One of my summer reads has been Thomas King’s ‘Indians on Vacation.’ It’s my second time through. I’m seeing more of the dynamic of a close-to-retirement husband and wife on vacation, away from the norms of their day-to-day Life, in the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague. Bird Mavrias and Mimi Bullshield are indigenous (Mimi – Blackfoot, Bird Cherokee, and Greek). They live in Toronto. In one sense, the vacation draws them away from the norms of their everyday lives, lives in which their indigeneity and that of indigenous persons within Canada are at issue. As well, it draws them out from their daily lives in Toronto.

While the proposed purpose of their trip is to search for evidence of Mimi’s Uncle Leroy and his European travels as part of an ‘Old West’ show and the medicine/memory bundle he would have carried, Mimi and Bird explore Prague – museums, walkabouts, the Charles bridge and more.  While each is present to each site they investigate, each point of interest, as touchstone, leverages memory, the residue of significant happenings in their Lives – narratives of things done, not done, incomplete, and yet to complete. Each memory becomes a current stepping stone for what has brought them to Prague, each spilling out in response to what they encounter, and each often associates to unfinished/incomplete works in their lives.

Mimi and Bird move through Prague as ‘near-to-be’ retirees. They observe, they chat, they chuckle … they pull each other along, they love each other. Mimi has a moment in one of the museums, where she recalls a by-the-way kind of fact, ‘you know, they did that [ … ] at residential schools.’ The statement comes across with sober, unflinching anger. It is one inconceivable act (a haunting, repulsive consideration in this read) among the many that surfaced in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings. ‘So, we’re in Prague …’ begins most chapters. In structure, it’s a re-orienting phrase that allows Bird to recap and move forward in his telling of what’s next.  Occasionally, perhaps often, the statement is a way for Bird to step into his day. It often comes across as resignation – a way of saying, yes this all happened. But, it comes across with resolve too – I still choose to move forward.

Prague’s Charles Bridge seems significant. It is a medieval, sandstone structure and along either side of the bridge are statues of saints, the Madonna, the crucifix, and Calvary – there are thirty-one statues they encounter strolling from one side to the other.  In one sense, the statues may act as the grandfathers do in terms of Tipi poles – anchoring points for wisdom to be lived out in action.  Perhaps the intention is to contrast the saints encountered in Prague with those encountered at residential schools.

In my grappling with what residential schools were and all I am coming to know about their history and Canada’s history, I note that ten years ago the dominant word used would have been colonization and reference would have been made to colonizers. Now, ten years on, we seem to be in a time acknowledging the guilt of wrongdoing by the government and those running residential schools. Now there are Calls to Action that follow from the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. One action taken as a step forward occurred this past summer. Pope Francis came to Canada and Maskwacis in Alberta and apologized to residential school survivors for how members of the Catholic Church co-operated in the cultural destruction of Indigenous Life.

My learning about residential schools came about as an educator beginning my teaching career at a school, on-reserve within a fly-in community. In the early nineteen nineties, my wife and I taught at a First Nation school in northern Alberta. As we began our first teaching year, there, an addition was being built onto the school. Students and staff weathered the inconveniences of learning and teaching in a school while a part of it was under construction. We completed our year well.

As we returned to school in the following year, the school’s renovation was complete. Classrooms would make do with existing furniture until new desks, chairs, and tables would arrive once the ice bridge allowed transport trucks across the river to the community. In that last week of August before the start of school in our renovated school, there was an occurrence. Staff were at the school into the evening with their work, readying the school and classrooms for learning, assembling the year’s plans for teaching. It might have been 8:00 p.m. and staff that had been at school began to leave for home, their teacherages.

One of our educational assistants, indigenous and fluent in his Cree language and culture, walked past one of the new classrooms, one that would be used for a kindergarten class, a class meant to acquaint students with the routines of school and to help them work in a bilingual Cree and English learning environment. No one was in this classroom as our educational assistant walked by. School corridor lights were starting to be turned off.  The classroom’s lights had been shut off. As our educational assistant walked past, the classroom door opened … on its own. This event was significant and troubled the educational assistant. He took the information to community elders. We, as a staff, heard about the event days later.

