Historic Site

On August 31st the Brazeau Collieries Historic Site in Nordegg closed for the season to public guided tours.  The site belongs to the province of Alberta, but is administered by Clearwater County.  County staff will remain on site through the fall doing some maintenance and restoration work.

I've spent a lot of time up at the site over the past year and have sort of become the unofficial, official photographer.  I am attempting to document all the little details up at the site, with my large format view camera.  Several of my prints from these efforts are on display at the Discovery Center in town, where the mine tours are booked.  There is also a small museum here, featuring some history about the mine and the town.  This is where my prints are displayed.  This is also closed for the season, but my prints will remain on display next spring.

County staff allow me to go in by private tour and document the site.  I am very grateful for the opportunity, and will continue to work on this project for some time to come.  Most recently I visited the site on September 3rd.  I booked my visit with County staff and checked in and out with them during the course of the day.

It has been very smokey in the Nordegg area for several days, and the day I chose to visit the site seemed to be the worst.  You could not even see across the valley to Coliseum Mountain.  It made for some very interesting lighting, as there was sort of an orange pall, and the light was very subdued.  The forecast called for it to warm up to +29C, but due to the smoke and lack of sun, it only made it to +19C.  I thought the softer light might be ideal to document a few things, so I spent the afternoon in the central part of the site.  I understand that there is some restoration work going on at the briquette plant, and I was not permitted to visit this part of the site, at this time.  

It was a good day and I exposed about a dozen sheets of 4" x 5" film... mostly black and white, but a couple of color as well.  I really need to catch up on my backlog of film processing.  I know I have some strong images from my numerous visits to the site, but have only developed a small portion of them so far.  Results will be shared here on my blog as I catch up on my backlog.