My sister, Alison came for a visit this weekend. Since seeing Jerry Seinfeld in Lethbridge last year, we had discussed the idea of seeing more shows together as an easy excuse to hangout. We had tickets for Beatlemania! on Friday, and took the opportunity to catch up and remind ourselves why we both love Beatles Rockband so much.
Just last weekend my sister had graduated from the University of Lethbridge. Naturally, I gave Alison a card for graduating from the 8th grade. It was a few years overdue, but at this point my irreverent sense of humor comes as no surprise to her.
Before the show on Friday night we took the opportunity to check out the art gallery and museum at the Esplanade. You can view it for free when you have tickets for an event, but this was the first time I had actually made a point of showing up early enough to see it. There were several small exhibits on display, including a large collection of student art. We actually spent most of our time looking at that.
The museum wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but it was well organized and interesting. After all of the research I've been doing about Medicine Hat for my photo series, it was cool to see some actual memorabilia from the area. My sister and I had fun exchanging stories about different memories we had from growing up here. It was a good start to the evening, and soon we were in our seats ready to see just how convincing the faux-Beatles would be.
Of the various Batman franchises over the years, it was Tim Burton's blockbuster that had the most influence on me. I remember having a few of the toys, but much like it was for me with Ghostbusters, it was all about the iconic car. Until recently I hadn't given any of this much thought until I found my old Batmobile tucked away in the back of a basement cupboard at my parent's place.
Two things struck me with this discovery. One was that the car had a copyright date of 1989 on the bottom of it. This reminded me of just how much time had passed, but also that my old Buick (speaking of significant cars) had been from the same year. The second thing was how much blue play-doh had dried all over this thing. I cleaned most of it off, but I suppose back then combining play-doh with all of my cars was a no-brainer. Sometimes it's easy to get swept up in childhood memories, but with your own Batmobile you'd be a fool not to!
At the same time that my Mom had discovered a stash of my Grandpa's old stocks, she also found a vintage postcard of Medicine Hat, Alberta that she thought would interest me because of my Around the Hat photo series. What was interesting was that I had come across digital copies of the postcard before while going through various online archives to find out the history of several local landmarks. I did a bit of research and discovered that the postcard was from sometime in the 1920s.
It was immediately clear by looking at the postcard that not much had been built on the one side of the river yet, with the obvious exception of St. Pat's church. The other major difference was the trees. In the postcard you can clearly see the river, the C.P. Rail bridge, and Finlay Bridge, all of which are almost completely obscured by trees now. I returned to the hilltop that the postcard had been photographed from to shoot some new images of the view.
Things have changed a bit over the decades. My history binge also lead me to discover that the postcard had been photographed from the location of the former St. Theresa's Academy. It was a very prominent structure in Medicine Hat, and was very noticeable atop the hill in Crescent Heights. You can see St. Theresa's in the distance in this photograph from 1915. Sadly, the Academy was demolished in 1973. I imagine it was too costly to repair or refurbish for other uses after it closed, but from the few photos I've seen, it really was quite an impressive looking building.
I discovered that a bland apartment block now stands in its place, but the view certainly hasn't diminished. After 90 years the city now expands over the hills in each direction, and many of the city's most luxurious homes have been built along the river.
The pedestrian bridge coming off of the hillside also offered some stunning views. I continued down the hill to explore the wooden bridges that spanned the train tracks. Somewhat out of the way, I realized that the walkways gave a unique and scenic perspective to the surrounding area that you wouldn't witness otherwise. It was kind of cool to imagine how the city had evolved over the decades from this vantage point, especially because at the time the postcard was photographed this was pretty much the edge of town.
So after all of that, I'd like to extend an invitation to anyone who may be reading this post 90 years from now (in 2102) to go out and photograph this view from the hill and update it again. I hope it's only become more spectacular, and that you have as much fun as I did in realizing that you're standing in the same spot as the person who did this nearly a century earlier.
