The story of southeastern Alberta is one of boosters, builders, skeptics, and schemers. In Forgotten Alberta: Fading Legacies, author, Jonathan Koch explores the stories of some of the settlers, speculators, and scalawags who found their way to the Last Best West, and whose names and legacies are slowly fading from memory. This is the third […]
Forgotten Alberta: A Land Redeemed is now available on ebook
Over the course of a century, the grasslands west of the Bow River, located along the western fringe of Alberta’s dry belt country, have been promoted as a promised land, written off almost entirely, and redeemed, eventually, much to the relief of those who wondered what to do with it all. In Forgotten Alberta: A […]
Forgotten Alberta: War Stories is now available on ebook
As author, Jonathan Koch explores in Forgotten Alberta: War Stories, the First and Second World Wars created casualties on the homefront as well. In nascent farming communities across the south, wars a world away inflamed ethnic tensions, turned neighbour against neighbour, and left economic and social scars that forever altered the landscape of Forgotten Alberta […]
#FABTrip21: Settler’s stumble kickstarted the founding of Monitor
Monitor started its life as a settlement on the land of Mr. C.W. Beesley. According to “A treasure of memories”, a handful of enterprising settlers had exercised “squatters rights” on Mr. Beesley’s land, founding a community known as “Empress”. A tenacious threesome opened a grocery store, butcher shop, and real estate agency on Beesley’s quarter […]
#FABTrip21: Bulwark’s bonanza was short-lived
The bona fide ghostly burg of Bulwark did not always seem destined for desertion. This area was originally known as Lindsville, named for Thomas L. Lind, the first postmaster in these parts. The community of Bulwark came into being around 1915 after a townsite was surveyed here along a new Canadian Pacific spur line, running […]
Blaze a trail to Antelope Hill Provincial Park
Since the establishment of Antelope Hill Provincial Park was first announced way back in 2014, I have looked forward to the moment when I would be able to head out to Special Areas to see what I could see. Following an eight year wait, Antelope Hill was finally opened to the public this Spring. So […]
There’s something doing at Dowling
It was a happy coincidence when I received a message recently from a gentleman named Bill McGillivray. Mr. McGillivray informed me he was once the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator agent at Dowling, a former railway siding and settlement about 10 miles north of the town of Hanna. “I lived in the dwelling attached to elevator […]