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Another fairly typical old farmhouse in rural Ontario. Nothing particularly special about it. Nothing that would call you from any distance. Pulling up beside this one, I honestly didn't expect a great deal. Something about it, however, just had charisma, charm.
*Special thanks to Kim for making me aware of this place.
Several large turkey vultures took off from the roof as I approached the old house. They didn't seem terribly concerned about my presence, but left as though doing so was simply the polite thing to do under the circumstances. When I entered the house, certain sounds indicated they did not represent the only wildlife making use of this discarded shelter.
I was rushing myself with this one, and as a result, I paid the price.
The GPS led us through a number of turns until finally we reached a "Road Closed" sign. Then there was the caveat... "Except Local Traffic". We're local!
We continued down the road until finally stopped by a fence kept us from going any further. We stopped at the fence and as luck would have it, only a short walk remained between the fence and our target.
This was a really random find. I, and a new explorer, had gone to have a look at another abandoned house in North Bay, only to discover that it had completely collapsed, possibly burnt, and clearly had nothing to offer us anymore.
I originally noticed this house last year while commuting. I wanted to find an alternate route to avoid repaving, so I took a different route than usual. This yielded two new houses for me to check out. One was the Caderette House. The other was here.
Another place that I've driven past so many times, yet failed to notice. I really should get my eyes checked.
This place just kept giving. Initially, I thought there was just the house with it caved in roof. After that, I spotted another building, and then another, and then more. Lots of exploring fun. I love places like that.
I'm not sure how many times I've driven past this place, but I'm reasonably sure that it's well into the hundreds. Despite that, I hadn't noticed it until last Wednesday while on the way home from a concert in Toronto. I made a mental note to come back here again soon to take a closer look.
Well, here we are. A Sunday afternoon with little else to do except wander and look for places such as these.
While on our way to Toronto, my eagle-eyed partner in exploration caught a glimpse of something in the trees. Making note of where it was, we decided we would come back to it for closer investigation on our return trip.
The next day, we found it again, and I pulled off the side of the highway to have a closer look. As it turns out, it was an old house, no longer being used as either a house, or its more recent purpose, a hunt camp. It had, in fact. been replaced by a newer, much more solid structure near by.
History:
At one point in its history, this house was occupied by two brothers, Richard and Lionel Sabourin. They were successful milk producers with over 40 head of cattle. They were known to be fairly well off, and had privately mortgaged several other people.
