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Ghostown Blues Bed and Breakfast

82 images Created 27 Nov 2012

Ghostown Blues Bed and Breakfast, August 10 - 13, 2012 and August 31 - September 1, 2012. See the story in Westworld Saskatchewan Magazine: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/107892/15.
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  • Downtown Maple Creek on a sunny summer afternoon, 100 block Jasper Street, east side
    2012-08-001-0845-D.tif
  • Sign showing Maple Creek summer events, posted on the door of the Maple Creek Visitor Centre, 114 Jasper Street, Maple Creek, SK. There's plenty to do in Maple Creek and area throughout the summer, including events in Cypress Hills Provincial Park. Spectacular places, such as The Great Sand Hills and Eastend's T.Rex Centre and Wallace Stegner House, also make good day trips.
    2012-08-001-0849-D.tif
  • Homestead Cabin, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
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Ghostown Blues owner Greg Hisey says this was originally a settlers' cabin from northeast of town. Greg says the most recent owner before he moved it to Ghostown Blues believes the cabin was moved to a school and the schoolmarm lived in it. <br />
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"In Maple Creek and all these little communities, there's these little shacks that they've moved off, settlers' shacks that they've moved into town. This one was not big enough to put garage doors in, but that's what most of them became. It was kept like this. Of course it didn't look like that when I got it. That's the original siding. I put the window in the end and you can see where I spliced in the boards there. That's an old clapboard type siding. It's a neat little old building. There's some carvings on it." <br />
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During Maple Creek's annual cowboy poetry gathering, the cabin may be used to billet cowboy poets. The cabin is also used as the "green room" for the folk and blues bands that Greg brings to perform at the lodge (outside, if the weather is nice), four times a year.
    2012-08-001-0861-D.tif
  • Historic log cabin (L) and Homestead cabin (R), Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
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This cabin was originally a cowboy's line shack. On the big ranches, cowboys would stay at these shacks on the prairie when they couldn't make it home at night, Greg Hisey says.<br />
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This cabin stood on the big ranch run by the Ramsay family.<br />
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"Bill Ramsay . . . said his great granddad moved this off the prairies in the 1920s. He thinks it was built around 1912."<br />
<br />
"The Cypress Hills burned in 1886 or 1887. One of the old ranchers down there told me that they were not allowed to cut live trees, so they had to use for building standing deadfall. That would explain why there was no chinking in it, because it was shrunk if it was standing deadfall. That kind of verifies the time it was built."
    2012-08-001-0863-D.tif
  • Historic log cabin (L) and Homestead cabin (R), Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
<br />
<br />
This cabin was originally a cowboy's line shack. On the big ranches, cowboys would stay at these shacks on the prairie when they couldn't make it home at night, Greg Hisey says.<br />
<br />
<br />
The settlers' cabin in the background was moved into Maple Creek from northeast of town. A previous owner told Hisey that it was moved to a school for a time and used by the schoolmarm. Like many old prairie cabins, this had been moved into town. But unlike most, it was too small to be converted to a garage, so it remained relatively intact all these years.
    2012-08-001-0865-D.tif
  • Inside the Lodge, a former church, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
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The church was built in the town of Hatton in 1912. Before Hatton was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1921, followed by the CPR's decision to bypass the town in 1928, the town had become one of the most prosperous in Western Canada.<br />
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"More grain was shipped out of Hatton Saskatchewan than any other town in Canada in 1915," says Greg Hisey, owner of Ghostown Blues. "They had nine wooden grain elevators there. It was quite a thriving little community."<br />
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The Dirty Thirties all but sealed the fate of Hatton. By 1949, there were only six parishioners left to support the church. The Lutheran Church in Maple Creek bought the building for the remaining value of the mortgage on it, about $400, and moved it to Maple Creek. When the Trans Canada Highway pushed through the prairies, bypassing Hatton for Maple Creek, the town didn't stand much of a chance.<br />
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In 1970, the Lutherans built a new church, sending this building across the railroad tracks to be used as a storage shed.
    2012-08-001-0871-D.tif
  • Thresherman's Wagon, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
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This re-creation of a thresherman's wagon is a modern construction on the running gear of a former thresherman's wagon.<br />
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Greg Hisey: "I've had three of those (thresherman's wagons) given to me. The roofs on them came to the top of that window. This running gear came from Jonas Abramson down the road and he gave it to me if I would put a cook car wagon on it."
    2012-08-001-0876-D.tif
  • The Lodge, which is a former church, with chuckwagon to left, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK
    2012-08-001-0877-D.tif
  • Chuckwagon, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
<br />
Greg Hisey: "That's a 1925 Eaton wagon, out of the Eaton catalogue. That's an original wagon. I've built underneath there, that's called the pan boot, and the chuck box there. This was a kitchen on wheels, that's what they were designed for, made by a guy named Charlie Goodnight in 1864 [Wikepedia says 1866], when the cattle drives started. Now, they didn't have trunks on top. It had a rack, and that's where the cowboys' bedrolls went. That's where the chuckwagon races were invented. They usually had more than one of these on the cattle drive and they raced to the next camp to get the best site handy to water. The cowboy's bedrolls [and personal effects were stowed] up front. There was another box on some of them that was a pantry, and then there was a shelf across that you put the lanterns in. So they could eat and cook at night."<br />
<br />
"It was a marvel of practicality, just like the sheep wagons. To me, they were built like a ship berth in there - a marvel of practicality and functionality. This one I take to town quite often for parades and heritage day, or Taste of Maple Creek, and they'll be cooking out of the back of it. All this stuff's hand hammered. I try to keep them as true to what they were as I can get. They're fun. I enjoy building them."
