On May 16-17, 1943, the Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron carried out a night attack on three German dams. “Operation Chastise” is considered a significant turning point in World War II.
More than 75 years later, the Nanton Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alberta held a weekend of events to mark the occasion and to honour those who flew the raids, many of which did not come home safely.
On Friday, August 24, a Lancaster Bomber — retrofitted with a replica of the “Upkeep Bomb” — had its four Merlin engines fired up for the crowd gathered to watch the display.
This video is different the from “vlog style” videos I have been doing lately in that I simply stand back and record the action and let the narrator tell the story.
For those who prefer the written word, prepare to be disappointed again. This post is another video-focused offering. There are some non-video posts coming, so don’t despair!
Back on August 12, we had the chance to pay another visit to Pioneer Acres. This marks the third time I have visited the museum, which is located just north of Irricana, Alberta.
Pioneer Acres houses an outstanding collection of machinery. Farm implements, trucks, tractors, and everything in between. There are even horses for those interested in things of a non-metal variety.
Photo by Emily Overes
We had a wonderful visiting the site with Emily’s parents. We had a private presentation on the history of Allis-Chalmers, watched tractors of all sizes compete in a tractor pull, and watched the “Parade of Power”.
There was a lot going on and we didn’t see everything there was to take in, but I hope you watch the video and get a slight appreciation for all Pioneer Acres has to offer.
Have you ever checked out this place? Let us know in the comments.
Revisiting familiar places is always fun. This time we made our first trip out to the Majorville Medicine Wheel since November of 2016. Last time we were with our friend Richard Hansen, this time we brough Chris and Connie of BigDoer.com along with Emily’s parents to join us on the trip.
We noticed a couple of changes since our last visit. The biggest change was the addition of signage as you get closer to the medicine wheel, showing which directions to take to get to the site. When we were here in 2016, there was nothing to mark the way. In conjunction with the new signs, the side tracks which branched off from the main “road” in are now signed as “No Motorized Vehicles”. I guess they really want to limit how traffic approaches the site as to limit the damage done to the native prairie grasses.
Overall, I don’t mind the changes, although it means we would have had to walk out more than a kilometer if we wanted to see if “the chair” is still present and looking out over the Bow River. We simply didn’t have time.
“The Chair”
The biggest reason I wanted to revisit this site is that I wanted the chance to see it from the air with the drone. And, as you can see in the video below, there was plenty of opportunity to get out and fly.
That’s it for now. Summer is rapidly coming to a close but we still have some more exploration and history to share before the snow flies. Stay tuned! Thanks for reading and watching.
When faced with a Sunday and no real plans, what else to do besides jump in the car and head out and visit another one of Alberta’s historic places? Today’s journey takes us to the ghost town of Nordegg and the remains of the Brazeau Collieries.
This is not the first time I have been to Nordegg. Even going back to a child on family camping trips to nearby Rocky Mountain House, we would drive past the Nordegg turnoff. I remember asking my parents “What’s in Nordegg?” and they would answer “Nothing, just the remains of an old mine.” Well, what a way to stoke the imagination of a child already fascinated with old abandoned places. When I would ask if we could visit, they would tell me “No, it’s a prison now so you can’t go in there.” Rather than being some parental white lie told as a means of shutting down my imagination, they were telling the truth for this was the era when the Alberta government was, indeed, running a minimum security prison on the site.
It was not until adulthood that I was able to visit the town properly. In fact, I even got to take the complete tour. The date was July 26, 2002. My images from that era are poor quality captures, done with a JVC digital camcorder which took stills at a staggering 640×480 resolution. Oh, how I wish I had either been shooting film at that time, or at least shooting with a “real” digital camera of the era. As I would see on my current visit, much has changed and I wish I had better captures of that visit from more than 16 years ago.
I made a second visit to Nordegg with a group of Geocaching friends in August of 2014. That trip was more focused on caching than history, however. Emily and I would make the trip up here via the Forestry Trunk Road again in May of 2017. However, being pre-Victoria Day the tours were not yet operating so we couldn’t see the mine site, just the town. You can see the drone footage of that trip here.
So, on my fourth official visit to Nordegg, we finally were able to do the tour. We learned that, unlike the tour I had done back in 2002, the tours are now broken into an “upper” and “lower” portion. The upper tour focuses on the two remaining mine entrances, the ancillary buildings like the shower house, power house, and warehouse. The lower tour focuses on the briquette plant where the coal was fashioned into briquettes — for use in steam locomotives, not your Weber grill.
We tried to book spots on both the 10:00am tour as well as the 2:00pm tour so we could see the whole thing, but they currently weren’t offering the lower tour because of some sort of issue — I believe I heard it was related to the foundation of one of the buildings or something of that nature. So, the upper tour it was!
The upper tour lasts about two hours. You can only access the collieries site with a guide.
After the tour, we went back into the town and checked out some of the changes since our last visit. The old bank has been placed on a new foundation, has been painted and sealed off from the elements. Dang it, I knew I should have taken photos of the inside when we were there and it was open. There also has been some touch-up work done on the old service station too, but nothing compared to the changes made to the bank.
We also took time to visit the cemeteries, both the main town cemetery as well as the grave site dedicated to the 29 miners who died in an explosion inside the #3 shaft back on October 31, 1941. There was an older coupler doing some cleanup work in the town cemetery, clearing brush and cutting grass. An employee of the historical site came by and shut them down. We couldn’t hear the conversation clearly, but it sounded like their efforts were not appreciated by the staff. Not sure what the story was there.
We tried to tour the museum housed inside the heritage centre, which is the old school. However, it was locked and staff told us they had hoped it would be open by now but circumstances were preventing it. Again, not sure of the story there.
Anyway, you’ve read the story so now you should check out the video of our tour. Come visit Nordegg with us!
In between our two days of exploring the Badlands, we had some time to wander around downtown Drumheller and take in some of the sights. Two tired people, a dog, and a camera — sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
