The Alberta prairie is crisscrossed with roads, many of them only a couple of miles apart. After living here for almost 36 years, there are many of them that we’ve never traversed but over the past few days searching for geocaches has taken us down several new ones. We found three more caches yesterday but it’s the pieces of the past that we keep finding that intrigue me even more.

We explored two more old abandoned houses yesterday, neither as majestic as the house on the hill but interesting nonetheless. The first was a very simple structure. Little more than a two storey wooden box with a very steep roof, its main floor was made up of just two rooms. We could see where a very steep staircase once led to the upper floor but it was no longer there; possibly removed to keep intruders like ourselves from falling through the decaying floorboards. Once again, there was nothing left in or around the house to tell the story of the people who once called it home.

The second house finally yielded what I was looking for; signs of human habitation. It was the windmill that first captured our attention. Connected to a pump behind the house, it would have provided water for the family as well as any animals they might have had.

The sign on the fence might have read “No Trespassing” but since we didn’t tear it off (I promise!) and it could just as easily have said “No Hunting”, we climbed the fence and went exploring!

The open door was so inviting. I just had to go inside! Treading carefully to avoid falling into the root cellar below, I made my way from room to room.

Who sat in the old armchair I wondered. It might have been quite comfortable before the mice did away with all the upholstery and stuffing!

Another skeleton sat in the centre of a different room. Clearly a baby once lived here!

I was surprised to see the old wood stove still there. I would think that an antique collector would like to get their hands on this beauty.

There was also an oil heater to keep the cold Alberta winters at bay.

Where there are children, schools are also needed and before the day of school buses the Canadian prairie was dotted with one room schoolhouses. Though many of them are gone, in our area historical markers show where they once stood. We passed a couple of them yesterday and as retired teachers, it was easy to imagine the voices of children from the past playing where farmers now cultivate the land.