The the first image takes us back to 1974 and shows a Calgary Transit trolleybus heading south down Elbow Drive. There’s downtown in back. Forty years later we’ve returned to this location to see what’s changed and you’ll notice it’s been dramatic. The city skyline today, if not for a...
This former mobile home (or maybe it’s a retired construction/oilfield bunkhouse) might not seem like the most secure building for such a purpose, yet it didn’t stop a certain entrepreneur in this prairie community. Presenting small town mini-storage, satisfying a need with an economical and gloriously makeshift solution. These ârelocatable...
Shelter Bay Boler: here’s a little fibreglass trailer discovered in the Columbia-Shuswap region of British Columbia and a little south of Revelstoke. It’s seen at a landing while waiting for and later onboard the MV Columbia Upper Arrow Lakes ferry. The water crossing is otherwise too wide for a bridge...
This adventure happens in front ranges of Kananaskis, out in the Highwood River area and for a modest effort comes a nice reward. Be in awe of that mountain scenery! Following a trail up Pack Trail Coulee, one tops out at Grass Pass, then it’s on to Fir Creek Point...
We’re down by the tracks in Coronation Alberta or rather on our visit, standing where the tracks used to be. From this angle and observed today there’s nothing left of the railway. Not a thing. Presenting two views captured from the same location but separated by many, many decades. It’s...
Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park is a wonderful natural area between Calgary and Cochrane. There on the north side of the Bow River, it’s a huge playground for outdoorsy types, with lots of rolling hills, grasslands and the odd wooded grove. Despite being close to the city, itâs easy to imagine...
Main and Railway or 50th and 50th? In most Alberta communities one or the other usually marked the most important intersection there in downtown. Or what was the most important – things change but names remain. In some communities it was one then the other (almost always the former to...
Flashback to a couple summers ago (how time flies) and we’re out cruising backroads of British Columbia. While exploring one of our homebases for the trip, in this case Revelstoke, we came to a realization. It turns out this mountain community is a real hotspot for little fibreglass trailers. Remember,...
Shaunavon Saskatchewan is located in the southwest corner of province, it’s been around for just over a century and home to perhaps eighteen hundred people. Give or take, that is. There’s a quaint downtown with lots of nice old buildings and a few of them will be seen in this...
We’re looking at Jack’s Shoe Store, in business as long as anyone can remember but now just another shuttered store in another small prairie town. It’s a trend common out in rural parts and one by one they close and the local economic base shrinks yet again. Rinse and repeat....
Here’s the last hike of the winter season for us, although the route documented can be enjoyed any time of the year. Things are warming up (finally) and this shoulder season is a quiet time for the West Bragg Creek Trail system. Presenting a pleasant little loop in the woods...
There’s some rather interesting architecture from the 1960s out there and this building is no exception. It’s completely circular and while not that over the top compared to some structures of the time, it’s still unconventional enough to be of note. Originally Calgary Builders’ Exchange, it’s now home to the...
The mission assigned us this day is to explore Trochu Alberta and we’ve got no other goal than to get to know this little prairie community. That’s all and nothing more. Our little soirĂ©e just happened to take place on what must be the coldest day of the year, so...
In this piece we’re revisiting Beachwood Estates High River Alberta, a once thriving community built in a flood zone. A known flood zone â anyone find that funny? Then guess what, the river flooded – the watercourse does have High in its title after all. This happened in 2013, and...
Welcome to this post, titled âHistoric Hotels Cranbrook BCâ and it’s going to be a fun one. Here’s today’s line up: The King Edward (King Eddy), Byng, Cosmopolitan (Cos, Kos or mockingly, da’Kos), The York, Sam Steele (aka The Steele or Sammy), The Cranbrook and rounding it out, The Mount...
Presenting another in-town Calgary Pathways adventure. The route described presently takes one from Montgomery to Bowness (and back) while exploring green spaces, wetlands and escarpments. Paralleling the Bow River it visits Bowmont, Baker and Bowness Parks on pavement or gravel track. While the city is often in view, it feels...
