Brazeau Collieries
I promised this story a few days ago but didn't get time to post it as I was busy wrapping up my training in Hinton. But finally, here it is:
Last September I was working in Rocky Mountain House. Every evening after work I would take a drive out to the Nordegg area and check out something like Shunda, Crescent Falls, the Bighorn Dam, and so on and so forth.
Every time I drove past Nordegg I could see the old Brazeau Collieries perched over the town like a Gargoyle. I would think to myself how neat it would be to see all the old buildings there, but sadly tourist season was over and the guided tour had been shut down till next season. One evening while BSing at the pub in Nordegg I mentioned to the bartender how neat the old mine sounded and how I would be sure to come back for a guided tour when they start up in the spring. She told me to go ahead and hike in. She could tell I was a respectable guy who would treat the area with respect. I got some basic directions from her and prepared for my hike.
The first evening I took along a friend from Rocky who always wanted to hike into the Collieries but could never find anyone interested in going. We parked at the gates and hiked in on the railroad tracks. By the time we reached the Collieries the sun had set.
We began by walking around the outside of the processing plants. I was in awe of their size and could only imagine what it would have been like 60 years ago when 900 people worked there daily. I snapped many pictures of the buildings and whatever else I thought was cool. During this time we had no weird feelings or sensations, and didn't see anything strange. The only thing we noted was the dead silence. There was not even the sound of woodland animals or birds. Just pure silence.
I also took a picture of my friend hanging off of a coal chute that powered large engines of some sort. We then walked east, came to a fork in the road that went slightly south west, and decided to take it. We came to two buildings, one was sort of white with green trim that had two front doors and another building that was more less just an old house with a cellar (we noted both cellar doors were closed, but the main door was wide open). I wanted to snap a picture of the two front doors and inside. As I stepped on the front step something came rushing out of the doors- a type of foul odor that I've never smelled before. It hit me and I withdrew due to the smell, and my friend behind me a few feet smelled it, too. I mustered the courage to step up and take a couple pictures. I did so and then backed off the step.
Slightly confused by the localized smell we walked about 20 feet forward towards the house. This is when things went from strange to terrifying. I was walking in front and it was like stepping into another world. I was hit with a hostile, menacing feeling and it felt like eyes ripped through me. Based on my friends description I just stood there drained of color and blankly staring at the house. Then the same feeling hit her. As I gained composure we both noticed something completely out of place- one of the cellar doors was open a few inches. She grabbed the back of my jacket and begged we leave. I thought that was a great idea and we ran/jogged all the way back to the truck.
After a few minutes sitting in the truck not saying much we drove down to the pub for some food and to collect ourselves. As we sat at the table, both shaking and sweating a cold sweat, I began looking through the pictures. One of my pictures of the processing plants has a distinct face looking out of a window higher up. The picture of my friend hanging on the coal chute has a green orb of some sort hovering behind her. And one of the pictures of the two door building has a red glow coming from a back room. We didn't know what to make of it, but before long we had drawn a small crowd who wanted to see the pictures and hear what had happened out there.
Back at my camp I laid awake with the lights on. My chest was still tight from the experience and I was not feeling like sleeping at all. At about 2 AM a very clear voice said in my right ear "Quiet". No idea what it meant, just know it scared me half to death. The rest of the evening in my room went without incident and I eventually got to sleep around 4 AM.
After the first evening at the Collieries we were both scared yet amazed at the experience and we both wanted to go back. So a few nights later we set out to see the rest of the site. This time we hiked in on the road but still got to the mine at sunset. We looked through some buildings starting with the locker room, and moving south to the actual mine entrances and some buildings in the bush. No weird feelings or sensations, just a little pacrat that followed us around. There was an odd phenomena though. We would get hit by blasts of hot air and cold. I'm talking hair blower hot, and ice water cold. The air blasts would last a couple seconds and be gone. It wouldn't matter if we were in a building or outside in the open. It was odd.
We went through the processing plants from top to bottom, and for the finale we went to the two buildings that gave us the most activity the hike before. We went inside of the house with the cellar. Although we felt uneasy, nothing like before. We went all through it then out the back door to the building with the double front door set up. We went into the room with the red glow but nothing this time. We went out the front door and no smell. We then hiked out to the truck and left the Brazeau Collieries and it's lifetime residents behind. All in all on the second night there was almost a feeling of being welcome. And the animals were out and about making noise how you would expect. There just wasn't the feeling of hostility like the first time.
And that's my story. First time mentioning it here, first time posting it here. I plan to go back someday as well as go to another ghost town in the area that is supposedly just as active. A little place in the forest called Alexo.
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