-i.d, buddy demands leaving his house and closing in on me.
-what?
-i.d. you were photographing my house buddy is late 20's with a giant barking dog in the concreted back yard.
don't have one and i can photograph your house but actually it was the speed bump.
hand goes up out comes the iphone as he photographs the police.
says that his brother is on the force, gives a pretty good description of me which wouldn't be hard as i am standing in front of him. while he is talking i photograph some kiddy drawings on the pavement of a neighbouring house. when he gets off the phone - i ask if he wants to see the photo i am using a dslr for the outings have to learn lightroom by the autumn when school starts.
-don't want to talk to you.
i carry on, down the block, out on 55th street - i was by midway airport playing bus tag. hopping on one until i see something i find interesting then hopping off making the snap then finding another bus. stop at a park then as i am photographing a slew of ketchup packets on the pavement outside a kfc a cop pulls up.
you know that guy was by far the unfriendliest person i have ever met.
yeah when he said what you were doing i thought scoping his house with a professional camera do you mean a realtor? these people are so frightened of the world that everything is a threat. he kept saying that his brother was on the force etc. i had to check it out and when i did saw this banged up car and thought oh wow something did happen. but speaking to him well what can i say.
we chat for a bit his wife is a photographer so he is the sherpa when they head out on holiday. after a bit he leaves i return to photographing the ketchup packets.
we both wish each other a nice day

game on...

no sooner than i pressed the send key than this arrived in the post box. the ultimate minimalist address that wasn't ding dong ditched as i saw the letter carrier - who wasn't the regular - place it in the box.

it started with a slightly incorrect address, or a comment added to the name, but it should been expected when dealing with an fluxus fiend of a former professor - well not really a former professor as i was in his class for all of two sessions when i went up to him, promised that i would never draw again and he let me out.

not really a former professor for the entire time i was at college we would speak through his wife even if we were standing beside each other. ding dong ditches originated with him only i would make sure that there was someone at home - frightened a house sitter once.

after moving to the safety of a high rise condo, i had to resort to more traditional methods.

but anyway at some time we started modifying the names and addresses.

for example - say his name was carl becker, misspellings would occur karl becker. carl pecker, horrid pecker, cool pickles, come on heckler, knarly necking. concurrent with this would be a free associating of the address say, off shore drive, oh sure drive, old whore's dive, cold sore hive.

what would remain constant were the address number the flat number and the zip code.

buddy here was astonished that they got through so much so that he would put return adddresses on his - and consequently watched them get bounced back. i reckoned that mine would get through as all the important information was there and letter carriers have specific routes so they know the houses. this comes from the care my post cards were handled when i live on a rural route - separated by the carrier, hand cancelled at the post office and critiqued the next time i went in. i also thought that without a return address - don't like them they kill the surprise of a posting - the carrier on his end would work a bit harder to make sure the missive got through. but his comments began a paranoia - i started using the zip plus four. thinking again there is a bit more information so that there can be less doubt.

then it happened it seems that a book and a post card didn't get make it. i can only indirectly surmise as he didn't respond to the post card and didn't critique the book, but the name and the address weren't all that outrageous, pretty mild in fact.

it has given me pause, i am thinking that the postings didn't make it through because it wasn't the regular letter carrier on his end. writing the next card i resolve to put on a proper address. somehow though the label still had misspellings in the name and address.

it was getting to be too easy and thus i became sloppy.

out to the oak park austin district border to do a ding dong ditch between meetings. i was wary as buddy was on sabbatical and could possibly be at home. normal urban residential street no one was out made some snaps of lawn ornaments and the most useless gate that i have ever encountered.

closing in on the house i checked to see if i saw any movement in the windows. all the blinds were drawn. before turning up the walkway i looked to see if there was a light on in the hallway, didn't much care for the full glass door but since it was dark behind it i reckoned that i was safe. besides people are rarely in the hallways.

tried not to make too much noise climbing the wooden steps to the porch, i fear the vibration more than the noise. placed the two packages - a tube and a book - on the bench so that it would be hidden from the house, then thinking that no one was home and being austin district - i made an arrangement on the opposite side of the bench that was invisible from the street. walking more rapidly now i headed down the steps and toward the green line cta stop. passing the driveway i saw a parked machine - a saab of course.

then i got greedy, more daring, four houses away i decided to head back and make a snap with the digital camera of me in front of the house the way that minnesota flats would have done it.

made one and wasn't pleased so made another it was fine. back near a computer i would send a jpeg to his email account.

back to where i had been when i had decided to take the snap i heard my name being called out.

