Part I: Canola
Our move took place in July of 2020, during the first lull of the pandemic. Along the way we passed the dense forests of New Brunswick, the bustling highways of Quebec and Southern Ontario, and the rolling shores of lake Superior.
Four days in - we reached Canola.
Accompanying the endless fields of the cash crop - the infrastructure required to support it.
Trains, electricity, barns, mills - everything required to grow, harvest and distribute a prairie staple.
Even little houses…
Beyond the land - I found my eyes drifting to a familiar place. The sky.
This time though, colour - vast oceans of blue, dotted with faint seeds of white skies.
Part II: Smoke
Summer 2021 was a fire filled one. Vast swaths of the vest burned - as did large areas in Northern Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada.
All of those fires resulted in a heavy smoke haze settling over the province. It was headache provoking, and can make one feel as though they’re in a daze.
The smell is potent - like a fresh campfire, outside and in.
Sometimes, ash will fall like rain - dotting the windshield with droplets of what were once healthy trees absorbing the very CO2 now outputted by this destructive force.
What looks like fog, is instead thick, choking smoke.
Many post-apocalyptic movies portray scenes of toxic, polluted air - experiencing this in person makes one fear that those fictional predications may prove factual.
Our planet, our people - they’re always in motion. The true question though, is where are we headed?
Will we be able to keep our air clean? or do we look forward to more of this?
Will our farms ever truly be sustainable?
Will our transportation systems evolve into systems that simultaneously meet the needs of our planet, and our people?
As much as it’s a struggle to believe at times - there is still hope. We still have time, but we must act.
We must act before landscapes like these turn into infertile, desert wastelands.
We must actively pursue a better future for our society - it’s an active goal we must put effort and focus behind. Our current trajectory is not sustainable.
We can have our blue sky, but now we must work hard to keep it.
Part III: Frost
– This next part is just the beginning of a longer story, but I felt it apt to share now while the season is right.
The smoke has cleared. It’s cold, and the world feels cold. Our society has lost much since covid took over - not only countless souls, but our patience, and at least a portion of our humanity.
Two years is a long time.. dreadfully long. Longer still is living within a system that refuses to solve a problem, and only seeks to prolong it. An endless winter, so to speak.
We’re all waiting for Spring, but what does Spring have waiting for us?
– This is an evolving work as I document my time in Alberta. I will have more, in due time. Stay tuned, and in the meantime check out my new “Inside the Mind” section, where I’ll be posting unfinished and raw works, thoughts, images, and more..
– Thank you for visiting - I hope that this series was valuable to you.
