WE INVITED OUR PATREON PATRONSto participate in a creative conversation through images.
photoED Magazine commissioned an original poem by Tennille Campbell a Dene/Métis author and photographer from English River First Nation, Saskatchewan.
Our contributors responded to Tennille's words with an image of their own. The following is a presentation of where our contributors took this story.
HENRY VANDERSPEK, A rainbow in the spray created by our tour boat in Western Brook Pond, Newfoundland.
THIS SUMMER,WE TRAVELLED
THIS SUMMER, we travelled through prairie fields and under prairie skies
th rough the badlands and through the foothills
through mountains peaks and valleys
th rough an old growth forest and by the charred remains of ancient woods in transition...
JOHN HEALEY, “Roots,” 2023. Attachment, support, nourishment.
SHELLY PRIEST, This poem rests deep in my heart. I can visualize those that lived here before me. Though lives have changed, the land still beckons us to explore and discover for ourselves.
MICHELINE GODBOUT, “Peeking Through Mist,” taken at the Hendrie Valley Sanctuary, on Anishinaabe land.
DAVID BRANDY, "When I stood in this location at Salt Spring Island I felt the majesty of the land rising out of the surrounding ocean. But I also felt the irony of the colonial trope of a numbered picnic table and manicured lawn in this exquisite setting."
KEN UDLE, "The life source that is Turtle Island. Mountains, valleys, and pathways, a witness to history and an endurance towards our future."
TRACEY HALLADAY, "This house in Southern Alberta brought to my mind questions about the people who settled here and what they may have experienced here."
PATRICIA PARSONS, "The plaque at this gravesite in Dettah, NWT, simply reads a name, dates, and “Proud Father.” I was touched that a chair had been placed at this site to sit beside a loved one."
CB CAMPBELL, "Within minutes the sky went from clear to smoke-cloud-filled. Fire is a harsh reminder that our mistreatment of the Earth has dire consequences for all of us."
RAMO/HCKYGRLPHOTO, “and we arrived to the stairs of the cathedral and the pilgrimage suddenly made a higher sense”
AS WE DROVE
I named out loud the lands
who we were guests on
who had lived here continued
to live here
the cree and the dene
the metis, dakota and the blackfoot
telling stories of friends who
lived nearby
cousins who had travelled
through here before...
LORI RYERSON, “Energy Savings.” Out of the acres and acres of available land in the Owens Valley in California, why was it necessary to run a power line THROUGH this Native American burial ground?
COLLIN J. ÖRTHNER, "I think of the many eyes that have witnessed the same scene over thousands of years past. How were their thoughts and ideas of these magnificent peaks different than mine?"
DAVID J. KENNY "…and how we continue on. Schoolchildren respond to what they learn about shelter and those who came before them."
GERALD WOLFE, “Howe Sound Blues.”
MANDY KLEIN, "A regional Ontario site that has so far been left in its prairie-like state."
CASEY HAUGHLAND, "In Newfoundland, the ocean bursts against the rocky shores. Uninhabited and untouched by human hands."
...DAY TURNED TO NIGHT
the names of our lands and our kin continued on
the stoney and the tsuutina
the shuswap and the tkemlups
the squamish to the hesquiath
se as of prairies fields turned to chilly mountains tops
fading into low valleys of fruit and fishing
fa lling into pacific beachside and white tipped waters...
MARK WALTON, “Migration,” from the Complicity series. This image was taken along Hwy 16 in Manitoba.
MELISSA KRISTENSEN SMITH, "We are nothing without the land. We live on it, we live off of it. Our time can be short upon it. Why do we not make more effort to preserve it for others?"
FRANK MYERS, "A cutover forest in Northwestern Ontario speaks of what settler culture and its rampant consumerism has cost the land."
LORETTA MEYER, “As above. So below.”
...THIS LAND WAS REMEMBERED
spoken out into the wind
an acknowledgement of who had been here
and how we continue on
CHRIS ALIC, "This poem made me think of the land before humans eroded it and built over it."