'i'm not him.' but a bought of proper manners came over me and i went back to make small talk before racing toward the train while replaying what it had gone wrong.

i wanted to use a digital camera for my mother's 90th birthday. while i thought of the irony of using a technology that isn't really equated with ceremony and tradition, i reckoned that people seem to be more into getting cd's of snaps or simply having them uploaded that real prints seem to be a hassle - although when i am around people are ready for a hassle. digital seemed a good choice as the age of my cameras means that they develop "quirks" when they are not welcome.

after the choice that i had was a canon eos1 full frame with a zoom lens that weighed close that that of the deardorff, i decided to risk a leiquinha and ziquinho - the most reliable of my cameras.

felt pretty comfortable with the decision as i was sure that other family members would bring a real dslr that i could borrow, what being the official photographer whenever there is an event.

i am truly being left behind in this world of new technology. only two people brought cameras and they were point and shoot digital. everyone else simply used their phones. while i hear that the quality can be pretty good now, it seems strange that a significant event would be consigned to the disposable camera of the digital world. listening and watching it seems that the snaps aren't even shared via facebook but instead kept on the phone. i am guessing this as phones were being passed back and forth.

humouring me, people said how much they like film how they couldn't wait to see the black and white snaps and then went on pointing their cameras which in a group of fifty-somethings and up looked as if everyone forgot their spectacles as they held their phones at arm's length.

of course my fears came true, the snaps made with ziquinho and a flash are so poorly exposed that they may even be beyond saving by photoshop. some were saved with the flash-less leiquinha. no matter my mother said someone sent her a colour camera phone snap.

heard on the morning programme to-day that the family barber shop in duckworth street closed its doors. it was there in 1999 that i started photographing people that i had met. ted and george humoured me by allowing me to make their snap after ted cut my hair. the snap made it into the newfoundland quarterly.

i wish them all the best in the future.

the switch to 35mm isn't logical as i have stated, i am not the decisive moment type, i wander slowly, am hardly discrete as i tend to stare so and while i hate to be a part of a trend, i don't think i would change format to stay aloof - i'd just get a cooler camera. as cameras go to-day joãozão is pretty discrete when placed near a dslr, it looks like a black box. it is also perfect in my view as it is so non threatening.

i feel that all of this angst is me getting ready for the next upheaval in the world of film. it came to my notice in the autumn when i had to come down on for an evening class. coming down early to explore, i would head to the edges of chicago and instead of walking away - my natural inclination - i would walk back toward the loop.

i was having a hard time finding film for ubaldo. fuji had stopped making neopan 400, which meant the prices for 120 film almost doubled - $2.50 then $4,20 now. the other mistake was heading to central camera which was empty of any film that wasn't 35mm. i found that i would have to not only search out film but also reckon how much i would need for the outing and buy only that. it got so bad trying to find film on short notice when buying it via mail order, that i bought out the the stock - 10 rolls - of the camera shop in kenosha - it was still cheaper than central.

i am sure this experience "scarred" me. it didn't help matters when i ordered film from cambridge camera in new york i found that the prices were for bait and switch. the film didn't arrive. a phone call did telling me how much i could buy film for - of course no place close to the advert i had seen - no problem i make deal for you. yes problem it is no deal.

the second outing i was on i made the last snap on the last frame of the last roll at the bus stop for the ride back even in i was in high conservation mode for the last stretch, no bracketing was allowed.

while i thought that with digital 35mm would be the first to go, i can still get film at the price that i can afford - $2,00/roll. i am sure that this has me dedicating myself meticulously using 35mm once again.

it has become a habit now. for about a year i have used the somewhat artificial period of the semester to make work in a specific way. normally it has to do with hardware. the time is long enough to commit but not so long that i forget the purpose of the exercise. for the past three semesters i have been bifurcating my snaps by making sure that i only used 35mm when i was heading to school. initially the reason for this was my feeling uncomfortable with the format, along with seeing all the snaps missed by trying to dig joãoznao out of the bag. it became habit to put a leiquinha around my wrist when i left the train or when i headed out during lunch.

another reason that came up while i was well into the exercise was how 35mm simply wasn't done anymore. on one level it had been made obsolete by digital but at school it seemed trendy to use medium format as if it were 35mm - and no wonder when the standard size now is 100x80cm one needs all the help one can get.

even though three books have come of the work, i still saw it as a side project when i was really on a wander or out of a busy urban area - it would be back to medium format. so it was a given when last week when heading to racine - a ghost town of a city if there ever was one - i packed up joãozão for a wander downtown after breakfast in a new restaurant.

i regretted not bringing a leiquinha. worse i wondered why i brought such a large camera. i know why nothing was moving i didn't have to be discrete and i like detail. it seemed however the walks across the loop had me liking the idea of note-taking again and anything larger than 35mm was overkill. as for detail i don't make big prints.

