On December 2nd Chris and Connie travelled up to Edmonton and we connected for another edition of the Beer Parlour Project. This time around we would explore the Victoria Hotel, in Bruderheim, Alberta. This hotel was built in 1906, just after Alberta became a province, and is the oldest establishment we have explored so far.
We had pre-arranged with the owners of the hotel for our visit. In fact we stopped by last summer, back in early August and made some introductions. They had an open stage night planned, and also advertised on social media that we would be in attendance. Chris and Connie did the same on their Facebook Page. Being the technological dinosaur that I am, I just went along for the ride, as did Margarit.
On our way into town we stopped at a local business and checked out the Flying Saucer sign that they had placed at the entrance to their property. We really don't know much about this, and will probably have to circle back to it at some point.
We arrived at the Victoria Hotel around 1:45PM... a little earlier than we originally anticipated. It was nice to see that they had a sandwich board out on the sidewalk, advertising that we would be there...!
We did a few photographs of the exterior of the building in low winter light and I hope we captured something good. When we went inside we re-introduced ourselves to Liza and her brother Al that own the place.
It turns out that they had found a bunch of old newspapers and letters in the attic of the building. They had them all laid out on display for us to go through. Most of these dated from the 1930's and 1940's.
A short time later the locals began to arrive for their evening lubrication. We interacted with them and set up the big camera. It wasn't long before we had a number of people convinced that they needed to get their portraits taken. All in all I think I photographed eleven different groups... some groups of two or more and others just individuals. I shot two two sheets of each, as is my normal routine. Towards the end of the evening I came close to running out of film.
All the while, as I was shooting, Chris was taking a bunch of digital photographs and sitting down with various patrons and recording conversations about their recollections of the history of the hotel. I think we ended up gathering a lot of stuff, both visual and historic, that will add to our project.
Every one of these outings turns out a little different, and usually not exactly what we are expecting. This time around I had a couple minor technical issues with some of my equipment, and will make adjustments going forward. I also learned that we need to be very clear to people that the portraits are free, and in due course, when the film gets developed, they will be provided with scans, and prints if desired. I think a few were reluctant to take part because they thought we would be charging for our services.
We packed things up and left the hotel around 10:00PM. Chris and Connie were crashing for the night on an air mattress on our living floor. When we got back to our place in the city we ordered in some pizza, and sat around visiting and having a few drinks until the wee hours. It was yet another great experience.
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