Hamilton Junction : A Trip to the Dust Homestead

One of the things I love most about photographing abandoned properties is the mystery each house holds. The first question always concerns who owned the house and whether or not that person or family is still in the area. When a family moves houses, or an older couple moves to the city, it's quite easy to see this from the lack of possessions the family left behind.

I've been in quite a few abandoned houses, however, containing belongings that show a family hastily left, or was forced to leave because of age, financial reasons, and from time to time, potential foul play.

I find it especially heart-wrenching when I find a house that was abandoned - most likely when an older couple had to move because of their advanced age and need for daily assistance - is still full of that couple's most precious belongings. Photographs, scrapbooks, fine clothes and jewelry, love notes, and university diplomas, laid to rest in the deteriorating house.

Did these couples or families lack others to care for their belongings, or to hold dear their memories? Was the job of cleaning out the house just too overwhelming for loved ones to face?

I found this house, once belonging to a family named Dust, while out looking for a cemetery I read was nearby. The homestead lay at the very edge of town, across from a badly flooded abandoned hog operation. The entire homestead consisted of a large house, a gorgeous barn, and many wooden storage sheds. The windows of the house were missing and the back door was wide open. The house had not been ransacked but appears to have been left out of necessity and the job of cleaning out the house may have overwhelmed relatives nearby. In any case, the house was a truly beautiful and haunting piece of Saskatchewan history and contained many stories of the family who once called the place home.

Below are scans of negatives I found on the property, as well as my own photos of the homestead today. The house appears to have been occupied as late at 2008 and as early as 1930.

The homestead then...