    2012-08-001-0879-D.tif
  • Trapper's Tent, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. <br />
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Greg Hisey: "That was owned by a guy named Bob Doonan. It was his hunting tent. Bob Doonan died five or six years ago. He lived with Charlie Russell, down at his ranch one winter. Charlie Russell was in south Alberta quite a bit, but he got over here, too. I just got it, because, oh, man if it could talk! The stories it would tell! It's an old one, and probably by the end of this summer in the sun, it's getting to where you can't use it any more. But I wanted to get it up at least once."
    2012-08-001-0881-D.tif
  • Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. shown, left to right: Historic Log Cabin, Homestead Cabin, Thresherman's Wagon, Lodge.
    2012-08-001-0884-D.tif
  • Inside the Historic Log Cabin, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK<br />
<br />
100-year-old cabin (built in 1912), looks pretty modern after Greg Hisey has finished with it. On a rainy night in August, the place was warm and cozy. The queen-sized bed, adapted to a vintage double frame, provides a super-comfortable place to rest your head. High-speed wireless Internet is available, thanks to a router in the lodge, next door.
    2012-08-001-0886-D.tif
  • Inside the Historic Log Cabin, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK<br />
<br />
100-year-old cabin (built in 1912), looks pretty modern after Greg Hisey has finished with it. On a rainy night in August, the place was warm and cozy. The queen-sized bed, adapted to a vintage double frame, provides a super-comfortable place to rest your head. High-speed wireless Internet is available, thanks to a router in the lodge, next door.
    2012-08-001-0888-D.tif
  • Chuckwagon and campfire at night, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK
    2012-08-001-0897-D.tif
  • Milky Way and The Lodge at night, with cabins and Thresherman's wagon at right, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK<br />
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This view looks south, with the original chuckwagon at left, the campfire in foreground, the settlers' cabin at right, and the stairs to the thresherman's wagon at extreme right.<br />
<br />
Yes, the sky really is that bright in Maple Creek, just 25 km north of Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve.
    2012-08-001-0904-D.tif
  • Looking north, trapper's tent, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK.<br />
<br />
The lights of Maple Creek brighten the sky at right (east). Except for that pool of light, the area is renown for its dark night skies. Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve is 25 km south.<br />
<br />
On this clear starry night, a line of thunderstorms was blowing along the northern horizon. Flashes of lightning are visible in the photo.
    2012-08-001-0906-D.tif
  • Detail, dovetail construction of the Historic Log Cabin, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Greg Hisey: "That's an amazing build. The axe-smith who put this together with zero gaps and every log fully scribed from one end to the other.... it's pine. The Cypress Hills burned in 1886 or 1887. One of the old ranchers down there told me that they were not allowed to cut live trees, so they had to use for building standing deadfall. That would explain why there was no chinking in it, because it was shrunk if it was standing deadfall. That kind of verifies the .time it was built. It's an amazing little cabin."
    2012-08-001-0908-D.tif
  • Detail, dovetail construction of the Historic Log Cabin, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Greg Hisey: "That's an amazing build. The axe-smith who put this together with zero gaps and every log fully scribed from one end to the other.... it's pine. The Cypress Hills burned in 1886 or 1887. One of the old ranchers down there told me that they were not allowed to cut live trees, so they had to use for building standing deadfall. That would explain why there was no chinking in it, because it was shrunk if it was standing deadfall. That kind of verifies the .time it was built. It's an amazing little cabin."
    2012-08-001-0910-D.tif
  • Detail, dovetail construction of the Historic Log Cabin, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Greg Hisey: "That's an amazing build. The axe-smith who put this together with zero gaps and every log fully scribed from one end to the other.... it's pine. The Cypress Hills burned in 1886 or 1887. One of the old ranchers down there told me that they were not allowed to cut live trees, so they had to use for building standing deadfall. That would explain why there was no chinking in it, because it was shrunk if it was standing deadfall. That kind of verifies the .time it was built. It's an amazing little cabin."
    2012-08-001-0911-D.tif
  • Greg Hisey, owner and proprietor, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Greg is sitting at one of the dining tables in the lodge, a former church from Hatton, Saskatchewan.
    2012-08-001-0916-D.tif
  • Greg Hisey, owner and proprietor, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Greg is sitting at one of the dining tables in the lodge, a former church from Hatton, Saskatchewan.
    2012-08-001-0919-D.tif
  • Greg Hisey, owner and proprietor, Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Greg is sitting at one of the dining tables in the lodge, a former church from Hatton, Saskatchewan.
    2012-08-001-0920-D.tif
  • Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. Dragonfly on rope.
    2012-08-001-0929-D.tif
  • Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. This is one of two sheep wagons. This wagon required extensive restoration, with some liberties taken regarding full authenticity. The body of the wagon is original, as is the cabinet shown in some photos.
    2012-08-001-0930-D.tif
  • Ghostown Blues Bed & Breakfast, Highway 271, 1 km west of Maple Creek, SK. This is one of two sheep wagons. This wagon required extensive restoration, with some liberties taken regarding full authenticity. The body of the wagon is original, as is the cabinet shown in some photos.
    2012-08-001-0931-D.tif
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