Project 01 of 17
MacKay's Ice Cream
Ice Cream Shops · Cochrane, Alberta
Eleven takes from the air. Nine frames from inside.
MacKay's has been making ice cream in Cochrane since 1948, and the roundel on its shopfront still carries the general store it grew out of: J. A. MacKay, General Merchant.
Atom2Adam Studio filmed the shop from the air — eleven takes, nothing staged — climbing from the height the sign hangs until the awning, the rail line and the foothills are all in one frame. Inside, a photographer found the rest: the chalked boards, the freezer, the old machine with the roundel on its panel, a hand scooping into a waffle cone. The name, the town, and what the name is for.
- Subject
- MacKay's Ice Cream, 220 1st Street West, Cochrane, Alberta — making ice cream in the town since 1948.
- Intent
- Show the shop the way Cochrane knows it: by its sign, and by where that sign sits.
- Seen
- A roundel on white clapboard, angled stalls filling through the afternoon, the rail line and foothills past the end of the street — and inside, chalked boards, a freezer full of tubs, an old machine, a scoop.
- Made
- Eleven aerial takes and the eight frames cut from them, and nine photographs from inside the shop. Nothing in the air was staged.
I
The name
Cochrane Ice Cream. MacKay's. Since 1948. J. A. MacKay, General Merchant.
The sign says Cochrane. So does everything behind it.
The roundel stands out from the wall on its bracket rather than flat against it, so it reads from either end of 1st Street West — and from the air, which is where the film begins.
Held under the eave, at the height the sign hangs.
Down past the awning to the roundel.
Eave brackets and string lights, 1st Street West below.
II
The shop
The boards over the counter: flavours, sundaes, smoothies, the day's special.
Nothing over the counter is printed. The flavours, the smoothies and the day's special are chalked by hand on black boards in white frames, and the cone board holds the cones themselves — dish, waffle, chocolate waffle, gluten-free, sugar — each with its price beneath.
The cone board, with the cones themselves pinned to it.
J. A. MacKay, General Merchant — the older sign, kept inside.
The freezer: tubs behind glass, shelf after shelf.
The old machine, the roundel on its panel.
The wall of frames, bunting above it.
The cone on the wall, the yellow sign beneath it.
Chalk on the board; a scoop into a waffle cone.
III
The block
The white two-storey block, the roundel at the far end.
The store came first. James and Christina MacKay took over Cochrane's general store in 1946 and began making ice cream in the back of it two years later. The sign still carries the older name under the cone: J. A. MacKay, General Merchant.
A pan along the block until the roundel arrives.
The roundel above the corrugated awning.
The drop along the roofline.
IV
The street
1st Street West, straight down.
From directly overhead the street reads as a plan drawing: angled stalls, two crosswalks, and the brick circles set into the sidewalk. The shop's roof is the pale rectangle in the middle of it.
The street turning under the camera.
The roof and the awning from above.
The shop held in frame while the afternoon moves around it.
The awning, the sign and the stalls from directly above.
V
The town
Over the roof, the street curving away toward the hills.
Downtown Cochrane from above the shop.
Lift higher and the rail line appears, then the lots behind it, then the foothills. The shop sits at the point where the town is still one main street.
From the roof, out across downtown.
One move, from every height: the name, then the town.
Past the hotel block and the rail yard, out to the horizon.
Detail → Whole
MacKay's Ice Cream ends. 17 projects in the collection.