Here’s how we make a Then & Now. 1) We first take an old image supplied by a reader or sourced by the Team itself and visit the location seen to document what things look like today. 2) We shoot a new photo, while doing our best to duplicate the...
Our subject, the Blue Bridge to Nowhere, is about a century old, but as you’ll note it’s not seen use for some time now. Many decades ago the road along here got bypassed, yet interestingly the span didn’t get removed at the time. Old records suggest it still had a...
Today’s location is downtown Coleman Alberta and in this piece we’ll be comparing two photos separated by maybe 75 or 80 years. It’s just an everyday street scene, here in this former coal mining town and really, it’s hardly worthy of attention, yet here we are. The prominent players in...
That heat’s insufferable and smoke from forest fires happening somewhere else on the continent hangs heavy the air. It’s hot and stuffy. Just ;ook up to that ugly brown sky and feel the oppression as it sucks the life out of you. We’re in Castlegar BC, it’s the summer of...
Which Way to Wainwright? We’ve come to this spot (marked Philips Alberta on maps) to watch trains, but they no-showed and instead kept an eye on something else playing out not far from the tracks. How curious! It seems a transport with a military load bound for a nearby Forces...
Here’s another photo from our archives picked completely at random and presented here in all its glory. We close our eyes, point and pray what ever is chosen is worth seeing. So far it’s worked. It has be previously unpublished, but otherwise all images, good, bad or even cringe-worthy, are...
The location is a residential street in Bassano Alberta and we’re armed with an old photo to be used in a special way. That can only mean one thing, you know…it’s Then and Now time! Presenting two images showing the same location, the same subjects and and taken from the...
Team BIGDoer lives to explore and this fine day we’re with friends roaming the backroads northeast of Edmonton. It’s an area known for many “onion dome” churches and these connect back to early settlers who were of varying Eastern-Orthodox faiths. On the road ahead our subject comes into view, Saint...
In this post we’re looking at a lowly farm gate. Have we hit bottom and run out of subjects to babble on about? Never! Anyway, there’s a million of them protecting home, field or pasture, they’re strictly utilitarian and because they blend into the background hardly ever get noticed. Unless...
The date is summer 2021 (we’re so behind), the place is beautiful BC, Columbia region, and we’re out Boler hunting. Of course, it’s only just one of the things we do and we’ll keep busy exploring backroads, seeking out adventures and never sitting still. It’s what we do and this...
Today we’re in the Calgary community of Victoria Park and right beside the Stampede Grounds. Stampede? It’s a low-key, intimate event that’s been around for a few years, so maybe you haven’t heard of it. The first of our subjects is a replica of Westbourne Church that once stood a...
Presenting two photos of the CC Snowdon Building in Calgary, shot from the same spot and separated by over 100 years. There’s been change, as you’ll see, yet certain elements remain timeless. Even with the building that is our subject overshadowed by something much newer and to which its attached,...
Fabyan Bridge (for trains – aka Battle River Trestle) is a bit short of a kilometre long and on such a scale that it kind of defies description. It’s not the grandest of its kind, and that title belongs to the Lethbridge Viaduct in southern Alberta, which wins by a...
A ride on any of the BC Inland Ferries is an adventure and we do it every chance we get. It’s hard to explain the appeal and silly perhaps, yet if we’re out that way and there’s a route that includes a ferry crossing, we’ll choose it over any other....
Kenopsia: "the eerie atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but now vacant or abandoned."
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Rowley Alberta early 1990s & 2025
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Sunbeam Grocery Mt Pleasant Calgary
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The Last Classic? (Calgary Transit)
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Blackfoot Texaco â Canada88.com
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DNR Excavator (Ruth Dredger)
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Calgary Transit: the Last GMC Fishbowls
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New Horizon Mall is Strange!
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This is Carolside Alberta
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Atlas Mine East Coulee AB 40+ Years Apart
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Canadian Pacific #674 East Coulee Alberta
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Moodonna & Child by Artist Manwoman
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