Merry christmas 2012

Our annual return to our Christmas town hall this year was not as we expected. Parking the car we started to walk to where we remember the town hall to be.. of course it was dark and cold and we came in from another direction this year. We walked down the road and saw nothing.. panic ensued. We thought it may be gone.. after all these year this was the year it was demolished. We walked back to the car a bit sad but also still puzzled about how it could be gone so easily. Upon getting back in the car we realized we were turned around and after driving around we found the town hall, still standing! We got out and walked inside - not much had changed except there were less Christmas decorations and the foundation wall was more caved than the year before.

Here is our annual picture with the tree!

a slight detour from our route

My first official large explore of 2012!

I decided to head up to my cabin spur of the moment via the long route.  I had originally wanted to visit friends and explore nearby but quickly changed my mind deciding to take the extra long route to the cabin I wanted to try out my new camera and photograph places I had not yet seen. I found a few schools, lots of farmyards and of course churches. I got to revisit places I had not seen in years and photograph them with a new perspective. The snow was deep but the grids weren't bad. I had to hike out to a couple locations but I cant complain because I got to take some amazing photographs.

Overall the trip was a success considering it was spur of the moment, no planning and hardly any maps. I did get to photograph lots I have not seen and plan to return to some places I did not have time to visit. As a bonus i get to check off more Ukrainian Churches off my list!

churches of size

I had heard about a small Ukrainian church that I had missed photographing in an area I am very interested in. I spent a couple days planning a possible route and when the opportunity came up SaskUrbex and I went out to check things out. Because the light fades fast we had to start picking and choosing what we wanted to photograph as the sun was fading and the amount of churches and schools in the area had become overwhelming. We stopped to visit what we thought would be the most interesting. It was a very productive day and here are some of my favorite photos!

Highlights:

- finding so many churches
- accessing a large church, abandoned but completely intact
- finding the largest bible I have ever seen in my life
- photographing a very large furnace with coal bucket beside it
- ringing the bell in a bell tour
- shooting some video of these locations
- getting out of the house and hitting the grids!

hill billy ghost town

I went up to my cabin and decided to do some exploring in the area. The area north of my cabin is what people like to call "hill billy country". It's full of small, mostly abandoned towns where people will live in virtually any type of housing and most run on wood stoves. This area is also full of hunters during the right season as it is quite forested. I spent a few hours driving through some of the towns and came across this one, a small quaint town full of abandoned houses and buses convereted into homes.. thats right - a bus house.

driving the rail line

Went up to my cabin, took a few hours to drive the old rail line and came across a few interesting ghost towns, abandoned churches, hall, school, etc. There was only so far we could go until we reached a place where they removed a bridge. We enjoyed the time we had searching for long abandoned locations.

 

lake discoveries

Well, I finally made it up to the lake this year. Its about time considering last year I never made it up. Of course any trip to the lake is an excuse to explore on the way up or on the way back. This trip was no exception. I explored on the way up and made a couple new discoveries.

Highlights:
- got into a church I never had access to before
- found a ghost town and an abandoned school
- visited one of my favorite ukrainian churches in the province

good ole' construction - this guy had it good with his lawn chair beside his car

return trips

Seems all I have been doing lately is return trips. I have seen most things in the area so all I have had time for is return trips to sites I have seen. I always like to check back and see what has changed, usually its for the worst. As depressing as it is to see these beautiful sites decay and be destroyed by other people it is part of the circle.

I chose to take a friend with me to a few sites I have been to in the past. I went with my camera but didn't take to many photo's as I have documented these sites many times. Here are just a couple of my favorite pictures from the bunch. Enjoy.