Learning Patience in a Cadillac
This must be a Route 66 hotel, right?
You could fool most people into thinking this place is a Route 66 attraction. A hotel borne of car culture; a lonely stop among the cacti on the most famous two-lane highway through the American southwest. It looks like it, doesn’t it?
Actually, it’s about as far from Route 66 as you can imagine. This is the Cadillac Hotel, also known as the Range Line Tavern, in Cadillac, Saskatchewan. I’m not sure of the present status, but at one time, the building was for sale with an asking price of $175,000 (Canadian), and a lot of details were included in the listing: The main floor is a complete bar with a full commercial kitchen, and there are twelve hotel rooms on the upper floor.
From a pure appearance standpoint, I was fascinated with this place when I discovered it on Google Street View. I was desperate to get a shot of the front of the establishment because it spoke to me as a place out-of-place — a boarding house that belonged in the high desert, but instead materialized on the Canadian prairie.
My journey to Cadillac included a ten-hour drive from Fargo to Moosejaw, a trip that included stops to photograph multiple scenes of abandonment along the way. I checked into my hotel (Comfort Inn/Moosejaw) and got a good night’s sleep, because I had hours more driving to do the following day.
Unfortunately, the next morning as I arrived in Cadillac, a gentleman in a white truck parked right in front of the door of the Cadillac Hotel, which prevented me from getting the shot I wanted. So, instead, I photographed a few other places around Cadillac, then went down the road and photographed Admiral, Saskatchewan (coming soon), and an abandoned 6-arch bridge. When I traveled back through Cadillac a little later in the day, the man in the white truck was just driving away, and I was able to get the shot I had been hoping for. Patience is a virtue.
Cadillac’s main deserted place is the former Cadillac School. The memorial plaque on the front is dated 1930–1966, and there was a class reunion in 1995.
I’m just guessing, but it looks like the school that served Cadillac before the big brick one was the little white one out back.
Cadillac is in southern Saskatchewan, about 240 kilometers southwest of Regina, or about 215 kilometers southeast of Medicine Hat, Alberta. It is along Highway 13, also known as the Red Coat Trail — the approximate route taken by the North-West Mounted Police in 1874 during their campaign to bring law and order to the Canadian west.
If you’re driving out in these parts and you’re expecting smooth sailing, I would urge you to slow down lest you damage your vehicle. The highways in the area can have some treacherous potholes, a lesson I learned in frightening fashion when I hit one at highway speed.
Cadillac is also along another historic route known as the “Ghost Town Trail.” The presence of a number of ghost towns and abandoned places along the route is what drew my interest, initially. Visitors should not misunderstand, though. Even with the presence of a number of impressive deserted places, Cadillac, Saskatchewan has a population reportedly around 100 and is not a ghost town.
My drive back home was uneventful with one observation. In my personal experience, American border agents can be a little bit surly if you attempt to re-enter through a seldom-used point of entry near the vanishing places I tend to visit. Especially if you’re a tattooed white male traveling alone. They don’t get a lot of action out there, and they practically salivate when you drive in. I almost thought they were gonna make me bend over. Yikes.
Have you been to a cool, abandoned place? Let me know in the comments.
Troy Larson is a writer, digital content creator, photographer and adventurer. Wanna order a fine art print of one of Troy’s photos? Reach out on Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter.
