Bruce Stampede

They've been holding a rodeo out in Bruce, Alberta... about 100km East of Edmonton, since 1914.  This past weekend was the 101st Annual Stampede.  We wanted to go out for Saturday, which was the local rodeo, with all the fun events... Mutton Bustin', Greased Pig Scramble, Wild Cow Milking... all the kids stuff.  But when we got up on Saturday morning, it was cool, cloudy and raining.  So, we decided to go on Sunday instead.  This was the Pro-Rodeo with all the official events.  It dawned warm and sunny, with barely a cloud in the skies.  We headed out to Bruce just after lunch.  Our friends Shelly, Eric and Amy met us out there.  We had a great time watching all the events and enjoying the western atmosphere.  Later in the afternoon there was a great roast beef dinner.  We ended up spending the entire day, and it was around 9:00PM before we finally made it back home.

I was trying out the new digital camera that I recently bought.  There was absolutely no way I could attempt to photograph a rodeo with a view camera, so I settled for digital.  I probably could have tried it with my 35mm film camera, but I don't have one with auto-focus, so it probably would have yielded a lot of wasted film.

Early in the afternoon we were seated up in the grandstand, watching the events from there.  Later in the afternoon I moved down to a perch on top of the corral fence, right beside the chutes.  It was here that I got some of the better action shots, as well as a bunch of the portraits of the cowboys...

Weekend in East Coulee

I booked two days off from work... Friday July 18th and Monday July 21st.  This gave us a four day Long Weekend to spend down in East Coulee.  It was Helena's 6th birthday on July 17th so we celebrated that at home, and then hit the road with the trailer on the morning of Friday the 18th.  We arrived in East Coulee just after lunch and set up the trailer on our private RV pad next to the building.  I realized that Friday is Steak Night at the Tavern in the East Coulee Hotel.  In typical red neck fashion, kids are allowed in the tavern until 9:00PM.  So we all headed over there for something to eat.  Julia is still with us, visiting from Austria.  The food was pretty good... a large rib eye steak, baked potato, ceasar salad, garlic bread and baked beans.  Not sure exactly what the price was, but something around 20 bucks.  Not too many Dad's can say that they have been to the bar with their daughters... aged 6, 8 and 11!!!  The girls had a blast playing songs on the jukebox, and hanging out with all the beer drinking locals.

The next morning, the girls took the truck and drove in to Drumheller, to visit the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology.  I stayed behind in East Coulee and wandered over to the old Timber Bridge with my big view camera.  It was a beautiful summer afternoon and though there were a few scattered clouds it was mostly sunny and got quite warm... actually hot.  Here are a number of snapshots I took with my phone, while I was photographing at the bridge.

Later that evening, while I was relaxing at the trailer, the sky to the west was really darkening.  The girls had wandered off to the playground and to walk the dogs.  Frank sent me a text from Drumhller, 20km up the valley, warning me to batten down the hatches.  I snapped this photograph of the approaching storm and started packing things up.  The storm hit Drumheller with heavy rain and hail and strong winds and did a lot damage around town.  I managed to just get our awning rolled in in the nick of time, but it was hailing and raining heavily before I finished putting all the tables and chairs away.  I was soaked to the skin by the time I finished.  The girls got caught in the storm as well, but made it back into the trailer before I finished up.  Fortunately the hail in our area was shortlived and not really any bigger than pea-sized.  But winds were strong and we got a lot of rain and were basically forced to spend the evening inside the trailer.  For quite an extended period of time the rain was coming down in sheets and I estimate that there was a couple of inches of rain that fell through the evening.

By Sunday morning the storm had basically blown on through.  It was still overcast and a little showery, but nothing like the night before.  We headed out with the truck and had lunch at the Last Chance Saloon in Wayne, and then went over to the Homestead Antique Museum in Drumheller.  By evening it was cool but clearing up quite a bit.  We set up the BBQ and put together a big meal of steak, potatoes, salad, corn, etc.  Frank and Chris came out from Drumheller for the evening and joined us for supper.  

The next day was Monday, and the weekend was coming to a close.  I really wanted to try to photograph some old coal mine facilities in the town of Cambria, just up the road.  It had been too unsettled on Sunday, and now by Monday morning, it was not much better.  But I decided to head out anyway.  Margarit came with me and we went out together in the rain and photographed some of these cool old entrances.  There was also a funky looking sculpture that someone had constructed, up on the hill at the edge of town.

By the time we finished up in Cambria it was time to pack up for the trip back home.  We hooked up the trailer and put everything away.  After locking up the building and the yard, we hit the road.  Just as we were leaving, Frank and Chris' oldest daughter Tamara stopped by and said hello.  It was nice to see her again as it had been at least a couple of years....  

Before getting back onto the highway we headed over to the Palcoprep shop in Drumheller.  The company is in the process of vacating this shop, and moving all of our stuff over to the new building in East Coulee.  I would estimate that at least two-thirds of the stuff is already moved.  One of the things that remained, that we wanted to see, was a current project...

The Government of Saskatchewan had contracted Palcoprep to preserve a record of some Petroglyphs.  These are located in a small Provincial Park called the St. Victor Petroglyphs.  A large chunk of sandstone at this site is fractured and ready to break away from the outcrop and tumble down the hill.  We cleaned a section of this sandstone that contained a number of petroglyphs and took a mold off of it.  We were supposed to do this last fall, and attempted the project then.  But by the time the contract was awarded to us, it was too late in the year, and too cold to make the mold properly.  So, we returned this spring, and fortunately the rock had not yet broken away, so were were able to make the mold.  Since then we created a cast of this section of the rock that contained a number of the petroglyphs.  The mold and the cast are now in the shop, ready to be shipped to Saskatchewan.  I wanted to photograph both while they were still around.  After this was completed, we hit the road for home, and eventually made it back to the house in the city, by about 9:00PM.  A nice long weekend, but somewhat sad that it had to come to an end.  I was not particularly thrilled with the thought of returning to the office the next morning....

