My unhappy experience of COLEMAN, Alberta.  A Ghost Town

My ex husband Keld Neumann (Johansen) and I immigrated with our daughter Linda – at that time age 10- to Canada in 1966.

We left Copenhagen 25 November and arrived in Edmonton, Alberta  8 December, where our friends Dick and Arvella Jensen picked us up at the train stations.

Dick and Arvella were as sweet and hospital as apple pie, but unfortunately immigrating to Coleman was a shock for me.

We had traveled 10 days by the boat Batory from Copenhagen, Denmark to Quebec, Canada and then on the train for three days from Quebec to Edmonton.

Dick was the Coleman, Alberta City Manager at that time and lived in Coleman.

It was evening by the time we arrived in Coleman and being tired we went straight to bed.

Arvella and Dick Jensen with their two little girls and me with my daughter. 

December 1966 in Coleman, Alberta. 

The next morning we woke up to snow and mountains.  Looked so beautiful, so  

I decided to take a walk with dog ‘Ponti”  A Sct.Bernard dog we had brought from Denmark.

I went to the “down-town” of Coleman.

 

What in the world had we done?

Leaving our bustling Copenhagen to arrive in a place like that.

I was shocked.  It was a Ghost town.  I just started to cry.

I wanted to go home to Denmark and would have left again, if my husband had not said that he was not leaving.

This year – 2018 – I went through Coleman and noticed that some of the empty buildings are just as empty as they were fifty two years ago. 

It sure brought back old memories.

Besides from a few improvement, it does not look like Coleman has changed in 52 years.

COLEMAN IS STILL A GHOST TOWN TO ME

 and I would still not want to live there

Me in the Crowsnest pass, Alberta where Coleman is. 2018

I would still want to run away from there, even with the beautiful mountains surrounding it.

Vibeke Lindhardt

18 June 2018

Vibekesonja.blogspot.com