Colliery is a word for coal mine and other buildings associated with it such as the lamp house, showers, coke oven, boiler house, etc. Leitch Collieries was a commercial bust, but very advanced and mechanized in its day. Poor timing and the outbreak of war led to its demise. The Crowsnest Pass area was a very important economic centre and had a lot going for it. There were many mining towns and the railway certainly helps. It's so important to grain and agriculture that "crow rate" is still a relevant subject.

It was here that while looking through the myriads of historical placards that I learned the name Thomas Gushul from our interpretive guide. Thomas Gushul was a local photographer from Ukraine in Blairmore Alberta who documented the Crowsnest Pass area. He had a wife named Lena Gushul who was also a photographer. Thomas passed away in 1962 and Lena continued on running the Gushul Studio until 1981 when she passed away. Their collection of close to 60,000 negatives were distributed to various historic sites in Alberta. The Glenbow Museum in Calgary houses thousands of photos from the Gushuls. I was inspired to start my own small collection of negatives of the times I live in. The work in progress is linked to from: