After 2 months of self-isolation and working from home in downtown Calgary, the Beltline has taken on a decidely Mad Max atmosphere. There is a strip mall near where I'm at that has been re-zoned for condos, it sits empty waiting for the world to return to normal. The homeless, and there are many in the Beltline, have set up a little tent city in the back lot of the strip mall, I've noticed this is becoming common through the area.
Police activity has picked up as well, although not focused on the homeless, they really aren't causing any problems. About 3:30am the Calgary police did a sizeable take-down in the parking lot of the grocery store across the street. 4 or 5 police units moved in on 3 cars parked over there, transacting whatever business that people do in a dark parking lot at 3:30am. There were lights and sirens on arrival, the whole show. It lasted about a half hour.
I decided about 4am on Saturday to head out to explore the the small towns in southern Saskatchewan.
The Red Coat Trail is the approximate route from Winnipeg to Fort McLeod that was taken in 1874 by the North-West Mounted Police to bring law and order to the Canadian West.
I considered locations to visit on the way and had settled on an approximate route that roughly follows the Red Coat Trail from Robsart on the west end to Big Beaver on the eastern side. That would be all the time I would have on this short adventure. Many of the towns are on the posted route for the Red Coat Trail, others are not far away, this trip wasn't so much about the Red Coat Trail as it is about exploring the small towns of southern Saskatchewan.
I have explored a little of the southern area of Saskatchewan in the past, and I've been wanting to get out and do a little more pinhole photography of the small towns, many of which are fading, and some ghost towns whose buildings are doomed to the sands of time.
It was a refreshing couple of days to get away from noise of the city and explore a great part of the country. I got the film shots on the pinhole cameras I was looking for, but I also took a series of photographs with my Nikon DSLR that I’m sharing today. I'll be putting a post together on the pinhole photography I shot on this little escape, that will show up over the next few weeks.
Enjoy!
Dean