Elders were concerned and did not want to send children to school. One of the elders asserted that the incident had to do with the souls of students who have died.  A Jesuit priest who served the community was called upon and asked to perform an exorcism of the school using the burning of sweetgrass and holy water. We did begin the school year, but it took six weeks to gather most students into a regular pattern of daily attendance. All that happened in the fall of 1992, in a new school within a First Nation in its first years of self-government.

There is a learning point for me, here, though – something I had not grasped until 29 May 2021. From the time of the door opening in our new school and the community’s response to it, I grew to understand more and more about the residential school survivor experience.  Through time survivors and counselors who worked with survivors would tell me little bits of what had gone on with residential schools and about impacts. As a teacher, attention would be drawn to the matter of taking children away from their parents and being without parent examples through their time at residential school as a dynamic impacting the parenting choices of residential school survivors – a void of parenting knowledge. My understanding began to grow about something called ‘Residential school syndrome,’ something similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. Here, the First Nation we worked with, back then, is to be commended for one of the primary goals they asserted for their teachers – in all that teachers did and would undertake in their teaching, teachers were to work from a stance of ‘good understanding’ when working with students and their parents.

But, there was more. A newer revelation came my way.  I had not yet grasped this other potentiality for First Nation parents and families. On 29 May 2021, the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, British Columbia disclosed that the remains of approximately two-hundred children were found buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. In hearing this news, I understood something significantly more disturbing than what had been my understanding about survivors and their families. While Indigenous children were taken from their families to school, it sometimes was the case that children did not return home. In the case of the Kamloops residential school, these two-hundred children are now considered missing children because their deaths are undocumented.

Michelle Good’s novel, ‘Five Little Indians,’ opens out the experience(s) of residential school survivors. What is more, though, parts of the novel have the reader consider that it was sometimes the case that a child’s parents were never informed of their child’s death. Children did not always return home to their parents and family from residential school.

In northern Alberta, at the school we taught at all those years ago, the kindergarten door opening in front of our educational assistant at a newly built school now had a deeper significance. At that time, the elders had considered that the souls of children who had not returned home from residential school were responsible for the classroom door opening. In May 2021, with the Kamloops residential school disclosure of graves surrounding the school, I was now able to understand more of the reality behind the elders’ concerns in sending students, their children to school.

Listening to: Bob Dylan’s ‘Dignity,’ John Prine’s ‘Summer’s End,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘One Step Up,’ and Blue Rodeo’s ‘Hasn’t Hit Me Yet;’ also a good listen to Gord Downie’s ‘Secret Path for Chanie Wenjack.’ Listening as well to Northern Cree’s ‘Straight Song,’ ‘A Song for TJ,’ and ‘Wah-Yo, Always Pray It Will Take You a Long Way.’

Quotes to Consider – “The residential school experience is one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our collective history.” — Justice Murray Sinclair, the commission chairman, in his final remarks on the report.

We left the house, my daughter, my wife and me, to investigate the snowy, colder (-20C+) world surrounding our High Level, Alberta community. I gave my daughter and wife a camera each to use, and off we went. Having spent so much time inside at Christmas, it was good to be outside in the air and within the landscape, seeing and thinking through photos and working again with camera, lens and settings. It was good. Our feet and hands were cold to start, but image-making made us move and explore; interest in our landscape took hold in each of us. An hour’s plodding perambulations kept us warm, and we were several images richer and had enjoyed the camaraderie of family endeavour by the time we went home.  At home, we got to look at the photos and where edits could take us. Here are a couple of images.

Quotes to Consider / Inspire: (1) ‘The only photographer you should compare yourself to is the one you used to be (unknown).’ (2) ‘Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like (David Alan Harvey).’ (3) ‘I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed (Annie Leibovitz).’

