christmas hall

To celebrate the christmas season Saskurbex, Scythe & I decided to head to a town hall we had visited last year. Unforunately things change over a year and the piano along with our favorite decorations were gone. The christmas tree was still there and the basement was frozen with 2 feet of ice. This proved to be alot of fun as Scythe & I played some hockey with 2 brooms and a big wax candle shaped like a pine cone. The hall was still fun but this may be the last year we go there at christmas.

Some highlights:
- little frogs frozen in the ice
- ice perfect for hockey
- frozen chairs in the ice
- christmas tree still intact
- nothing broken
- saskurbex falling into waist high snow on the way back
- visiting an old abandoned church on the way

face off!

one of many little frogs frozen

merry christmas 2010

Cheers!
Merry Christmas from VanishedCompass & SaskUrbex!

what intersection?

The other night there were very bad road conditions. On our way back we decided to stop at a couple potential ghost towns. Unfortunately for us saskurbex hit ice and ended up driving us straight through a t-intersection into the ditch. Fortunately for us i have both CAA and cell phone reception with virgin mobile. We were rescued in a fairly short time but it seemed like forever as we watched the weather outside get worse.

My tip to everyone is be prepared, make sure you have all the necessary winter clothes and an emergency kit. I have CAA which definitely saved me in this case and having a phone that you know has reception around the province will also prove helpful in the end.

Here are some photo's of the vehicle:

west is warm

This trip is the definition of last minute. Saskurbex and I didn't have a plan until the very last minute and the area we explored was chosen because it was supposed to be the warmest area in the province that day . We gathered up our gear and hit the road with only a few locations in mind.

At the start of the day the roads were nice and the sun was out. The downfall was the windchill, it was very cold and so we could only spend a short time outside before we started to freeze. As the day went on the weather got worse and by the end of the night there was blowing snow all over the roads complete with some freezing rain. We took a secondary highway back which was not to bad but then decided to move to the main highway which may have been a mistake. There was whiteout conditions and everyone was slow moving. Between having to scrap the windshield of freezing rain, windchill, blowing snow and crazy drivers it was an interesting night.

We did find a few neat things on the trip so that made it worthwhile. Here are some of the highlights:

- finding a church with power
- creating techno beats on an old electric organ
- finding a couple old school houses
- a school with power & full of antiques, no lock on the door
- annoying saskurbex with ode to joy on the piano
- very deep snow
- saskurbex driving us into the ditch

sask security

Once and a while on trips we run into an area where people are very concerned about their abandoned buildings and make silly attempts to protect them. Most places have what i call "Saskatchewan security" - usually a small wire, broken padlock, wooden board, cement block or broken handle.

On this most recent trip i encountered some things i had never seen before. One was a no trespassing sign nailed to a door... from the inside. The nails were all the way around the outside sticking out. Apparently if you get to close you will learn your lesson? I would like to meet the person that pulled this one off.
We walked up to a church and realized it had a giant board across it. After removing the board and putting it to the side we tried to open the doors - after a bit of tugging saskurbex took off the entire door. It was soon obvious why the board was across the doors in the first place, not to keep people out but to keep the doors on.

ukrainian paradise

You all probably know by now that i absolutely love Ukrainian Churches, abandoned or not i love to document them. On our recent trip we were in an area full of churches, most of them being Ukrainian. Even though most of the churches are still used and many of them locked I took photo's. So here they are...

sunday snow day

Saskurbex and I decided to go on a quick day trip. The weather was nice, lots of snow on the ground and we had quite a few smaller locations in mind. The trip started out slow due to every single church being locked, which was a disappointment. Apparently no one trusts others in this area. Fortunately for us our luck turned around and we started finding churches we could get into, schools and even a railway station. The trip was definitely a nice way to spend my Sunday.

some highlights:
- finding not one but 2 abandoned railway stations, one of them was not converted
- getting attacked by pigeons
- frozen flooded basements
- interesting lighting
- saskurbex accidentally pulling a door of a church
- thigh high snow (that will teach me to wear ski pants)
- finding an abandoned ski hill
- finding "the pop shoppe" bottles still in original crates

nothing better than knee deep snow

these are the pigeons that lived in the schoolhouse

a wild bunch that couldn't seem to find the way out

just taking a break with the pop shoppe

thank god it is winter and these were frozen

address change!

NOTE THE CHANGES!

My new blog address is vanishedcompass.blogspot.com
the address is no longer vanishedcompass.exploresask.com

The website exploresask.com is longer is existence.

Also note that arilem@exploresask.com is no longer my e-mail address.
If you need to contact me please leave a comment until I get a new address.

Thank you for your support during these changes.
Please change your bookmarks and spread the word.