Crystal Village’s
transparent
“church”
BY THE WAY
LONG BEFORE FIBER-OPTIC cables and cell towers, there
were telegraph and telephone lines connected by tall
wooden poles. These poles were topped with glass
insulators to prevent the loss of electrical current. But
as technology advanced, the poles—and insulators—
were taken down. Pincher Creek’s last telephone poles
were uprooted in the early 1970s, right around the
time area resident Boss Zoeteman decided to build
his granddaughter a backyard playhouse. No ordinary
66
SUMMER 2016
AMA INSIDER
structure, it was a chapel made with 5,500 colourful
glass insulators that Zoeteman had collected. Inside
it had pews for a make-believe congregation and
a pulpit for an imaginary preacher. A glass-bulb
schoolhouse, coal shed and warehouse soon followed.
Zoeteman crafted 13 small-scale buildings before
his death in 1989. His “Crystal Village” can now
be explored at Heritage Acres, an outdoor farming
museum in the Pincher Creek area. —Tracy Hyatt
KURTIS KRISTIANSON-SPL
Glass Houses