Tag: manitoba abandonded

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CLEARWATER

Remember that trip I took to the old abandoned town on New Years Eve when I almost turned around and abandoned mission?  The one I’ve been posting about for the last week?  How many finds am I up to now?  Ya, I’ve lost track too.

Well this is one that I could access from the road so I got it on the way back home as the sun was setting and the fog was lifting.

Clearwater house for email

As I was playing around with different lenses and angles I thought, this house looks familiar.  Well sure enough, when I got home, it was a house that I had been trying to find in the area.  It wasn’t really in the area that the original poster said it was but regardless I found it.  As I did not have permission to enter the property and I do not have an RM map for this area, I cannot provide a history of the property.

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THE LONG WAY

Before Christmas Colton and I headed up to Birtle for a hockey game.  I thought I would take highway 83 as the 511 app showed good highways and I figured this would eliminate the zig zagging on the highways.  Well, it was icy and the closer we got to Birtle, the foggier it got.

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This was a real piss off as I had hoped to get some photographs of the old residential school for an upcoming unit at school AND I was going to head up to an old stone mansion about 20 kms from the rink.  Nope.  Mother Nature had other plans.

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I did find a lot of potential photo ops along the way and did stop for a couple shots of this one as it was right alongside the highway.  This is also when I discovered that the highway was very icy, even though it didn’t look like it while I was cruising along.

I didn’t even bother to look up a history.

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LOOK JUST A LITTLE BIT HARDER

I have driven by this place over and over and over again.  You see, there is something else at this location that likely grabs the attention of many when they drive by.  Yesterday as the sun was setting, I was trying to get the perfect sunset shot so I drove down this road and wow, jackpot.

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I wanted to caputure what I found and I will definately be going back to shoot all of the glorious buildings on this old farmstead.  In the meantime I will be making the proper arrangements to locate and speak to the owner and get back to it.

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Goes to show that you never know what is in that clump of trees!

Today I had every intention of getting out again to knock off another 5 or 6 properties off my list but the sky wasn’t to my liking and its given me a chance to update, research and orgainze the finds I found yesterday.

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THE LONESOME ROAD

Yesterday on my travels, on the gravel road that I never thought would end, I came upon this little house.

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The yard is still used but as you can see, the house is pretty grown over.  I didn’t wander over to the other side as this is as close I could get without having permission to enter.

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HALLGRIM THE ONE-HANDED

The Great-Great Grandfather of this land owner was known as the “Hallgrim the one-handed” and was lost at sea in 1873.

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My eagle-eyed husband spotted this house from the highway on our way to photograph another home in Cypress.  Fortunately, I had my maps and was able to locate the landowner and was granted permission to have a look around and photograph.

Originating from Vik, Flateyardal in Northern Ireland, “one-handed”‘s son immigrated to Canada in 1873.  Born in 1844 and passing on in 1936, he travelled to Halifax with his wife whom died giving birth to their first child.  He remarried and lived in Ontario and North Dakota.  He lost his second wife and when he re-married they settled in the RM of Argyle in 1919.

Hallgrimson House 1 email

His Grandson, AO was born in 1917 in Edmonton.  AO with his parents, JA and GK, they settled in Winnipeg.  JA, like his father, shared a love of music and while living in Winnipeg, played at the Rialto Theatre.  The family then moved to Los Angeles, California for a short time where JA pursued his love of music.   JA passed away in 1923 and shortly thereafter AO and his mother and sibling moved back to Manitoba.

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If you look off into the trees, you will see a small body of water.  I imagine that in its prime, this was a beautiful piece of property and a glorious place to raise a family.  Off in the fields and towards the water were a couple pieces of old farming equipment.

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During our visit to this property, we were in the prime of deer hunting season and the land owner warned us to please be careful as there were people that were given permission to hunt in and around the property.  I had my bright pink winter coat on and Cade & Makenna both had orange vests along.

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The home still had curtains and personal effects inside.  There was a large hole chewed in the basement door so I decided not to go inside to look around.

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AO enlisted in WWII in Winnipeg and trained in Brandon.  He served in Italy, England, France and Holland.  After the war he came back to Manitoba and purchased this quarter section of land.

In 1955 he married.  They resided on the property until 1978 with their 3 children.

I very much enjoyed this old car.  I could not believe that most of the glass was still intact.  While there was nothing left of the seats, I’m sure it kept many a mouse warm in the years that it has been parked by this tree.

