The Old House on the 3rd Line?

I drive by this old house about once a month on the way to visiting my brother in Orillia. It’s wasn’t an abandoned house but old and houses close to a highway interest me. They show how the roadways have progressed.

Yesterday I drove by and I had a triple look because (I’m still not 100% sure) the house was gone. I could see a wire fence around the area, over the driveway. But, there was no sign of the house. There is a chance I just missed it but, I can’t think of anything else there with a driveway. I hope I’m wrong and the house is still there. Not that it’s going to last forever but I will be sorry to see it not there any more.

These images are screen captures from Google. I never stopped to take a photograph of the house. I just thought it would continue to be there.

Rosemary Hasner – Ontario Rural Ruins in Art

These images are based on photographs of Ontario rural locations, some abandoned but some just old and interesting. Mixed media photography. I like the images with the postal marks on them. A personal thing from all the years I wrote penpal letters and still really like vintage postcards. But, my favourite of all of these is the one with the plain wooden house and all the greenery in the foreground. I like the look of it, much less spooky than the other images. I think it has a touch of fantasy and is more interesting because it’s less forbidding and doom and gloom.

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Via – Rosemary Hasner at Black Dog Creative Arts.

Why do I Like Abandoned Places?

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via – Quora.

How would you answer the question, for yourself or for others? It’s not so easy to pinpoint why I like abandoned places. I think this is the best I have done at trying to come up with a concrete answer that makes sense and isn’t too much on the flowery side.

Something between proving we have a history, the endurance of what we have created and the mystery and sadness of what has been left behind.

(Reposted from the screen capture because sometimes software mangles image files).

Save Ontario Shipwrecks

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Save Ontario Shipwrecks is a Provincial Heritage Organization in Ontario dedicated to the study, preservation and promotion of an appreciation of Ontario’s marine heritage. Incorporated in 1981, SOS is a public charitable organization of dedicated volunteers from across the Province. Operating mainly through a group of Local Chapter Committees supported by a Provincial Board of Directors and Provincial Executive, our volunteers have undertaken many worthwhile projects and activities.

Source: About | Save Ontario Shipwrecks

Abandoned Places to Find in Montreal

Not in Ontario, but, if you take a trip into Quebec it will be nice to have a list of places to see. There must be a great list of places in Quebec City too. Of course, there is the possibility that some of them will be gone before you get there. I found the Restaurant Chez Clo (#10 on the list) is already gone when I looked at the Google Street View link. You can still see it from overhead on Google Earth. But it magically disappears when you go in for a close up to Street View.

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With all of the new construction going up around Montreal, it’s easy to forget about the city’s rich history. But Montreal has a long legacy of fascinating buildings that have been abandoned for various reasons. Here are ten of the coolest ones to check out.

1. Silo No. 5 – Pointe-du-Moulin
2. Brock Street Tunnel – Rue St-Antoine and Rue Beaudry
3. CN Wellington Control Building – Near Rue Smith and Rue Murray
4. Omnipac – 6240 Avenue du Parc
5. Blue Bonnets Raceway – 7440 Boulevard Decarie
6. Jenkins Brothers Steel Co. – Between Avenue Georges V and Ave 1re
7. CN Fruit Warehouse – 500 Rue Bridge
8. Dow Brewery – 990 Rue Notre Dame Ouest
9. The Negro Community Centre/Charles H. Este Cultural Centre – 2035 Rue Coursol
10. Restaurant Chez Clo – 3199 Rue Ontario Est

Source – 10 Abandoned Buildings In Montreal Worth Exploring | MTL Blog.

I took a look at that church/ community centre. Google’s images are from 2012, the post from the MTL Blog was from 2014 so no telling what shape that’s in now, if it’s still there. I noticed something interesting on top of the roof. I thought they were butterflies, but possibly not.

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The Labyrinth of Ordinary Humans

Found a nice quote on another lost urbex site. The direct link is hijacked by the Webring code. I found the site thanks to the Wayback Machine.

“It’s not about busting into businesses and bragging about trespassing. It’s about living a time that is rapidly disappearing, sinking under a new city. The undoctored past is a rare thing to have the privilege to experience, especially because this is not the past of kings or generals or millionaire mansions. This is the past of sewer and drain workers, factory workers, builders, tunnelers – ordinary people who built the labyrinthine hive of humans, that maze of rooms and halls above ground and under that we know as – a city.”

Jacques

urbanwanderers

Source: Exploring The Twin Cities’ Underground

Nottawasaga Lighthouse

I had this on my mental list of places to see already. It isn’t that far away. Another place to see and photograph before it’s gone.

Nottawasaga Lighthouse one of National Trust for Canada’s Top 10 Endangered Places.

Erected in 1858, the Nottawasaga Lighthouses was one of six Imperial Towers built to light the shores of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The whitewashed limestone light rises 95 feet above the shore, guiding ships to safety in Collingwood Harbour. It played an important part in the establishment of safe navigation routes along the coastal waters of Lake Huron following the opening of the Bruce Peninsula.

Deemed unsafe, the lighthouse was decommissioned in 2003 after an engineering study noted that the lighthouse’s exterior masonry, which had been damaged by lightning strikes and subsequent water infiltration, was at risk of collapse. A year later, a portion of the masonry crumbled. Though the Department of Fisheries and Oceans invested $400,000 to stabilize the remaining façade starting in 2005, it has since been abandoned and, without swift action, is unlikely to survive many more winters.

Source: Nottawasaga Lighthouse | The National Trust for Canada

Abandoned with the Piano

            Not often I like (or see the point) having models in urban exploration photography. This time it works. I like the piano too.

Reposting from Flickr. (Yahoo was blocking the link to the photo. But it was available to download. So, something odd about the direct link).

Capture

Union Burying Ground

The location is available to the public. Not open to the public exactly, but not closed at any time either.

I did not go inside the old brick wall. Partly because it was tumbling down in places and I did not want to cause any more damage to it, not one brick more of it. Mostly because it looked so undisturbed over the wall. I just didn’t want to put my footsteps in there.

The grass over the fence was golden swirls. I was using the smaller camera and I don’t think it ever quite caught the colour of the grass. It was very golden, like something you would draw for a fantasy scene.

It was called the Union Burying Ground. Built in 1848 for the United Empire Loyalists in Ontario.

I’m working on uploading my photos into my own gallery. (Not part of WordPress). I’ve started with the photos I took from the cemetery we found in Burlington last week. I will add a link to the other photographs once I get the software working the way I want. At the moment I’m having a battle with it over file sizes.

[PiwigoPress id=63 url=’http://wreckyratbird.com/ldbphotos/‘ size=’me’ desc=1 class=’img-shadow’ opntype=’_blank’ order=’undefined’]

The Maple Farms Motel

maple farms motelsign I’m meeting my Uncle for lunch tomorrow. I looked up the restaurant on Google Maps to see how to drive there. I checked the street view and found this abandoned motel almost across the street.

It may already be demolished. Google’s images were not very recent. The motel was boarded up and behind a construction fence. The area is loaded with new strip/ box stores so quite likely the motel won’t last long if it is still there at all.

See No Pattern Required – Friendship Inn Maple Farms Motel – Road Trip To The Past for images of the motel taken from a brochure in the 1970’s.

Update – August, 2016

The hotel was gone. No sign it had ever been there at all.

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Source for the last photograph: Michael Helmer Photography