This Is A Picture Frame

This is a picture frame. An empty picture frame to be exact. But it can't have always been a rotten old empty picture frame. Once upon a time it would have been a beautifully ornate carved wooden frame that wonderfully complimented the picture (or painting) held within. (And enjoy that, that's about as poetic as I get)

But that picture is long gone. Taken by the owners of the old house I found it in, torn out by previous explorers, burned, who knows. But what was it? It was right next to the front door of a house, so probably a beautiful image, or something that was very close to the people who lived there.  Maybe a family portrait, maybe a valuable painting.

There's no way of knowing, we can only imagine. We have a sign that it was there, but it's up to us to project our imaginings into it. I love to do that, it gives an idea of who you are, the people who hung up this picture frame become you.


I suppose that's why I love to explore abandoned places.

This is the view down main street in a small town called Rowley. Back in the day, Rowley was a mining town, home to some 500 people. Not much, but still, it's something.

Now there's 12 people. Most of the town has been torn down, either by farmers who want to expand their field or by nature. The 12 folks of Rowley love their town and go to great lengths to keep it looking nice. It's a bit of a tourist attraction now.

This is inside the house with the picture frame. It's small, there's a mud room, a kitchen, one bedroom, one bathroom, and a living room.

It looked like it was once a pretty house, well kept.

Now it's run down, it's tilted over to the point where you feel like you're on a ship on the ocean, and it smells like rot.

This house wasn't in Rowley. It's in a coulee a few kilometers south of Three Hills. It stands alone, tilted and rotting. By far one of the biggest ghost homes I've ever visited, there were two floors and four bedrooms. A large living room, kitchen, mud room, and cellar.

This house evidently belonged to a rich family; the house was built of BC cedar, and the newspapers that were lying about were dated to before there was a reliable way to get across the mountains beyond the rails. It would have cost an arm and a leg to get all that wood across the mountains, but this family did it.

Now it stands abandoned; the family left their remarkable home. Why? Did they, like many country dwellers, find a better job in the city? Did they own a large ranch, and at some point the new generation decided they wanted something else? Or did they come to try their luck at the riches of Alberta, only to fail, returning to wherever they came from?

We know why Rowley was abandoned; it was a Coal town. When the world shifted over to oil, Rowley's economy failed and everyone left. Simple as that. There was nothing else in the town, and so it failed.

They say to learn from history or find yourself repeating it, and sometimes I worry that we are repeating it. We are building our Rowleys (Fort McMurray, I'm looking at you), our large estates, our pillars of strength as a society. When the world changes, and it will, what will happen to these places and things? Once they have been abandoned, will our pillars of strength remain? Or will they become pillars of foolishness to our descendants?

What will they project into our empty picture frame?