boyceville

i don’t think twice about spending months in villages of 100 people a good hour from the main road. wandering about i want to stop and spend some time along the port au port peninsula where while the population isn’t quite as sparse, the main city is a good two hours away. heading up to boyceville - well five miles outside of boyceville fills me with dread.

i try to understand this irrationality but cannot. i think it has to do with smaller places on the rock are more self sufficient but boyceville is that typical small town in the states - not far from a larger city - menomonie - made famous by as it happens turning it into the u.s. version of reading - but deemed worthy of a city by having a wal-mart. in boyceville one has the choice of cable-less television from eau claire and st. paul / minneapolis - only 90 minutes away.

it would seem that this would trump - deer lake corner brook but no. i am drawn to minnesota’s north shore. i want to drive and stay in dawson city so while i like being at the end of a road, there are places isolated places that are on the way to someplace else. i can only place this dread of this particularly empty space as there being no compensation for it. places that i seem to be interested in are due to actually seeing people out and about. what is lacking in amenities is made up with human interaction boyceville seems a ghost town.

there were signs that there were people about - a chair outside an open door of a factory - the designated smoking area - machines outside the gas bar, real people outside a church having their wedding portraits taken - but i imagined them racing back inside as soon as possible. five miles outside of town it was bleaker - a minor film still like moment as at the intersection of two dirt roads as a pickup stops to chat with someone walking a dog. a lone cyclist passes.

at times i worry that being the imperialist photographer that i am, i seem to need a lot of space and am interested in how little area i would need before i would feel that there was nothing left to photograph. i once i worried about the island of newfoundland as it could be too small now i have lessened my land grab to say bell island. but here with infinite space i found myself feeling more limited, more trapped. i felt that this had to do with the dependence on a machine to get about but i had one.

i can only go back to lifestyle. i attribute my lack of interest of the boycevilles of the world due to it being an interior world - a life based around being in the house. when the world outside is mentioned there is a danger involved - the badger sets along the driveway and a neighbour being chased by one, the chance of encountering bear - one goes out when absolutely necessary. so even on an abnormally and exceedingly warm november day most didn’t leave the living room. i paced the long driveway.