Listening to: Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel,’ Blue Suede’s ‘Hooked on a Feeling,’ U2’s ‘Magnificence,’ Angus & Julia Stone’s ‘Big Jet Plane,’ Rob Thomas’ ‘Little Wonders,’ Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World,’ Norman Greenbaum and ‘Spirit in the Sky,’ Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm,’ José González’s ‘Stay Alive’ and Junip’s ‘Don’t Let It Pass.’

At home this Christmas with my daughter and wife – no miles travelled north to south and back; family safe and physically distanced, family by Zoom call – safe and blessed. Good. Through Saturday (our Boxing Day, 2020), each time my wife and I came into our kitchen we found ourselves marveling at the beautiful result just beyond our kitchen window. In colour ranging from sage to coffee to obsidian, clusters of leaves that still clung from tree branches were edged and covered in heavy hoarfrost. The night before, found High Level shrouded in a dense mist, the right conditions “… when moisture in the air skips the water droplet stage and appears directly as ice crystals on [different objects].”¹ A frost point had been reached creating hoarfrost. In the week that has followed, we got out with cameras, my wife, my daughter and I out into the forest and out into our backyard. These are images of our backyard leaves.

¹ (https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/what-is-hoarfrost/7092 )

Listening to:  Holly Cole’s ‘Neon Blue,’ Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ ‘It’ll All Work Out,’ eastmountainsouth’s ‘Hard Times,’ Ruckus’ ‘Same in Any Language,’ Faron Young’s ‘Hot Rod – Shotgun Boogie No. 2’ and Appalachian Road Show’s ‘Don’t Want to Die in the Storm.’ Also listening to ‘Dreamsicle’ from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Still listening to Motorhead’s tribute to David Bowie with ‘Heroes.’ ‘Apocalypse’ by Cigarettes after Sex still reminds of Roxy Music’s ‘More Than This,’ ‘Avalon’ and ‘The Main Thing.’

Liking the soliloquy entitled ‘Peace’ from the movie ‘Any Given Sunday;’ it’s about team (maybe something appropriate for how we close out 2020).

Quotes to Consider / Inspire: (1) ‘Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper … the photographer begins with the finished product (Edward Steichen).’ (2) ‘Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past (Berenice Abbott).’ (3) ‘If I like many photographers, and I do. I account for this by noting a quality they share – animation. They may or may not make a living by photography, but they are alive by it (Robert Adams).’

Entering Calgary from the south, you crest a plateau. You see it right where you decide between Deerfoot and Barlow Trails. You find yourself looking out and over Calgary’s sprawl, the possibility of a panorama shot – Calgary’s skyline looking northward and a nudge west to downtown towers. The image has potential. Each time, though, I am beginning an eleven or more-hour drive home, impatient to get the drive done, not anticipating a niggling desire to work this image, needing to wrestle intentions in favour of stopping my vehicle and making the photograph. Do dissonant moments like this happen to you as a photographer – the recognition of a possible photo on the periphery of awareness being met with that other intended thing that needs done?

This Calgary skyline panorama shot will need a tripod and head levelled. The head will accommodate a Canon 5D Mk III via an L-bracket for a telephoto lens, a Tamron 150-600mm lens zoomed in as far as needed. Aperture priority will allow a consistent exposure of f-8 or f-11. Manual focus using back screen magnification will allow me to maintain sharpness among common parts of each image when merging images.  I want most things in this photograph to be sharp and in focus. I will trial two methods for finding focus: first, focusing on an element a third of the way into the scene, and an alternative approach, if the foreground is more than a metre from the lens, focusing on the object in the distance that I intend to be clear and sharp – the towers. Limiting vibration within the camera will involve turning off the image stabilizer. Then, with the camera in portrait orientation, it’s about gathering a series of shots overlapping by a third on each. Depending on how far I have focused in on the scene (and how much the scene fills my viewfinder), the panorama will need three, five, seven or more shots. In terms of composition, I intend to keep Calgary’s towers to the left side of the image – that’s my starting thought. But in looking at the scene, other compositions may present themselves. Here, though, juxtaposition is what this scene calls for – the vertical of Calgary’s downtown towers and the horizontal sprawl of the city and perhaps the broader landscape.

