On Monday July 21st, Chris and Arturo and I paid a visit to the Marengo Hotel, in Marengo, Saskatchewan, for the Beer Parlour Project. This was outing number 32, officially known as BP32.0.
This was one of the only hotels we could find that was open on Mondays. Many of these small town establishments are closed on Monday, and some on Sunday as well.
As expected, is wasn't very busy, but we did have a chance to visit with the owner Penny, her daughter Kaila, and grandson Ronan. A couple of other patrons stopped by briefly, but that was about it on this occasion. We did a few interviews and took some photographs. We promised Penny that we would do our best to plan for a return visit at some point in the future, and schedule it on a busier night.
It showered off an on during our visit, and later in the evening it rained fairly heavily. Chris had to return to Calgary to take Connie to a medical appointment the next morning. So, we said our goodbyes and he hit the road.
Arturo and I decided to avoid the gravel roads going back to Macklin, so we took the long way around through Kindersley and Kerrobert. It probably added an hour and 100km to our trip but we avoided driving a bunch of greasy backroads in the dark.
On Monday July 21st Arturo, Chris and I set out to the south of Macklin. The day was showering off and on, but generally a little drier than it had been in previous days. We avoided muddy back roads as much as we could and made our way to the town of Hoosier. This town was featured in the short documentary film we made eight years ago with Rueben Tschetter. The film is called "Forgotten Prairie' and it can be viewed on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9K4zxTN-Io&t=8s
Most of the houses in town are occupied, but there are only a handful. There is a Co-op store there, and a maintenance shop for the Rural Municipality. There is also a really cool abandoned school, and an old United Church. We spent the afternoon photographing in town, before continuing on to our next stop for the Beer Parlour Project.
There was a group of four young girls in town that were really friendly. They chatted with us, introduced us to their grandmother, and their mother who worked at the Co-op. They also showed us a history book from the area that had some great old photos of the town back in the day. The great thing about small towns is that kids can be safe in this environment, unlike a big city.
On Sunday July 20th Chris and Arturo and I visited the Hotel in Amisk Alberta for outing number 31 of the Beer Parlour Project. This was one of the only hotels in the area that was open on Sunday, so we chose to visit on this day. Perhaps on a different day of the week there would have been more locals in attendance.
But it all worked out really well. We met Jacquie and her husband Lee that owned the hotel, and lived upstairs. There were a couple of other patrons that came and went during the evening, but mostly we just visited with the owners.
Lee is a musician, and may have been something back in the day. At this later stage in his life he was just a music aficionado that collected guitars, and likes to play. He played for us and sang a few songs, including birthday wishes to Chris' grand daughter Zoe.
This outing was very different from many Beer Parlour outings that we have experienced. It was very low key and intimate. We spent the entire evening visiting with the owners... one on one... without many people around to interrupt. It was relaxing and very enjoyable. I think we will come away with some great images, and a story just as good as any of the others.
When we arrived in Macklin on Friday July 18th, we unloaded all of our gear and settled down in our rental house. At one point I glanced out front window and noticed a group of young people gathered outside on the street. I didn't really think much of it originally, but when I looked a little closer, I realized they were playing Bunnock. The locals commonly refer to it as Bones. The street in front of the house was under construction, with the curbs and gravel base in, but no pavement yet. There was a group of about a dozen young people. They dragged a fire pit out into the middle of the street, had the tunes blasting, were enjoying a few beverages, and were playing the game.
Excuse the poor image quality of my snap shot below. I quickly shot this through the window of the house just to satisfy myself that they were really playing Bunnock, and not bocce or something else. Later we went out and chatted with them and they explained the way the game works. It is played with horse's ankle bones. Two lines of bones are stood up, and teams take turns throwing bones at them in an attempt to knock them down. There is a certain order in which the bones need to be taken down. It is kind of like a cross between horseshoes, lawn bowling and bocce. We probably would have hung around outside a little longer, but the mosquitos were really voracious.
It seems the game is really popular in the immediate area. When we visited the Denzil Hotel just down the highway, they spoke of the game and the World Championships that happen every year in Macklin on the August long weekend. Macklin is the site of the world's largest Bunnock, adjacent to a prominent intersection at the edge of town. It once housed an information center, but that has since been closed. The locals at the Denzil bar joked that the sculpture looks like a female torso, and it was quite telling when the door was originally painted black. They said that as a prank they had once schemed to paint it pink.
