posted 2002/02/02 revised 2010/10/18 Into Alberta Running Rails into the Pass Crowsnest Lake Train Hold-up at Sentinel King Coal The Municipality Into Coleman International Coal and Coke and Early Coleman MLaren Lumber Company Blairmore—20th Avenue The Village of Blairmore Blairmore’s mine The Big Strike and “ Reds” Blairmore’s secondary industries The Town of Blairmore Blairmore tonight Frank The little empire of Henry Luplin Frank Then the Turtle walked The Smelter Side trip to Lille Leaving Frank Early Bellevue and the West Canadian Collieries mine Maple Leaf Coal Company Bellevue and the end of Mining Shoot out at Joe’s Detour through Hillcrest Passburg, Police Flats and the Leitch Collieries Into Alberta Possibly coffee’d at the Inn on the Border between Alberta and British Columbia at Crowsnest, travellers eastbound turn right out of that establishment’s access road to retake the Crowsnest Highway, the No. “ Welcome to Sunny Alberta” reads the first sign. From the middle of the westbound lane’s rail of this narrowish 1964 span, the photographer’s eye is drawn off north-easterly down the Railway’s alignment as it commences to curl itself along the northern shores of Island and, beyond it, Crowsnest, Lake.

3 bangs across a small 1964 concrete decked bridge over little Crowsnest Creek.

Downstream, northward, is the bridge carrying a remnant of the old highway on up a kilometre or so to Island Lake Campground.

With no facilities or potable water, it is lucky to collect the .00 or so that the absentee operator expects campers to deposit in the “honour box.” Still, the vibrations of a midnight freight rumbling along not 50 metres from some of the tent sites has an allure for select campers.

Beyond Gargantua Cave, one of the largest spelunking attractions in Canada, the trail eventually crosses the Tent Pass to get into the Coal Creek’s valley above Fernie, only some twenty miles as-the-crow-flies south-west from here.

The scenery is awesome in the truest sense of the word.