On May 5th I headed out for a day trip with my friends Court, Fred and Arturo. The Provincial government had introduced a whole bunch of new Covid restrictions just the night before. But we were a small group [5 is the new limit for outdoor gatherings] and we drove out in four separate vehicles. When we did stop, we maintained distance between ourselves. On top of that, all four of us have been vaccinated. So we felt pretty responsible... and safe.
We headed to the southeast of Edmonton, with our main destination being the strip mines around the Battle River Generating Station. We hoped to get a couple of images to complement our "Coal in Alberta" exhibition. Our first stop was at an old abandoned house we found along the way. We shot here for an hour or so, just as the clouds rolled in and took away the nice clear light. There was a breeze out of the north west that was rather uncomfortable.
As we continued on our way we found a small glade of aspen trees in a meadow adjacent to an area of badlands. They were very photogenic so we stopped for a while and shot them.
After finishing up here we continued on our way and made our next stop at the Diplomat Mine Historic site. There are two old stripping shovels restored and on display at this location. We photographed here for a while as well, and by the time we wrapped things up, the clouds were breaking up a little.
We could see two larger, modern draglines just over the horizon so we headed off in that direction. They were actually across the Battle River Valley, not far from Big Knife Provincial Park. Neither of the shovels were active and when we briefly spoke to one of the mine workers that checked us out, he said they didn't need any more coal. We didn't have a chance to speak to him much so I'm not sure if the generating plant has already been switched over to natural gas, which is the plan, or if they just had enough coal for the time being. We saw four pronghorn antelope here, which really surprised me as I have never seen them this far north. And, there were also several turkey vultures soaring on the thermals.
We continued on our way again and eventually ended up at an old abandoned church. This one was in really poor condition. The steeple had fallen off, and the walls were very badly buckled. I'll be surprised if this one survives more than another winter or two. We shot both the exterior and the interior of the church before continuing on our way.
By this point it was already evening, and we were still a long way from home. We looped around to the northeast to a location where we could cross the river valley, and then made our way back home. It was well after 8:00PM when I rolled up in front of my house.
I don't what it is about big machinery that makes my day, but it does, and so this post gets a thumb's up. I think they're still using coal and mining the last of it, but are almost done.
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