The Rocky Mountains may feature in the background, a welcome element. Cloudwork will add to the image – wisps of Cirrus clouds at dawn. Working through the blue hour and into sunrise may yield a variety of colourful panoramas to work with. Other panoramas are possible along the Deerfoot, each providing a different foreground from which to consider Calgary’s skyline.

So, this panorama of the Calgary skyline needs planning, and it requires me to make time for the making of this shot. A trip to Calgary will need to consider dates, weather and times. Two days in or around Calgary might work – a day to scout and review starting shots and another for final photos. Rest will factor in – while luck favours the prepared, having slept well adds presence to the equation of what the photograph will become. Writing this post is a kind of preparation, allowing me to consider bringing this photograph’s intention to reality.

A YouTube video along with Google Maps helped me find this vantage point for the Calgary Skyline panorama image above. I found my way from the Deerfoot to this location. I parked my truck, loaded camera gear on my back, walked down the hill and set up the tripod and camera. I trialled four panoramas from this location and looked for other possible subjects of interest from this location afterwards. Then, it was about packing up, walking the hill, stowing gear and returning to my homeward drive. This image is one I hope to shoot again as a dusk shot, a night shot and a winter scene in the snow. That planning is ahead of me – something I look forward to.

Listening to – U2’s ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,’ ‘Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World,’ ‘Elevation (Influx Mix),’ ‘When I Look at the World,’ ‘Get On Your Boots (Fish Out of Water Mix),’ ‘New York,’ ‘Magnificent,’ ‘Beautiful Day’ and ‘Grace.’

Quotes to Consider / Inspire:  (1) “If you say there is nothing interesting to shoot, it is you that is not interested (Jon Luvelli).” (2) “I put together artwork like tiny pieces of a puzzle, with hopes of one day seeing the whole complete picture and therefore understanding myself more (Jon Luvelli).”

Again, a fifty-year-old lens, autumn sun in the late afternoon, white glow and crispness of shape.

“You think too much and I bet it kills the magic,’ he says simply. ‘Some things are just instinct and if you try and replace that with thinking they die. You can read and think as much as you want before and after, but in the moment, man, you have to, like, let go (Blue GhostGhost, Art Criticism).’”

Listening to: Pat Green’s cover of U2’s ‘Trip Through Your Wires’ featuring Joe Ely.

An early August morning, cycling the trails in High Level, a time rich with colour, mist, light and shadow.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – ‘Photographs are just light and time (John Green, Turtles All the Way Down).’

Listening to – ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ as sung by John McCutcheon from the ‘To Everyone in All the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger.’

I like a song put out by the New Customs.  It’s about photography, memory, and being in the moment that pulls you to a photograph and what that moment pulls from you.  The song is called ‘Chasing Light.’ I like it.

It has been a sunny September weekend. I moved beyond habit and did not go into school today (Saturday). I drove through the region, getting in and out of my truck regularly and framing images in bright Autumn light in the fresh, cooler, windy weather of Autumn. Winter could be here in days, perhaps weeks – something that speaking of seems to hasten. My afternoon was spent driving the road up Watt Mountain. There, blustery cloud work, autumn leaves and gravel roads coalesced into images. Trees surrounding ponds and their reflection on water became images. Bright colours of sunlit flowers contrasted against the shadows of shrubs and trees – they became images, too. Later, Fort Vermilion’s north settlement, ‘Buttertown,’ would reveal bounty in crops ready for harvest and that the grain harvest would begin soon. The day was good for the physicality of being on the land with my rangefinder and two prime lenses.  For me, the freedom to be outside was part of appreciating the immensity of the world outside, beyond my door, beyond my home, beyond my office and beyond all that is school. It’s been about being beyond COVID’s need for physical distancing. And this day has been about gathering and taking home images to edit, consider and recall.  Seeing the world through my camera and lens has made this a good, good day.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – ‘Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location (Joe McNally, The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World’s Top Shooters).’

Listening to – ‘Chasing Light’ from The New Customs, a song all about photography and photographer.