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Prairie Past Alicia and Corey explore abandoned buildings, historic sites and rural locations. Exploring sites through photography, video and drone footage.

Our heritage exploration takes us all over Saskatchewan, Canada and beyond since 2008. Alicia and Corey are rural and urban explorers based in Saskatchewan. Exploring the province together since 2008 they visit abandoned, historic and rural locations. They have visited ghost towns, hospital, military sites, churches, grain elevators, houses, schools, hotels, industrial sites and more!

Did you know Saskatchewan once had three major sanatoriums? During the height of the tuberculosis epidemic, specialized ...
10/22/2026

Did you know Saskatchewan once had three major sanatoriums? During the height of the tuberculosis epidemic, specialized sanatoriums were established in Fort San, Saskatoon and Prince Albert, where patients could receive long-term care and treatment.

For decades, miners worked deep beneath ground in dangerous conditions and today, many of those mines are gone or sealed...
10/21/2026

For decades, miners worked deep beneath ground in dangerous conditions and today, many of those mines are gone or sealed away. According to local haunting stories, the old mine sites around Estevan, Saskatchewan are said to be haunted by the spirits of miners, with reports of shadowy figures and apparitions appearing around the places where the mines once operated.

There’s something uniquely unsettling about old and abandoned hospitals. The morgue, hospital beds left behind, ripped c...
10/20/2026

There’s something uniquely unsettling about old and abandoned hospitals. The morgue, hospital beds left behind, ripped curtains moving in the breeze, long hallways lined with doors, isolation rooms, abandoned operating rooms, old nurseries, caged stairwells in former asylums, steam tunnels under a building - even restraints left behind can tell a chilling story. Every room seems to carry a piece of the lives and history that once filled these buildings.

And perhaps that’s why hospitals are so often surrounded by ghost stories and haunting legends. Whether it was a general hospital, institution, or asylum, these places are rich with history and when the patients and staff are gone, the empty rooms can feel like they’re still holding onto the past.

Here is a collection of some of our favourite photos from hospitals we have visited over the years.

Dolls in museums feel… unsettling. From cracked porcelain faces to faded clothes and glassy eyes, these forgotten toys c...
10/19/2026

Dolls in museums feel… unsettling. From cracked porcelain faces to faded clothes and glassy eyes, these forgotten toys can look downright creepy sitting behind glass - especially when you’re standing alone in a quiet museum.

And then there are the dolls said to be haunted. Stories of dolls changing position, strange noises, or visitors feeling like they’re being watched have turned some ordinary antiques into paranormal legends. Are they really haunted, or is it just our imagination filling in the blanks? Either way… would you be brave enough to spend the night with one?

Sinnett Road in Saskatchewan has its share of ghost stories, but there’s another reason to stop and look a little closer...
10/18/2026

Sinnett Road in Saskatchewan has its share of ghost stories, but there’s another reason to stop and look a little closer!

St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church, built in 1928, stands as one of the last landmarks of Sinnett, a community established in 1905 by Irish settlers led by Father John Chester Sinnett. At its height, the community included a church, cemetery, post office, hall, and school.

10/17/2026

Interested in learning more about the Weyburn Mental Hospital? Try these books!

The bright light, yet lingering shadows. The open hallways, yet caged stairwells. The enormous windows, all barred. Weyb...
10/17/2026

The bright light, yet lingering shadows. The open hallways, yet caged stairwells. The enormous windows, all barred. Weyburn Mental Hospital was a place of striking contrasts, holding a complicated history and countless stories within its walls.

I’m currently reading the book "Under the Dome", a historical book about the Weyburn Mental Hospital. I hope to learn more about the people who lived there and the circumstances that brought them through its doors, including my own great-grandmother, who was dropped off there because my great-grandfather no longer wanted to care for her. Sadly, stories like hers are not uncommon at facilities like this in that era.

Behind the walls of this now-demolished institution were real people, real lives, and stories that deserve to be remembered.

To view our full exploration gallery of images visit our website. Link in comments.

The Weyburn Mental HospitalOnce a massive psychiatric hospital (asylum) in Saskatchewan, Weyburn Mental Hospital has lon...
10/17/2026

The Weyburn Mental Hospital

Once a massive psychiatric hospital (asylum) in Saskatchewan, Weyburn Mental Hospital has long since been demolished but in 2008, we photographed it while it sat abandoned. It was an unforgettable experience inside a place with a complex history. Behind those walls were generations of people, their stories, and a changing understanding of mental health care.

Over the next couple of days, we will share a few photos from our exploration. To learn more about the history or see the full gallery, visit our website. Link in comments.

This past weekend, we explored the Estevan area, and no trip is complete without a stop at Taylorton Heritage Cemetery! ...
10/16/2026

This past weekend, we explored the Estevan area, and no trip is complete without a stop at Taylorton Heritage Cemetery!

This cemetery holds a special place for me (Alicia), as some of my own relatives are buried here. One of my ancestors was a pioneer and liveryman merchant, born in 1853 and passing away in 1913. It’s also home to historic graves that tell the stories of everyone from early pioneers to miners who helped shape the region.

Most prairie legends begin with a whisper of truth.Over the years, we’ve heard countless stories about mysterious, haunt...
10/14/2026

Most prairie legends begin with a whisper of truth.

Over the years, we’ve heard countless stories about mysterious, haunted buildings hidden in the backroads of Saskatchewan — places people swear were once asylums, hospitals, or sites of unexplained tragedy. One story that caught our attention spoke of an “abandoned mental hospital” standing alone on the prairie. The problem? We knew no such institution had ever existed in that area.

Curiosity sent us into old records, maps, and history books, searching for the source of the tale. What we found was not a mental hospital at all, but a large school that had later been converted into a nursing home. The building had been demolished more than twenty years earlier.

And yet, the legend lived on.

It wasn’t an asylum, but it was a place connected to healthcare, memories, aging, and loss — a small piece of truth hidden beneath layers of retold stories. Perhaps that is how folklore survives. Over time, facts fade, details change, and ordinary places become something darker in our imaginations.

Sometimes the most haunting thing isn’t the ghost story itself, it’s discovering the forgotten history that inspired it.

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Val Marie, SK

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