Outside of the immediate area very few people are aware of the game. When we mentioned it during our travels, at other hotel bars, almost no one knew what we were talking about. I was really surprised when I returned to Edmonton a few days later and learned that the son of one of Margarit's friends was planning to travel to Macklin on the long weekend to play in the tournament. He had never played the game before, but was recruited by a friend that had entered the past couple of years. I understand that the prize pool for 2025 is over $40,000 and they expect about 250 teams.
CBC Calgary news reporter Brendan Coulter visited with the Beer Parlour Project team at the Blue Saloon in the Carseland Hotel, on Friday July 25th. He did video interviews with Chris and I, and shot a bunch of footage of the venue. This is the article that was posted on the CBC website the next day. We have yet to see the video, but were assured that it would be aired in short order.
Alberta photographers document history, character of old Western Canadian hotel taverns
The Beer Parlour Project is a photography project documenting small-town hotel bars
Built in 1912 and originally called the Royal Alexandra, the Tofield Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in its town and is still open today. The Beer Parlour Project documented it in 2023. (The Beer Parlour Project)
Small-town hotel taverns that once served as the social centres of their communities are the subject of an ongoing project by a team of Alberta photographers and historians, who are working to document the establishments before they vanish.
The Beer Parlour Project features the stories of hotel taverns told using film and digital photography, and interviews with the owners and patrons that inform online write-ups aiming to capture the businesses' ambience and character. Since 2022, Chris Doering, Connie Biggart, and Rob and Margarit Pohl have travelled around Western Canada to document 33 hotels.
Doering and Rob Pohl, who are from Calgary and Edmonton respectively, came up with the idea in 2019, while already shooting photos of historic sites in small towns. When they stopped in for lunch at a hotel bar, they recognized the history of the building around them, and envisioned an art project covering the history of these businesses.
"We think the history of these old places is important because they're disappearing," said Rob Pohl.
"For every hotel that we visit, there's probably three in the general area that have burned down, been torn down, shut down or are for sale. And it's just an opportunity to get in and experience what it once was, and the people that still patronize it."
The first establishment the Beer Parlour Project documented for its project was the Egremont Hotel, first built in the 1940s. (The Beer Parlour Project)
The list of hotels the team has documented around Alberta already includes the Stettler Hotel, the Tofield Hotel, the Grand Hotel in Rimbey, the Greenhill Hotel in Blairmore and the Grand Union Hotel in Coleman.
The project has also included hotels in other provinces visiting Coleville, Limerick and Unity in Saskatchewan, and Fanny Bay and Hosmer in British Columbia.
A small-town hotel was often the first thing new visitors and residents would see upon arriving to a new community, often also serving as a social centre.
The Beer Parlour Project visited the Peers Hotel in Peers, a hamlet in central Alberta. Their visit coincided with a memorial service for a local resident, and what was the last day of business for the hotel indefinitely. (The Beer Parlour Project)
"It's for people to get together, be very comfortable in their environment, chat with anybody who happens to be there, learn local gossip," said Doering.
Along with aiming to capture the history and old stories of the establishments they visit, Doering said they're also sometimes able to see hidden secrets from a hotel's past. He said they've found old messages written on walls, and forgotten love letters written to a hotel owner decades ago.
Pohl and Doering noted the urgency they feel from this work before more old hotels close, as these businesses are already becoming few and far between. Even some of the hotels they've already documented have since shut down in the last few years.
Sitting directly across from Big Valley, Alta.'s train station, the Big Valley Inn used to be at the centre of the town's activity when it was built in 1952. The Beer Parlour Project documented it in 2023. (The Beer Parlour Project)
"That's where that history is disappearing," said Pohl. "We want to be able to talk to the older crowd that still hangs around in these places and get the stories of the time the guy rode a horse into the bar, and the ghost in room number seven upstairs."
Looking ahead, the team envisions building an archive of around 100 hotels in the Beer Parlour Project, and past that, potentially turning their photos and research into a gallery exhibition touring Western Canadian venues, or a coffee table book that compiles their work.
The local history of these old businesses isn't always in the forefront of people's minds, Doering said, but he hopes the project's work stirs up memories for people who've stopped in to visit or dine at an old tavern in a small town over the years.
