Down to Crowsnest

On Tuesday morning, right after Thanksgiving, I got up early and got ready to blast down to Crowsnest Pass.  The girls had all headed back to the city on Thanksgiving Monday.

I was up at 5:30AM.  I made a lunch for myself, packed up my cameras, gathered an overnight bag and hit the road.  The prints for the Coal show were still in the truck.  It was about 7:30AM when I locked up the cottage and hit the road.

I took Highway 22 all the way down.  This is a beautiful scenic drive that goes from Rocky Mountain House, to Caroline, Sundre, Cochrane, Bragg Creek, Turner Valley, Black Diamond and down to Lundbreck.  It was -10C when I left Nordegg and Fred tells me that down in Crowsnest it was even colder, at -13C.  There was snow in places along the way, and other areas had a heavy hoar frost.  There was fresh snow on the peaks to the west, that I followed all the way south.  The tamaracks were in full golden color in many places along the way.  

I arrived at the Crowsnest Pass Public Art Gallery at about twenty minutes after noon.  Fred showed up and met me there a few minutes later.  He had traveled down from Edmonton the day before.  We met up with the curator of the gallery and unloaded all of our prints for the show.  She is going to take the next few days and install everything.  Fred was planning to stay in the area for a few days so it was hoped that he would get to see all the prints after they get installed.

With that off of our plate we decided to spend the afternoon doing some shooting.  We went down into the town of Coleman to start.  The whole valley is now referred to as the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, but back in the days of coal mining, it consisted of a string of little towns along the river, each with its own mine.  There was Burmis, Lundbreck. Bellevue, Hillcrest, Frank, Blarimore, Coleman, and probably a few other small ones.  There are quite a few historic buildings still left in Coleman, so this was where we started.  I think there is more remaining in this town because the mine here was one of the last to close.  

Some of our images that were taken in full sun look very warm and pleasant.  But in fact conditions were rather challenging.  There was a clear mountain light, but the temperature only got up to about 5 or 6 degrees above freezing, and there was a brisk wind out of the west.  It reminded me that winter shooting conditions will soon be upon us.

We photographed the old Roxy Theatre, the Morrison Block, the Italian Hall and the Cameron School.  I shot with both my 4x5 and my 8x10 cameras.  Some of the old buildings, like one of the mine offices, and the old firehall, have been converted to private residences.  Later we scouted around for a while.  We took a drive on a side road through all the rubble of the Frank Slide.  This was the largest rockslide in Canadian History, and the face of Turtle Mountain came down and buried the river, the railroad, and the town of Frank.  It is rather ironic that just a couple of miles to the east the Hillcrest Mine Explosion was the largest Mining Disaster in Canadian History.  Both occured over a century ago in the early 1900's.

Fred and I took a few photographs among the rubble and then moved on to Lime City.

This historic site just beyond the landslide consists of three large kilns.  Limestone from the rock slide was pulverized and baked in the kilns to make cement, and dust suppression for the coal mines.  By the time we got here the light was fading and we didn't do much in the way of photography.

We headed over to a small pub in Coleman and had something to eat.  Fortunately the place was not crowded, and the staff were checking for ID and vaccination status.  We felt fairly safe there.  After dinner Fred headed back to his hotel in Blairmore.  I headed over and checked in to the hotel that I had reserved in Coleman.  It was very busy and almost all the rooms were full.  So much so that I had to park my truck almost a block away.  Seems a bunch of construction workers were staying there but they were all asleep early and gone first thing in the morning.