Over the past four years I have been traveling aboard traditional Canadian-built Lakers during the late fall/winter and early spring shipping season to capture the everyday reality of inclement weather in a remote industrial workplace where workers lives are filled variously with harsh beauty, discomfort, boredom, camaraderie and the ever changing environment. These images explore the sites of old industries along the Great Lakes, which struggle to maintain their presence in the landscape and the ships that connect them.
Trading Places explores the travel of three major bulk commodities that touch each of our lives on a daily basis;
Wheat - the flour in every load of bread that we eat
Iron Ore - the steel for cars that we drive
Gypsum - the drywall defining our rooms
As these beautiful ships well loved by the men and women who sail them and the "boat nerds" that follow them, disappear from the landscape to be replaced by China built vessels, so shall a large part of our contemporary shipping history. This project reacquaints viewers with their nation's past, and present, while exploring issues of place, sustainability, gentrification, transportation and the commodities that daily touch their lives.
The St. Lawrence Seaway is Canada's first highway. The water, integral to the growth and development of our nation. Natural resources have driven Canadian settlement and the movement of staples to market has become part of the Canadian psyche. And yet, for all our acknowledgment of the past and the commodities that built our country, the majority of Canadians - even those who live along the major waterways - no longer attach any present-day relevance to the merchant marine. This project celebrates our contemporary history, and the merchant mariners who bring us our daily bread. Who love, and have a great measure of respect for the environment in which they work.
