Tag Archives: abandoned railway

Huh, are you sure you have the right season Dave? It’s September, not December! Well, as a matter of fact, I know exactly what I’m talking about and I do have the right season. Who ever said that saying was reserved for one particular time of year? It’s all about context…for me, it’s that time of the year!

Welcome to fall kids! If you read this blog regularly you’ll know that means it’s the crazy time of the year for me; back to work, football, family and a million other things. Good thing I love fall! Obviously the thing keeping me busiest is work. This school year, after 18 years in the same room, I decided to relocate myself in the school. I’m just 70 feet or so away, but switching rooms after all that time is a huge deal. I moved because the new room is much bigger and right next to my office, but it also means a lot of time and work to get it the way I want it, time I don’t have.

Fall for me also means that it’s football season. I’m starting my 20th year coaching high school ball, and this one is very special. No, it’s not because I’ve been doing this for a long time, but rather because of one of the Grade 9 players joining the team. My oldest, Ethan, started high school this year and has also begun this part of his football career. It makes me very proud that he is a Fighting Saint, though it does make for some awkwardness. Thankfully he plays offense, so I don’t have to deal with him very much. I’m also back coaching Noah in minor, though he’s down to his last couple of years before he too moves up to the high school ranks.

In my last post, way back in early August, I wrote how decent the weather had been. Well, I can’t say the same now-from the middle part of August until now it can be best described as crappy. Unfortunately we’ve been plagued with a lot of unsettled conditions, with temperatures yo-yoing and a lot more rain. This is in line with last year, but certainly not like some of the fall’s we had in year’s past. Hopefully things don’t get too bad so I can get out and do some hiking!

Speaking of hiking, I’ve been trying to keep things going on the railway front despite how busy I have become. In my last post I wrote about how I was going to do some other abandoned railway exploring during the summer when I could not get on the PAD&W. With that in mind, I decided to formalize these non-PAD&W hikes into a photo/video series known as “PAD&W Railway-Offbeat Adventures.” This includes both the CN-Kinghorn Subdivision and the Grand Trunk Pacific. I explored parts of the old GTP back in the late 90s and this has re-invigorated me to do more. 

So I did several more hikes along the Kinghorn during the summer east of Pass Lake near Pearl and beyond. There were many more great sights to see and that has inspired me to plan many more hikes for next summer. By far the most interesting hike was near the actual station at Pearl, as beavers built a dam and flooded a 300-metre section of the grade. I rode my bike that day, pedalling the 5km from my start point north to where I would stop and walk back. I had to cross this flooded area twice; I wrongly assumed it would be easy to cross and not that deep. As it turns out, the gravel ballast made it extremely difficult to pedal and the water came up past my boots, soaking my feet. It was quite the ordeal, which if you’re interested, I recorded and you can watch here.

Now that I mention recording, I decided to do a major technology upgrade over the summer. It’s something I’d been planning for a while, but I took me some time to pull the trigger. For the past 9 years I’ve been using a standard video camera to record my railway explorations. Last fall and into the summer I did some experimentation with Ethan’s Gopro camera; I was so impressed that I bought the newest model, the Hero 7. It is an amazing piece of gear! The stabilization is remarkable and the wide angle view is much better than a traditional camera. It also records in 4K60 resolution, which produces amazing results.

My first 4K video was taken at the site of an impressive piece of local history. Many moons ago (well, in the late 90s if truth be told), I explored pieces of an old railway grade in the area known as the Lake Superior Branch of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Part of another transcontinental line across the country, construction began on this section in 1905 which would provide it with access to Lake Superior. When the Grand Trunk was merged with Canadian Northern to form Canadian National, 24 miles of this line was abandoned while the rest became the CN-Graham Subdivision. It remained in service until 1994 when it too was abandoned.

There are some amazing structures to be found on that original line abandoned back in 1924. I had visited a few back in those late 90s hikes, but there was one that I had not been to. Located at milepost 169 (measured from Superior Junction, where it joined the mainline), just south of the former station of Dona and near the modern village of Kaministiquia lies a unique bridge over the Strawberry Creek. Built in 1919, just 5 years before it was abandoned, is a 105-foot long, 35-foot high structure made out of concrete. I’d never seen anything like it and was completely awestruck! I will be visiting the remains of the station at Dona soon and I hope to continue visiting more in the future.

Another railway event on the horizon is coming up this week. I’ve been invited to speak at public lecture hosted by the Lakehead Social History Institute on Saturday, October 3rd. I’m one of several speakers on tap that day and I am a bit nervous to present. Though I’m speaking about about life on the railway, this topic is something that I’ve never spoken about in public. I’m sure I’ll be fine…I think it’s more of a fear of the unknown than anything else.

Finally, with October just around the corner, it means that my annual trip to Gunflint is coming up soon. I am very much looking forward to the mini-vacation given the insanity this time of year brings. It’s always good to break away for a few days and recharge the batteries for the second of the football season. I’ll be out and about in the woods again, looking at some things associated with the Gunflint & Lake Superior. I’ll also be doing a presentation at the Cross River Lodge on Friday, October 11 on the G&LS, something I’ve been doing for the past few years. It should be a nice weekend with the boys and nature…let’s hope the weather cooperates.

Anyway, it’s time to move along. Noah has football this afternoon and there’s tons of things to do beforehand. I’ll be back after the trip with a full breakdown of what went on. Until then…