Impressed with Empress

Boondocking

We are members of Harvest Host – a network of unique RV camping locations across North America. And unique is certainly a good description for many of the places members have access to. We have stayed at wineries, distilleries, airfield museums, ranches, garden centres, restaurants, and even in people’s back yards. 

Empress, AB was one of those experiences. Boondocking at Jane’s was pretty typical of a Harvest Host Boondockers location, but the town (can you still call it a town when only 150 people live there?) she lives in was something a little different. 

Many homes in Empress are empty, some in a sad state of repair

Even the CP Railway left Empress

Walking down the main street in the middle of the day, I felt like we had landed in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Not a single person on the street. The hospital closed. Weeds growing through the cracks in the parking lot. The school also closed and boarded up tight. Curtains pulled on most of the houses we passed. No one in the yards as we walked by. Just the sound of our footsteps, and the wind in the trees. And then, a giant green combine tractor turns the corner and drives away from us down Main Street. Ah, yes, we must be in Alberta. 

The only live thing on Main Street in Empress

As we walked by the only store in town, the shopkeeper suddenly comes out of the building and calls out to us, “Hello! Where are you from?” I guess he knows everyone in town, and saw an opportunity in these strangers walking by. “Come on in for some ice cream! Or maybe you’d prefer a cappuccino?” We were possibly the first (and maybe the only) customers that day. He was desperate to talk to anyone. 

Turns out, this fellow had a story (don’t we all?), and he was happy to tell us all about it. He’s ridden his bike across Canada – twice. He fell off a cliff and broke his leg trying to impress a girl. Found a whale skeleton 200km inland from sea. All this before finishing university in Calgary. And now, he helps his elderly parents run the local convenience store in some nearly-dead town in the middle of nowhere Alberta, looking like he might just be the one who eats a lot of the ice cream in the store. There’s another story there, I just know it. Maybe we'll go back one day to hear it.