 

 

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SNOWFLAKE, MANITOBA

Being on holidays and with the beautiful weather we’ve had, I had to get out and get some of my must see buildings off my to-do list.  I thought I’d venture out to the abandonded town of Snowflake, Manitoba.

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As I got closer and closer, it got foggier and foggier and I one point, or two, I contemplated turning around.  When I realized it was further than I thought and there was about 16 kms of gravel to travel, I thought about it again.

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I pushed through and while I’m not happy with the photos, its done.  There really is nothing left in the town even though I’m sure there are 3 families living within the town, two just on the outskirts.

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There was even a lit , neon open sign in an old shop in a business close to this one.

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When the railway line into Snowflake was abandoned, the writing was on the wall for this small town in south-central Manitoba.

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Border Branch No. 207 of the Royal Canadian Legion, originally founded at Snowflake in 1947, surrendered its charter in 1986 and its war memorial, built in 1961, was moved to La Riviere in 2006.

The Snowflake School was closed in 1992 and while I didn’t see it on my drive through the town, I did find this.

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The United Church closed in 1994.  Snowflake’s unmaintained roads and buildings bear testament to the gradual decline of this once-thriving farming community.

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What I gather was once a busy town, enterwined with town folks and farms just along its outskirts, there was no evidence of anyone there today.

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One home I drove by looked new and another, which I initially thought was also abandonded, was not.

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This barn was the first building I came across as I entered the town off the highway.  The main road was snow covered and shale covered.

A fellow abandonded photographer advised me to be sure I drove a little further, so that I didn’t miss the beauitful old mansion.

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As I did not have permission to enter any of these properties, today’s trip was all road side photography.

Maybe most exciting for the town at the time was that this is the home town of NHL’er, Justin Falk.  Drafted 110th overall in 2007, he was born October 11, 1988.  I’m sure the sign on the highway once proudly displayed his name.  It is faded and unreadable now.

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THE BOAR HOUSE

This house has been on my list for some time.  There’s a good chance you’ve seen it before.  I will tell you that as of yesterday, November 23rd, the owner called me to make sure I had been out there as he was burning it down!  Cade and I are heading to Winnipeg this week and it’ll be different not seeing it there.

A month ago when we had our big snow storm, I called about getting onto this property.  I was told by the first person I spoke to that under no circumstances was I allowed onto the property as it was unsafe and wild boars lived behind the house in the bushes.  The idea of meeting up with a wild boar should have been enough to scare me off but I don’t typically like to be told no so I kept calling around.  If I couldn’t get onto the property I was going to fall back onto the good old Sigma 600mm.

A couple weeks later the owner called and said that I could go on to take whatever photos I wanted but that I was not to go into the bushes as he wasn’t sure if the well was covered and he did advise me that he has seen boars around the house but that they typically come out at night.  His biggest concern was the state of the home and the fact that the floor was caving in.  He advised me that because people continue to trespass he had decided to burn it down, soon.

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Last weekend I called him to find out that he was planning on burning it down but that the wind was to high so he would give me the weekend to get out there.

Cade and I drove out last Sunday.  I have to admit that I was afraid of every little noise and was on high alert.  I didn’t get close enough to see what was going on inside.  I was just happy that I was given the chance to take photos before it was gone.

The owner of the home purchased the land in 1982.  The house has been vacant since 1971.  He couldn’t tell me much about the home or its history and I couldn’t find anything about its history.

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As I write this post, I realize that there may be a way for me to find out more about this home.  I guess I’ll leave it as stay tuned!

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PETER, PAUL & MARY

Born in Jugovka, Samara, Russia, in 1905, Peter and his family moved to Siberia when he was four years old.  Fluent in both Russian & German, Peter and his family moved to Canada in 1926, settling in the Margaret area.

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He married Elizabeth in 1944 and for a few years they rented land in the Minto area.

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In 1948 they bought this land and lived here until 1971.

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They raised two girls on this farm and upon retirement, moved to Boissevain.

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I stumbled upon this place while driving around aimlessly in the area.  The sun was just going down and every angle gave me different lighting.

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It was a beautiful night but the skeeters were AWFUL and my family kept calling, worried that I had fallen in a well or rotten old floor.  To add to my fear, I have now been told that an old house I’ve been waiting anxiously to photograph and just got permission for, has wild boars living across the road in a wooded area. Ya, that’s not scary at all.

 

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ALONG THE WAY

If you live where I live, you’ll know this house because there is a good chance you’ve passed it on a road trip to Winnipeg.  An easy capture from the side of the highway.  And a bonus, on this particular day, it wasn’t raining.

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