine. Yes, they mined that stuff here – and in fact...
This is the year we didn’t hike (much). Conditions were partly to blame, suffering heat in the summer and all that lung-clogging smoke from forest fires across the west lasting for weeks on end. Both are Kryptonite to us. Then there was gigs – many, many, that all seemed to...
There’s not much in Buffalo Alberta – never was. Today, there’s a few houses, one or two appearing empty. There’s a thoroughly modern community hall, but mostly the town is made up of vacant lots. And there’s the abandoned rail line just over there. As for businesses there’s one, the...
If one were to drive around Calgary back in the 1970s and 1980s there was a good chance you’d pass by a Bob’s Burgers outlet. There used to be a dozen or more of them across the city (we used old phone directories to come to that number), making them...
If you have a thing for history and find yourself in North Battleford Saskatchewan the Western Development Museum is a must see. It’s a fantastic facility, good sized, well regarded, with numerous exhibits indoor and out. One highlight is a representation of a 1920s era pioneer village just like one...
They say that “brown stuff” happens. That it sometimes hits the fan. No matter what you do, no matter how you prepare, how you plan, a trip and fall is inevitable. Eventually. The law of averages insists upon it…and almost no one gets a free pass. It can hurt and...
Modest in stature Mt Ware, in the rolling foothills of Kananaskis a bit west of Turner Valley, has attributes unbecoming its size. There’s steep slopes, often rocky and loose underfoot topped by a narrow craggy summit, barren and windswept, more befitting a major peak than the minor bump that it...
There’s countless places like Queenstown Alberta scattered across the Canadian Prairies, little farming communities once full of promise that today seem to be hanging on by a thread. Not ghost towns in the true sense, they’re something close. There’s life, but it’s not always obvious. Imagine it. Streets to nowhere,...
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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