Church – Buttertown, Ft Vermilion, Alberta 1

Church – Buttertown, Ft Vermilion, Alberta 2

I have just had a listen to Bob Dylan’s ‘Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie (Live)’ and am struck by a quality in the monologue that is almost psalm-like, the average woman and man’s take on the business of living, almost the concerns they’d express in prayer, concerns that would consider the gap between what Life ought to hold and Life that needs to be fought for, a Life requiring help. Likely that’s the point – Woody Guthrie articulated such concerns for the average man and woman in song that is psalm, song that’s poetic, song that infuses hope by way a compassionate ear. Woody Guthrie’s words are psalms for Lives in a country emerging from the depression and war and surfacing into the fifties.

The images above are two more edits of the clapper-board church at the St. Louis Roman Catholic mission in Fort Vermilion’s north settlement – Buttertown.

Listening to – Bob Dylan’s ‘Dignity’ and John Mayer’s ‘Queen of California.’

Quote to Consider – “Some photographers set up as scientists, others as moralists. The scientists make an inventory of the world; the moralists concentrate on hard cases.” – Susan Sontag – ‘On Photography’