Back in the summer when Luke and I did our Road Trip across Canada one of our stops was in Nelson. When we rolled into Nelson we cruised threw basically the whole town looking for a cheap place to stay for the night. While we where patrolling the town I spotted two places that had abandoned written all over them.
Back in the day when I first got into photography I took some classes at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. One of the classes I took involved a term project where we had to compile a collection of photos all based on the same theme. At the time it was getting close to the dead line for choosing a topic so I decided to venture out into the middle of nowhere in Nova Scotia to look for abandoned buildings and document the remains.
This turned into a great topic and I managed to capture some amazing images that I will share in a blog post sometime in the future. But back to the main topic of Nelson.
After we drove all over Nelson we determined Best Western was the best choice for the night. After we settled into our hotel room Luke and I headed down to Jackson’s Hole for a few beers and a nice meal. The next morning I woke up early to ventured over to the spots that we saw the previous day.
I first biked over to the train station that was all boarded up, to take a look around and snap a few photos. The train station didn’t look as interesting as the other building I saw that was only a short ways from where I was.
After I snapped a few photo’s I started biking threw the town trying to find a way to get across the train tracks and find the abandoned warehouse that I wanted to shoot.
Along the way I found a few things in an industrial area, so I stopped to snap a few photos, but I didn’t waste too much time because I still hadn’t reached the building I was looking for.
I ended up having to cut threw a few private property work zones to get to the abandoned building I was looking for, but once I got there it was totally worth all the effort.
When I arrived I got off my bike, stashed it in some bushes and pulled out my camera to continued walking around the warehouse while snapping photos threw the broken windows peering threw looking for a way in. Eventually I found what looked like a way in threw one of the broken windows that had a few bricks stacked up beside it.
Bingo, I was in!
Once I got in the building I was pretty amazed with the way the sun beamed threw the windows giving a beautiful ray of light across the entire warehouse. I quickly started walking around the facility frantically snapping photos because I knew I wasn’t suppose to be in there, so I didn’t want to waste any time.
One thing that I noticed when I first started looking around where these very interesting shelves with all these circuits and wiring hanging out. Who knows what they where for but what ever it was you could tell it would never be used again.
I then went over to what seemed like a boarding area for passengers. But that’s only one possibility to what it could have been. The whole building also looked very similar to a facility where mechanics could repair broken train cars or busted engines.
I still to this day am unsure what the building was actually used for, but it was big enough to have been many things.
The shear size of the building was amazing, you could tell that at one point in time this was a happening place. At one time there must have been over 50 people working at this facility when trains where a more common use of transportation.
After snapping some photos I ventured into the smaller rooms of the ware house to see what else I could find.
I then walked into some dark rooms with smashed glass all over the floors and doors hanging on their last hinge. I continued into this cage type area, I wasn’t exactly sure what it would have been used for, but I was startled when I saw a mangled dead crow on the ground. Other than looking at the dead bird carcus It was a pretty amazing experience.
After exploring the whole building I looked at my watch and decided to head back to the hotel to wake up Luke and get back on the road to continue our journy across the country to our next stop on the map.
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