Neutral Hills Stills

The 'Neutral Hills' is the name given to a range of hills in east central Alberta (Canada) that were shared hunting grounds for the Blackfoot and Cree Indian tribes. Because of its importance to the tribes, the area was designated as 'neutral' for hunting only, not fighting. The area ranges from the village of Veteran as far east as Major, Saskatchewan, and from just south of the town of Provost to the community of Esther.

The Indians have long since moved on -- the successive waves of white homesteaders must have chased them away. All you'll find around here these days are farmers, ranchers, and oil patch workers. (If you see a farmer driving a brand new truck, that's because he moonlights in "the patch".)

Drive through the Neutrals and you'll find tiny towns that withered away after their grain elevator shut down and the rail lines were taken out, forsaken pioneer homesteads, oil pump jacks, stunted trees, windswept grass, cow pastures, derelict vehicles, and of course, cows. We've got plenty of the latter.

Every image posted in this collection was captured within or very near to the Neutral Hills region.

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Note: The content in this collection used to live at the standalone photo blog, Neutral Hills Stills (neutralhillsstills.ca). Unfortunately, the blog ran on PixelPost, which has mostly been abandoned by its developers. The blog content was relocated to Flickr as a result. New content is regularly added to this collection.

I still maintain the old URL -- www.neutralhillsstills.ca -- but it is set to redirect to this page on Flickr now. If you were expecting to find a photo blog and wound up here instead, that's why.