When we made our way in to the stone house, outlined in my previous post, we also came across an old range house. This was some distance off across the prairie but of course we had to head over to it and check it out. There was a rather large two story home that was obviously once a homestead. There was an outhouse out back and another smaller building in behind. There was an old foundation and some collapsed wood that had obviously once been a barn. There was a bunch of old junk scattered about... mostly old bits of iron and machinery... that suggested it was once a working farm. In more recent times a bunk wagon had been parked beside the house. This included a propane tank, a gas stove, some cupboards and tables. There was still coffee and sugar and a few dry goods inside, but it looked as though they had been there for a long time. There were also newer corrals and a chute beside the yard so it appeared that this was a location used for rounding up and dropping off cattle into the summer pasture. In fact there were two cows and three calves hanging around the house when we first rolled up.
We didn't notice it right away but eventually came across a large nest in the tree beside the house. There were two hawk chicks in the nest, nearly fledged. It was obvious that they would be taking to the skies soon.
We noticed a fair bit of wildlife as we were driving around on this day. Some jackrabbits, racing through the ditches as we drove down some of the backroads. A large great blue heron, coyotes, mule deer, ducks and geese and lots of shorebirds on the sloughs.
Still later we headed over to a large coal mining operation, quite some distance away from where we had been. There was an old house here as well, that we were thinking of checking out. But, as we attempted to walk in to it, we came across some collapsed mine workings. The old tunnels were quite large and quite deep and the ground around the area was obviously very unstable. We thought better of this and decided it was in our best interests to abandon this plan.
By this time it was late in the day and we knew that our daughters would be getting bored back at the shop in East Coulee. We piled back into the truck and made the long drive back. It was mid evening by the time we got back and we got the barbecue going, had some cold beer, and spent the evening together with a meal and later around a small fire.
Turns out the mine was owned by a prominent Calgary businessman. Looked at records for the place...interesting. Seems visiting mine engineers did not speak highly of the operation. One called them sloppy and suggested they should be shut down. Might explain these exposed workings.
ReplyDelete