Rails Across the Prairies. Ron Brown
mines in the Drumheller Valley — mines which yielded fifty-seven million tons of coal — the best preserved is the Atlas Coal Mine. It closed in 1979 and is now a National Historic Site. Here, the old structures and equipment adorn the museum and interpretive centre.
At the ghost town of Dorothy, a derelict grain elevator rises above the valley floor. When the CPR arrived in the 1920s, Dorothy grew to 150 residents and contained a station, store, school, two churches, and three grain elevators. Those photogenic churches are set against a backdrop of the colourful layers of the eroded Badlands gullies, while most of the few village streets are now silent. Dorothy is sometimes described as one of Alberta’s most photogenic ghost towns.
Heinsburg bills itself as a “lively” ghost town, due to its successful efforts to preserve the station and water tower.
Endiang
This “almost” ghost town near Hanna celebrated its one hundred years of existence in 2010 by erecting a heritage plaque along its quiet streets. One of the few structures to survive the rail lines’ closure is the Endiang Trading Company, which existed from 1925 to 1982. Today, it has become the Our Home Kitchen tea room and is the only early building to remain on what was once a bustling main street, which was dominated by a two-storey CNR station at the end. The grain elevator lasted until 1983 and was the hamlet’s last link with its rail roots. The railway roadbed today is only scarcely visible.
The elevators are now gone, as is most of the main street, leaving it with a ghost-town look.
Retlaw
Here is another example of a ghost town that seems to celebrate its heritage. “Retlaw” is Walter spelled backwards, to honour the CPR official Walter Baker. By the 1920s, the town’s main street could boast of a pool hall, hotel, shops, and a station. But the nearby town of Vauxhall was closer to a new irrigation project, and Retlaw fell silent, with nothing left today save a small handful of vacant buildings and foundations. The church has been restored, and many foundations now have historic plaques to help visitors visualize the town’s heyday and appreciate its heritage.
Manitoba
Mowbray
This little Manitoba ghost town on the North Dakota border is at the end of the line in more ways than one. In 1902 a branch of the CPR extended to this border, where it built one of its large Western Line Stations. Opposite the tracks was a modest main street of boomtown-style stores and a pair of grain elevators. Children from North Dakota would stroll across the unfenced border to attend Mowbray’s Boundary School and then back home for lunch. The little main street also contained a general store, blacksmith’s shop, pool room, barber shop, and dance hall. The Mowbray Hotel, which stood near the station, did a booming business with train passengers, especially during the days of U.S. prohibition. However, American border patrols, combined with the local temperance movement, brought business to a standstill.
During the 1930s, train service was reduced to one per week and then abandoned altogether. Today, all that remains are three vacant houses and, surprisingly, the station, which is now a neatly tended dwelling, still displaying the CPR red paint and the hand-painted name on the end. Even though children no longer cross the border to attend Mowbray’s school, it survives today as a provincial heritage landmark, its furnishings still intact. Opened in 1887, class was finally dismissed in 1956. But don’t wander too close to the invisible border with our southern neighbours — you may find yourself peering up at a Homeland Security helicopter, even in a Manitoba ghost town.
Port Nelson
At 810 kilometres in length, the Hudson Bay Railway has been around since the 1930s and carries the many vital supplies that the roadless communities in northern Manitoba require, as well as more major commodities such as wheat and mining and petroleum products.
Having an ocean port on Hudson’s Bay had long been an ambition of both the Manitoba and Canadian governments, but controversy swirled over whether the port would be located at Churchill, the present location, or at Port Nelson. While Churchill was farther and tundra needed to be crossed, Port Nelson offered a superior townsite but an inferior harbour. In 1912 the federal government of Robert Borden decided on Port Nelson and work began the following year. To help overcome the harbour limitations, an artificial island was built and a seventeen-span trestle extended to it. Port Nelson became a busy construction camp, with upwards of one thousand workers housed in its bunkhouses.
By 1918 the war had halted any further construction. With costs of constructing the port climbing to a staggering $6.5 million, an inquiry in 1919 learned that, despite the decision of the government, the project engineer had never approved of Port Nelson as the terminus. In 1927 the government reversed its decision and chose Churchill instead. By 1928 Port Nelson had become a ghost town, with the engineering office, wireless building, and several homes standing vacant. Meanwhile, the port of Churchill was completed in 1929 and trains began running in 1931. Today at Port Nelson, concrete wharfs, foundations, and a seventeen-span trestle still stand as a testimony to the folly of the original decision.
The CPR’s Ghost Town Line
It has been said by ghost-town hunters that to find such places one need only to follow a prairie branch line. While that may be a hit-and-miss endeavour, there is one line that does yield a greater abundance of abandoned places, and that is a southern CPR line that stretched from Souris in Manitoba to Stirling in Alberta.
Construction began in Souris in 1890 and continued to Reston, where a former CPR engine house yet stands. Then, from Reston, the route continued in 1900, reaching Forward and Assiniboia in 1910. By 1914 it had reached Attawan in southwestern Saskatchewan. The western section had been completed from Stirling to Manyberries in 1915, with the final link being broached in 1922. With rolling grasslands and cattle ranches, the route was not particularly profitable, and by the early 2000s, no tracks remained between Foremost and Consul. The lifting of the tracks and the disappearance of the grain elevators resulted in many of the little railway communities withering, many disappearing altogether.
In Saskatchewan, some of the more photogenic ghost towns include Maleval, Mayronne, Khedive, and Vidora, which had its own electrical grid and now consists of a pair of vacant structures on private land. Robsart could boast of its own hospital, town, council, and thirty businesses. The vacant hospital still stands, as do a number of abandoned main street stores. Being close to the American border, Senate and Govenlock enjoyed a brief period of prosperity during the days of prohibition. Whiskey would arrive by train to the Govenlock Hotel, which held a festive occasion known as the Bootleggers Ball. Today, only a plaque survives to mark the town. Scotsguard has fared a little better. Known as “Little Chicago,” it could once boast a population of 350, with a hotel, theatre, town hall, and six elevators. That had plunged to six residents by 1987. A few derelict buildings, including a church, are scattered among the vacant streets.
Manyberries, Alberta, while described by some as a “ghost town,” remains a populated place. The station, restored as a house with track and a caboose in front, still stands at the end of a now nearly vacant main street, although the Ranchman’s Inn can still offer lodging and a meal. The area’s ranching heritage is reflected in the many cattle brands that decorate the inn’s walls. Orion, the next on the line, used to boast of a main street with three general stores, a pool hall and hotel, as well as grain elevators. Today, Orion provides many vacant buildings and overgrown lots, as does Nemiskam, while Skiff and Wrentham fall within the “partial” ghost town category. Notably, Skiff retains its elevator, where a string of boxcars and a caboose stand on a siding. Foremost, today’s eastern end of rail, serves as a busy regional centre. (It is worth pausing in Etzikam, not a ghost town, to view the rather unusual windmill museum).
The main street of Manyberries, Alberta, still ends at the back door of its preserved CPR station.
With the abandonment