Edmonton Eskimos Game

On July 11th I bought tickets to the Canadian Football League game here in Edmonton, at Commonwealth Stadium.  The game was between our hometown Edmonton Eskimos and the new Ottawa Redblacks.  Ottawa has a long history in the CFL, but at least two of their previous teams folded.  Back when I was a kid there was the old Ottawa Rough Riders.  I always found it odd that back in the day, when there were only NINE teams in the league, two of them chose to be called the Rough Riders.  This was the Ottawa team, and the Saskatchewan team that played in Regina.  The Ottawa team folded and years later eventually came back as the Ottawa Renegades... the inspiration for the name of my men's league hockey team.  But, the football Renegades also folded after a few seasons and then this year resurrected themselves as the Redblacks.

Hailey and Julia came with me to the game, and it was a beautiful summer evening.  We really enjoyed the game, which the Eskimos won by a score of 27-11. I really got into the game and cheered and yelled until I just about lost my voice.  I took a few snapshots at the game with my phone and have posted them here.  

We later learned that the 50/50 raffle jackpot of over $70,000 was not claimed.  It was added to the pool for the next home game, which was on July 24.  This created a huge buying frenzy for the enthisiastic crowd that showed up, and the jackpot grew to nearly $350,000.  It was won by a local young guy.  Unfortunately the Eskimos lost that game, against Calgary.

Short Day Trip with Helena

We stayed home on the weekend of July 12 and 13.  It was a very sunny and warm weekend, but the skies were very hazy with the smoke from several large forest fires that were burning over in the foothills, the Rocky Mountains, up in northeastern British Columbia, and in the Northwest Territories.  The winds were mixing the smoke from these various fires together and diverting it into our area.  Conditions had been this way for sevearl days and continued through the weekend.

The girls had tickets to go see the horse show, Odysseo by Cavaglia that had arrived in town and was showing in a large tent, set up in northeast Edmonton.  The tickets were quite expensive and we bought them for the girls several months ago.  Julia from Austria is still staying with us so she went to the show with Hailey, Annelise and Helena.

I tried to catch up on a few chores around the house but didn't really accomplish much.  On Sunday, frustrated by being at home on such a nice weekend, I packed up and headed out for a day trip.  I managed to talk Helena into coming along with me.  We drove around for a couple of hours and didn't really accomplish anything.  The light was harsh and the skies very hazy and the big camera never even made it out of the truck.  Eventually we made our way over to Elk Island National Park.  Helena wanted to walk one of our favorite trails through the woods and see if we could find any frogs.  We had walked here in the spring a couple of years ago and there were little wood frogs all over the place.  This time around there were no frogs to be found.  But, there sure were a lot of dragonflies.  Helena and I enjoyed the walk together and eventually packed up and made our way back to the city.

Possession of the East Coulee Property

On the weekend of July 5 and 6 I travelled down to East Coulee to officially take possession of the building that I had purchased.  I went by myself because the girls were staying at Pigeon Lake with my brother, and their cousins.  I just parked my trailer in front of the property, and set up there.  The keys were turned over to me, and the property was officially mine.

I spent some time wandering around the building taking a bunch of record photographs.  Then I hiked across the road, up into the hills, and took some photographs that were essentially an overview of the town, with the building visible.  I also used my phone to take a couple of panoramic shots of the townsite.

Here's the truck and trailer in evening light, parked in front of the property

Here's what will become the Fabrication Shop, in the old 1937 section of the building, that once housesd a Texaco Service Station

This is the center bay of the building, which includes an overhead chain hoist, a fune extractor, a ventilation system, and upgraded overhead radiant heaters.

These two shots are the interior of the high bay, at the southeast end of the building.  There is an overhead rolling crane, and a rather elaborate mezzanine.

This boardroom is on the upper level of the high bay.

When I hiked up into the hills to get some overviews of the town and of the building, I came across these lower jaws of a deer, that obviously someone had neatly laid out on a rock.

And, there were quite a few Prickly Pears in bloom...

Here are a couple of shots of the townsite.  The building is clearly visible in the first one.  The second shot is more of an overview, with the building visible near the right edge, and the tipple of the Atlas Coal Mine visible further into the background near the left edge.

These next two shots are panoramic images that were taken with the camera in my cell phone.

Finally some bugs on a concrete retaining wall that I came across as I wandered around town.

I spent a good part of the weekend just wandering around town.  The local residents were all very friendly and I introduced myself to quite a few of them.  I spent Saturday evening down at the East Coulee Hotel and had a few beers there with some of the locals.  The next morning I had coffee with the dentist from Drumheller that lives in the big house across the street from the shop.  The house is a long sprawling bungalow with dark stucco and black shingles.  All the locals refer to it as the funeral home.  It was built by the guy that I bought the building from, but he recently sold it to the dentist.

Portions of my building will be leased to Palcoprep and we will relocate our operations from Drumheller out to East Coulee.  Now that I have possession of the building I can draw up a lease agreement between the two companies and we can look to starting the dreaded job of packing and moving.  Most of the responsibility for this will rest with my business partner Frank.  But I know that I will be back down in town several times over the remainder of the summer as the project progresses.