My friend Cheryl and I have been hiking the Bruce Trail on and off since April and have covered a respectable distance. Besides all the amazing countryside we’ve seen, one fascinating aspect for me are those sights that seem to represent lost parts of peoples lives and perhaps even their dreams. We’ve passed closed mills and factories…
…towns past their heyday and abandoned homes along the trail and wondered about the families who may have lost it all or may have moved on to greener pastures.
We’ve been crossing rough terrain, usually in thick brush or seemingly the middle of nowhere and come across a broken fence, something that once marked a boundary or contained livestock or crops…a long time ago and built with hope and hard work but now overgrown as nature takes it back.
For me the most compelling are the dry boulder fences built by settlers using huge rocks they cleared from the land in hopes of tilling the soil. They suddenly appear in a forest and stretch for as far as you can see…each boulder painstakingly dug up and lifted now demarcating nothing. I’m sure I’ve bored my hiking companion silly as each time I point them out and marvel at the determination these long ago farmers showed.
And what’s the story behind this abandoned machine that blocked our path and cause a detour through greenery that may contain poison ivy?
As we walk this trail we think not only about those who have traversed it before us but also the lost times and hard times of those who lived in the places we pass in days gone by…
Womanseyeview's Blog 
Lost dreams – yes indeed. Well presented, I love it.
Evocative, provocative …
Very nicely done. Someone needs to take that junk off that nice Cadillac..
Thanks for your visit and that car, sitting on flat tyres, looked in excellent condition otherwise. A sad tale it could share I’m sure.
Looks like a beautiful part of the Bruce Trail. You have captured its slow pace and feeling of time gone by delightfully in these images. Yes, maybe it is lost dreams. Each photograph tells its own story.
Thank you for your comments and you’re right to say this was part of the Bruce trail because we’re finding that each section we walk has its own stories…so many more to go!
I love especially the picture of the old mill. It makes you just want to reach out and save it !
Yes we throw away and demolish so much if our history! Thanks for the visit.
Lovely pictures—It would be really interesting to know the stories behind these photos. The trail looks like a really fun place to hike.
Thank you we are really enjoying it – so many of these abandoned places would have been farms from your grandmothers time.
You are seeing some lovely sights! I too have come across abandoned areas and wonder… where are they now? Thank You for sharing…! And a lost spirit or two are sure glad you have remembered them by sharing your photos with us.
Thanks! And you can sometimes sense the spirits in the air.
So many reasons that people pack-up and move on. Ambition. Adventure. Economics. Family (adding to and subtracting from). Climate… Rural areas retain these features of homesteads from a few decades ago and foundations of civilizations hundrends and thousands of years ago. Urban and suburban areas raze and rebuild… All those foreclosed mortgages and gutted houses only a few years abandonded, may go the way of Detroit and Baltimore (razed) or California (short-sales).
Oscar
That’s very true -change is a constant but it’s intriguing wondering about the stories in these places we pass.
Reading your post was really interesting – I too felt the same way. It seemed like I was forever photographing abandoned cars, buildings, often building that were simply foundations that remained.
I find abandoned or derelict buildings very sad … like you said in your title, I think of them as lost dreams.
And walking the trail causes you to confront them so much more directly than when we whiz past in our cars.
I often had the same thoughts as we drove around the U.S. and saw derelict buildings, abandoned motels and nearly deserted towns. Shame.
So true and there may be more dramatic examples there – like Detroit!
Watched a program on the decline of Detroit – very sad. 😦
Thank you…Now I better understand the wabi sabi concept – thanks to your last post and this comment!
Some beautiful photographs – capturing that poignant charm of fading away. It would seem from your pictures and the comments above that plenty of us Westerners appreciate the ‘wabi sabi’ art aesthetic – we just haven’t named it.
I’m completely drawn to abandoned places and buildings. I get this pull inside me that I can’t describe. I find incredible beauty in them and could spend hours imagining the people that inhabited them and the reasons why they left xx
I imagine a couple of these places would be inspiration for one of your great stories!
It is so interesting what gets left behind, isn’t it? The abandoned parked car intrigues me. Did the person just up & leave? Beautiful photos.
We wondered too – apart from the long ago deflated tyres it seemed it was well cared for and probably once someone’s pride and joy.
Oh I’m so glad you noticed, thought about and paid tribute to those pioneers who — or so it looks from here — were doomed from the start. So much of that country was/is so unsuitable for farming, & the people attempting it often knew nothing about it anyway. So much effort, so little reward.
Yes – from what I recall from my history these were areas of much heartbreak for settlers and you can sometimes sense it in these forlorn places.
The boulder fences are particularly interesting.
Lillian
They continue to be the old constructions that draw me to them as well.
These are wonderful, evocative images. I love to walk through areas that bring me into contact with its history, especailly if that history seems to be a forgotten or little understood one.
Thank you…while our history is not as dramatically visible as some other parts of the world it is still there in the whisper of the birch trees if you look hard enough.
Oh the stories it could tell. Such time on a journey leaves our minds to wonder.
Yes when we raise our heads from the clouds of mosquitos to look around us there are traces of past lives – perhaps ghosts! – everywhere.
What we leave behind! It is fascinating.
It is interesting what we leave behind…and sobering too.
The photos are beautiful, and remind me of New England, where I am from originally. Stone fences everywhere, and many in the woods, where Nature had reclaimed an old farm.
Thanks…And I guess it is the hope and dreams and incredibly hard work that went into that old homestead or farm that I find poignant.
My husband used to explain every bit of the machinery or equipment or the way things were done. It was always fascinating to head out into areas such as this with him.
I’m glad this post triggered good memories for you – thanks for the visit.
Beautiful photographs and for me memories of the many “dreams” both lost and found that we’ve encountered on the trail.
And many more kilometres and mysteries are still ahead of us!