This quiet hamlet, on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River north of Lloydminister, bills itself as Alberta’s “liveliest” ghost town. It is a community that has been working to celebrate its railway heritage. While the main street of empty storefronts puts it in the “ghost town” category, the preservation of both the village station and the wooden railway water tower underlie a lively community.
Heinsburg began life as a ferry crossing. It was not until 1928, however, well after the Canadian National Railway had taken over the bankrupt Canadian Northern, that the tracks finally reached Heinsburg, making it that line’s terminus. With its two grain elevators, Heinsburg grew into a focal point for the many First Nations and European settlements to the north and east.
Dieselization put the tower out of use in the 1960s, and road improvements rendered the line itself uneconomical, and, in 1983, the tracks were lifted. Today, the community is a terminus of a different sort, being the jumping-off point for the popular Iron Horse Rail Trail (described in a different chapter). Partly as a result, the water tower and the 1950s-era Canadian National railway station are preserved on their original sites. Meanwhile, lurking on the once main street, the sagging ghostly shells of former businesses remind us of Heinsburg’s days as a vital rail terminal.
“Rowleywood”
The ghost town of Rowley in central Alberta gave itself this ironic nickname because of its role in such Hollywood blockbusters as Bye Bye Blues and in various documentaries and commercials. The quiet community has only a few occupied homes, while the main street buildings, although vacant, are kept in repair. In fact, the last Saturday of each month, the community hosts a pizza night. The town has also managed to retain its Canadian Northern railway station and three Alberta Wheat Pool grain elevators. Buildings that formerly served as a bank and hospital still stand on these silent streets, and the site is now known as the Yesteryear Artifacts Museum.
Wayne
Tucked into the gullies of Alberta’s Drumheller badlands, Wayne may not declare itself to be a ghost town, but it doesn’t hide the fact either. What remains of its once busy main streets lies scenically at the foot of the layered, eroded wall of Rose Deer Valley. Here, in 1912, the Rose Deer Coal Mining Company began to access the coal deposits, which were intermingled with the ancient eroded bedrock of the badlands. Soon, the town of Wayne could count 1,500 residents, most of them working at the coal mines. A small station stood by the tracks, which ran down the main street. By the 1930s, the coal mines were closing down, and by the 1950s, only a handful of residents remained in the town. But the still-functioning Rose Deer Hotel’s cowboy-style Last Chance Saloon, with its prairie-style facade, contains photos that recount the town’s early heyday.
The authenticity of the saloon and street has lured Hollywood filmmakers to the site, including the makers of Shanghai Noon, starring Jackie Chan. Each summer, the ghost town comes to life for the Wayne motorcycle rally. Otherwise-empty streets and a few scattered homes and cabins remain, as do a few samples of railway equipment from the coal-mining days.
One of the more scenic of the prairie ghost towns is the former coal town of Wayne, lying below the gullies of the Drumheller Badlands.
Dorothy
Of the thirty-four working coal mines and more than 130 registered mines in the Drumheller Valley — mines which yielded fifty-seven million tons of coal — the best preserved is the Atlas Coal Mine. It closed in 1979 and is now a National Historic Site. Here, the old structures and equipment adorn the museum and interpretive centre.
At the ghost town of Dorothy, a derelict grain elevator rises above the valley floor. When the CPR arrived in the 1920s, Dorothy grew to 150 residents and contained a station, store, school, two churches, and three grain elevators. Those photogenic churches are set against a backdrop of the colourful layers of the eroded Badlands gullies, while most of the few village streets are now silent. Dorothy is sometimes described as one of Alberta’s most photogenic ghost towns.
Heinsburg bills itself as a “lively” ghost town, due to its successful efforts to preserve the station and water tower.
Endiang
This “almost” ghost town near Hanna celebrated its one hundred years of existence in 2010 by erecting a heritage plaque along its quiet streets. One of the few structures to survive the rail lines’ closure is the Endiang Trading Company, which existed from 1925 to 1982. Today, it has become the Our Home Kitchen tea room and is the only early building to remain on what was once a bustling main street, which was dominated by a two-storey CNR station at the end. The grain elevator lasted until 1983 and was the hamlet’s last link with its rail roots. The railway roadbed today is only scarcely visible.
The elevators are now gone, as is most of the main street, leaving it with a ghost-town look.
Retlaw
Here is another example of a ghost town that seems to celebrate its heritage. “Retlaw” is Walter spelled backwards, to honour the CPR official Walter Baker. By the 1920s, the town’s main street could boast of a pool hall, hotel, shops, and a station. But the nearby town of Vauxhall was closer to a new irrigation project, and Retlaw fell silent, with nothing left today save a small handful of vacant buildings and foundations. The church has been restored, and many foundations now have historic plaques to help visitors visualize the town’s heyday and appreciate its heritage.
Manitoba
Mowbray
This little Manitoba ghost town on the North Dakota border is at the end of the line in more ways than one. In 1902 a branch of the CPR extended to this border, where it built one of its large Western Line Stations. Opposite the tracks was a modest main street of boomtown-style stores and a pair of grain elevators. Children from North Dakota would stroll across the unfenced border to attend Mowbray’s Boundary School and then back home for lunch. The little main street also contained a general store, blacksmith’s shop, pool room, barber shop, and dance hall. The Mowbray Hotel, which stood near the station, did a booming business with train passengers, especially during the days of U.S. prohibition. However, American border patrols, combined with the local temperance movement, brought business to a standstill.
During the 1930s, train service was reduced to one per week and then abandoned altogether. Today, all that remains are three vacant houses and, surprisingly, the station, which is now a neatly tended dwelling, still displaying the CPR red paint and the hand-painted name on the end. Even though children no longer cross the border to attend Mowbray’s school, it survives today as a provincial heritage landmark, its furnishings still intact. Opened in 1887, class was finally dismissed in 1956. But don’t wander too close to the invisible border with our southern neighbours — you may find yourself peering up at a Homeland Security helicopter, even in a Manitoba ghost town.
Port Nelson
At 810 kilometres in length, the Hudson Bay Railway has been around since the 1930s and carries the many vital supplies that the roadless communities in northern Manitoba require, as well as more major commodities such as wheat and mining and petroleum products.
Having an ocean port on Hudson’s Bay had long been an ambition of both the Manitoba and Canadian governments, but controversy swirled over whether the port would be located at Churchill, the present location, or at Port Nelson. While Churchill was farther and tundra needed to be crossed, Port Nelson offered a superior
