Douglass Adams was a very cool guy. He wrote the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Read it, don’t watch it), he hung out with the Monty Python gang, he liked Dire Straits, he cared about the environment. When he died David Gilmore played Wish You Here Here at his funeral. That’s pretty cool.
Anyway, in the HHGG, Adams introduced us to the Total Perspective Vortex. How the vortex works is simple: when you think you’re shit doesn’t stink, and your ego is starting to think about getting it’s own house, you are subjected to the vortex. In one instant, the vast, endless, mind-boggling hugeness of all creation is revealed to you. Your own punosity is amplified, and you are suddenly and irrevocably humbled by the overwhelming sense of perspective. Adams was a little out there. The rest of us need to read the books.
Douglass Adams might have been pleased to know that just outside of Drumheller, Horsethief Canyon invites travellers to get a similarly gargantuan sense of perspective. The road to the canyon lookout holds back the big reveal until the last moment. The Canyon is huge. It carves a lazy horseshoe around the lookout point, an observer can easily lose themselves in the endless gulf between them and the ground far below. The river is a slice of blue-green that follows the canyon. At this distance, the only thing moving is the clouds above, which amplifies the vertigo one risks from staring too long.
Apparently the canyon was named for it’s popularity among horse rustlers in the early days. That’s not a verified fact, of course. I prefer to think that when horses would occasionally wander into the canyon, and ranchers could either spend days searching this punishing ground, or propagate the myth of the unseen rustler, the myth would win every time. Looking into the canyon from above was enough to convince me: the only thing I’d be searching for in there is a way out
And as suddenly as they lurch into view, the badlands disappear behind us, and we are headed along a lazy north-eastern track to flatter land.
Rowley’s Watching You
Rowley is a little town that’s chasing the ghosts out of their old buildings and inviting people to look around. That’s because technically, Rowley is a threatened species, and anyone who stops there to look around, buy a coffee, and tell their friends, is welcome. According to wikipedia Rowley officially has 8 residents. Once briefly famous for hosting a movie production, the outlook for Rowley took a dive in 1999 when the railroad chose a different path. Determined residents have been slowly restoring what parts they can to make it a heritage destination for ghost town and relic hunters (like us).
We got there in the heat of the day. After getting some shots around the elevator we were sufficiently cooked to find some cover. On the main street the Rowley Trading Post and ‘Sam’s’ has been converted on the inside to serve as a kind of museum.
Entering through the trading post we find a passage into the main store.
The store houses a truly remarkable collection of relics, from the common to the bizarre–all placed with care to create a sense of context. Iconic colours and shapes are everywhere, from the old bottles that sat on your grandmother’s dressing table, to the tools and treasures that catalogue stores brought to little towns just like Rowley. The inner details of every small town cafe/ice-cream counter appear ready for the next customer. On the opposite wall, the mundane items from our kitchens and homes share space with an ancient defibrillator, a tabletop jukebox, old radio equipment, and unidentifiable objects for which the intended purpose as long been forgotten.
The little details transport the observer to another generation. A very discrete sign reminds visitors that the relics have been marked and catalogued, and you are indeed being watched.
Doug, my father, takes a moment to adjust his camera. At 80 years old, he is a youngster in this room.
Mannequins imply a conversation from an earlier time. Memories are triggered by the countless tiny objects that are everywhere in this room.
A visit to Rowley provides a fitting wrap-up to 4 days of hunting for ghost towns. The ancient townsites and abandoned buildings we surveyed, the flattened fields where life once occurred, and the assorted and sometimes odd remains of Alberta’s past provide only fleeting clues to details of the people who left them behind. Weather, vandals, and antique collectors ensure that what remains in the fields will soon be gone. In contrast, Rowley is filled with artifacts that one could spend a lifetime searching for in backcountry ruins. It fills the imagination with images that go much deeper than the broken barns and homesteads that are slowly sinking into the earth. Filling in the colour between the lines, It’s like the little town is saying, “Here’s all the stuff you missed … ”