fajrdrako | Wandering in the remains.. (Reply)

I love seeing - or wandering in - lost and ruined places. I didn't know there was one in my own city.

My friend Vince was in town, and invited me to go with him to the Canadian Forces Base where he had lived as a child. It was closed down as a base some years ago, and the buildings have since been razed. But nothing has yet replaced them. It's many square acres of wild land, right in the city. Weeds, trees, grasses, and scraps of pavement remain. A boarded-up school. Near the old parade ground, we found a heap of random rubbish - wood, a tire, cloth, a green plastic jar lid.

People aren't supposed to go there; but people living in the vicinity walk their dogs there. We met a charming spaniel named Samson. It felt like a place out of time, the impression intensified by Vince's reminiscences of the place as it used to be. The biplane from the Aviation Museum flew overhead, but most of the time, all we could hear was crickets and birds.

The fact that it was a rainy day seemed suitable: though it cleared up through the afternoon, and we didn't actually get wet from the rain, just from the wet grass we were walking through.

My photos:

1. Trees on the former Canadian Forces Base

2. A map of the area, from Google Maps

3. Where once there was a home... When I took this photo, Vince asked me, "Why'd you take a photo of that spot?"

"I liked the way it looked," I said. "It's a nice place."

"That's exactly where my house was," he said.

4. The growth

5. Gwatkin Private. This used to be Jupiter Road, when Vince lived on it; but when the city and suburbs amalgamated, there was another Jupiter Road. Gwatkin was a Canadian General in World War I.

6. Puddle

6. Playground

6. School

9. Grass

10. The Old Parade Ground

11. Vines on an old chain-link fence

12. The Library - one of the most important things on the base!

13. Sumac

14. The path leading back into the city

We saw a white car enter through the locked and chained gates from the road - joked that it was spies meeting a rendezvous, but apparently the place is patrolled for trespassers.