"They were such an important part of the community," said Doering. "One by one, they're going away."
Andrew Jeffrey is a multimedia journalist with CBC Calgary. He previously worked for CBC News in his hometown of Edmonton, reported for the StarMetro Calgary, and worked as an editor for Toronto-based magazines Strategy and Realscreen. You can reach him at andrew.jeffrey@cbc.ca.
On Sunday July 20th, Chris and Arturo and I took a drive to the west of Macklin. We crossed the border into Alberta and explored the area south of Highway 13. It had been raining quite a bit, so we didn't get too adventurous and didn't venture onto any muddy backroads. We did check out a few buildings, including a restored stone house. This was on private property, but open to the public. It was once a residence for some early pioneers.
That evening we had an outing for the Beer Parlour Project booked at the Amisk Hotel. In advance of that visit we explored a few of the old buildings in the Amisk townsite.
Arturo and I met up with Chris in Macklin, Saskatchewan. We rented the same house that Chris and I had rented back in the spring, and would use that as our base. We did not have any outings planned for the Friday evening of our arrival. We attempted to cash in on a special at a local restaurant... $9.99 for an 8oz steak with fries. But the place was packed and they turned us away. We settled for the local Chinese Restaurant.
On Saturday the 19th we had pre-arranged to visit the hotel in Denzil, Saskatchewan, just to the southeast of Macklin. Chris and I had stopped in at the Denzil Hotel back in the spring. At that time the owners, Jen and John, were just opening up. They had purchased the establishment and were in the final stages of setting up when we stopped by. We had hoped that we would be able to visit during our last trip but they were just too busy with their opening. So we arranged this return visit.
Jen is originally from BC, but moved back to small town Saskatchewan when her mother got sick. Sadly her Mom has since passed away. The tavern in the hotel now houses her late mother's collection of tin signs, and there are some good ones.
It was overcast and showering pretty much the entire time that we drove out on Friday, and this continued all day and into the evening on Saturday. There were apparently two weddings in town on the day of our visit, and a number of the wedding guests stopped by the tavern at various times during the day. One of the wedding parties stopped by for some shots on their way to some other event. There were a bunch of locals just hanging out as well. We had a great visit and interviewed a number of the people in attendance. I shot portraits with the big view camera, and at one point the showers stopped long enough for me to take it outside for an exterior shot of the building. This was the 30th hotel on our growing list of locations. We hope to eventually make it to 100, so there will be ongoing travels for years to come.
On July 18th I headed east to Saskatchewan with my friend Arturo. We were meeting up with Chris to explore some small town hotel watering holes for the Beer Parlour Project. Along the way we made a stop in Strome and scouted the old hotel. When I passed through the area earlier, in May, the hotel was closed. But this time around it had re-opened. We went inside and met Bert, who was working there. At the time of our visit it was operating as a restaurant only. But we were told they were just awaiting the arrival of some VLT machines, and final approval, and soon would be re-opening as a tavern. I left a business card for Bert to pass on to the owner. We will be adding this one to the long list of establishments that the Beer Parlour Project intends to visit.
This is another negative from the recently processed batch of 4" x 5" Kodak T-Max 400. The film was rated at 1250 iso and processed in T-Max Developer.
This is Larry Lew, a working ranch hand from the Calgary Stampede Ranch. The Stampede has a ranch out on the open prairie, south of Hanna. Larry Lew works there training bucking horses for the rodeo. When we caught up with him he was hoisting a cold one at the Waldorf Hotel in Drumheller. I took this portrait of him as he was toasting us with one of those old ALCB draft beer glasses.
This was taking during our Beer Parlour Project outing number BP29.0, back in June.
This is Johnny, an Oilers fan that we met at the Waldorf Hotel in Drumheller. We were out with our entire team, Chris, Connie, Margarit, myself, Arturo, Sharon and Camillo. The night prior we visited the Rockyford Hotel for BP28.0. On this night, back in June, we visited the Waldorf for BP29.0. This is one of my recently processed sheets of Kodak T-Max 400, which I pushed to 1250 iso and developed in T-Max Developer. Johnny was out to have a couple of beers before the playoff game started. Sadly there were no TV's in the Waldorf, and at game time everyone left to go catch the game at one of the other nearby establishments.
