Capturing Manitoba’s disappearing past

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This article was published 07/11/2024 (542 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RM of Oakview – Beck is playing as Albert Roy rolls down the Yellowhead Highway. He pulls over and grabs a camera with a telephoto lens from his back seat and points it out his windshield.

“Definitely looks abandoned to me,” he says, looking down the lens. “It’s not boarded up, but there’s no windows. That’s always a sign.”

The Winnipeg man eyes a building a kilometre away. The front wall is checkered, like someone played a scratch-and-win on the wooden boards.

An aging pine, a shattered window and an overgrown driveway, it’s exactly what Roy looks for. He is one of the many who drive around the province searching for abandoned buildings to photograph. It’s a trend that has picked up in recent years and made a mark on social media.

Roy’s Facebook group, “Rustic Relics Manitoba” has more than 6,000 members, with users browsing his photos and even posting their own. He said his hobby of capturing decrepit buildings is a mix of photography and leisure.

“For me I just like getting out of the city and it’s an excuse to do it. Get to know Manitoba,” said Roy. “I kind of yearn to be out in the country.”

Riding shotgun is Christian Yackle, the creator of another photography page called “Forgotten Manitoba.” He gives Roy directions to their next stop — an abandoned building in Oakview.

“You’re just happy people appreciate it,” said Yackel. “It’s such a niche thing.”

Yackel’s work was recently featured at the Ty Gwyn Gallery in his hometown of Killarney, in an exhibition that included more than 50 of his pictures. Over a thousand people follow his Facebook page, sharing comments on his photos and guessing where they are.

He said it all started when he was in Grade 9 when he and his friends biked to an abandoned farmhouse off Pipeline Road in Winnipeg’s north end.

“I just thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Yackel said. “And it just kind of snowballed from there.”

The teenager went home and Googled the history of the building. He found the whole thing fascinating, and began to explore websites like the Manitoba Historical Society to learn about the past.

Today Yackel has created a map with at least 4,000 locations of abandoned and potentially abandoned buildings pinned to it. He uses the map to guide his road trips, marking locations that he can visit in the future. Most of the sites are in Westman.

“There’s a rural population in Eastman,” he said. “So it kind of takes away from the buildings on our side of the province. If you go out an hour from Winnipeg you’ll pretty-much find nothing. But if I’m near Melita there’s a lot more.”

To find the sites, he scours images of Manitoba for broken rooftops, overgrown driveways and neglected land. The areas tend to stand out in a birds-eye view, as their faded colours contrast with nearby plots that are rich with yellow wheat or green grass. When he finds a potential abandoned building he marks it on his map. Later, he uses that research when he’s going out for a photo shoot, but admits that finding the perfect site can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

“There’s a lot of, I call them duds. For every good building I find there’s probably five duds.”

The last step in confirming a property is abandoned is a flyover with a drone which will show if he’s found an abandoned building with stories to tell.

On a Monday in late October, Yackel gives directions to Roy, who drives the car down a dirt road. Every time a property passes, their eyes dart to the building, looking for signs of neglect. They stop a few times to debate the status of a few of them, but the real treasure is 10 kilometres further down the road.

On reaching the location, Yackel gives the word and Roy pulls over. They park the car, pop the trunk and pull out their camera equipment. A long path awaits them through bare trees.

Walking up, they trod through waist-high yellow grass. They round a corner where a car sits like an overgrown garden decoration. At the end of the path, a tree with bare branches almost hides the building.

“This is the kinda houses I shoot for. I dream about,” says Roy. He compliments his fellow photographer for the find: a three story building caved-in only at the front, like it found a strong footing midway through collapse.

Empty windows line the exterior. A stove top, and then a doorframe come into sight. Something new in the chaotic home catches the light at every angle.

“A lot of places. You’ll know they are abandoned when they have beehives,” says Roy, standing at the door. He looks down a staircase descending into the home. “I never-ever go in a basement. It freaks me out.”

The area at the bottom of the stairs is much darker than the rest of the house.

On ground level, the wooden floor is littered with paper, magazines, fur, grass, rubble and toys. Something creeks upstairs — and Yackel explains that things often blow in the wind.

It’s chaos, but there are signs of life. A beautiful white baluster runs up the staircase to the second floor. A record player lays tilted on a table. Multiple bed frames sized for children still stand in empty rooms. They’re the kind of things people take interest in: Rustic relics. Forgotten Manitoba.

“You can kinda get a picture of what life was like in there,” says Roy.

Leaving the place, he thanks Yackel again for the find. The photographers have a three hour drive back to Winnipeg before they’ll be able to share their findings with their fans.

Abandonment is likely to continue in Manitoba, as Gordon Goldsborough from the historical society told the Sun in September. And every time a house, barn or other building is left to decay, a piece of the province’s history fades away.

For Roy and Yackel, their job is to capture it before its gone.

»cmcdowell@brandonsun.com