there was an inkling of this in baltimore when even though at first i headed out with both cameras, the cost of 120 film in charm city was so high that i decided not to use it. there was no problem when walking about with chi one didn't have to wait for me to set up, the conversation could flow, and there wasn't the constant stoppage for changing film. but i was surprised when a leiquinha was used for the stoney run wander something unthinkable six months before this and i was still nervous after having done as i showed the snaps to people worrying about the quality. the prints were 15x10 cm.

now i still use medium format when i am out in the county but now have even given up carrying it as a security blanket when i am in town. i still have five of the 30 rolls that i bought at the end of last year while i am on my third brick of 35.

it seems that it is not the multitasking that is the problem but the switching of technologies that causes problems. i cannot reconcile the two types of passivity between the digital and analogue but at present i am tending toward the analogue. productivity is up and i think that it is due to having to block a period of time to work.

writing on paper but principally in the darkroom, i cannot simply head down between doing something else. film takes 30 minutes of concentration, i cannot stop to do something else. in the dark since i have to mix all those chemicals i block out larger periods of time and while this is possible and preferable when working on a screen it is much easier to be diverted.

diverted without even getting up. while the image scans, i can constantly check emails. even while planning to write an email i can be diverted by the other messages in the in-box, in my case no digital action takes long enough so that the diversions have to be short. articles, that i'll read later if they are over 100 words, surveying the tabs to for something to look at.

i have grown more attached to my messy physical desktop than my virtual one, i can clean the former but the tools are constantly in the way in the other. this is more prevalent in photoshop where there is so much around the image that it is hard to concentrate on the snap. the exact opposite from the darkroom.

superficially i thought that digital is the passive medium but no, one has to choose those passive qualities. there is the same waiting time in the darkroom as there is on a desktop but in the dark, one has to make do with the lack of diversions. thinking happens, staring at the snap for an extended period of time continues the heavy editing. for lack of other options.

with the digital as i have stated, one never has to be left to one's on accord, there is always that option to change windows whenever anything takes time. for me it tends toward the superficial. i tend to be diverted too much with these options. i see objects less often, i tend to think that i am efficient while working digitally when in truth i am not.

geographically, analogue is an outport, digital is new york. i prefer the outport.

for the last six months or so i have liked the slower process. even with the problems that i have had with the bellows leaks with both the 10x8 and joãozão and along with the focus problems i had with joãozão while doing the brooklyn wander, i prefer consigning the snap to memory - even if it is one fraught with worry - to be seen at a later date - even if i cannot get easily return to rectify an error. it is somewhat comforting that they can be fixed with duct tape. having to do one thing at a time, this has expanded to using more retrograde processes mainly the post and the books of wander are tending toward gelatine silver prints. in fact i have found that i can produce a portfolio in less time than a bound book where it seems that it the digital path is faster and less complicated it isn't. the time between the printing and the compillating of the edition.

i prefer this to the extent that i have problems writing post cards as my handwriting is so bad that i have to resort to the laptop to have anything legible. i find that i put off turning it on even though the time will be brief and once it is on relatively painless which, in coming full circle, is hindering my communicating with others who are keeping the digital in its place.

a stoney run walk to the city limits
six schools
seven friends

i am not good at multitasking

south west crouse

between the showers and with a lessening of the wind. i decided to take the deardorff across the road to south west crouse. i would park near the grave site and the trail head walk around the cove to the other end of the community and make snaps on the way back.

the area seemed to have potential for not only the formal with the rooms and stores on the cove side of the road, mixed with hints of habitation - gloves, cords, weber grill.

made it to the cul-de-sac and had a couple of snaps made, wood pile that mirrored the house behind it, the weber grill, and was heading down a few steps to make a snap of those same steps mixed in with the possessions left on them.

pick up the camera on the tripod to let the legs fall to so that i can lock them level. with the second leg i notice that it leg has fallen off completely - well not completely it was being held on by the centre brace. it seems that manfrotto uses some sort of white metal for its locks.

what followed resembled a 21st century remake of a chaplin or keaton film as i struggled to make sure that the camera would make it to the ground gently.

managed to get the outfit back to the road where i set it up by the house of buddy who was watching as he was heading back from his store and picking up some firewood.

asked him if i could leave the camera in front of his house while i went back to the machine to safely retrieve it.

of course camera-less i saw all sorts of photographic possibilities.

picked up the camera brought out the hobo to finish the outing after chatting with buddy - but not being able to make his snap - didn’t want to seem a stalker. this made an image that i wanted to make even harder as he had hung up his gloves on his line that broke up the rigid formal qualities quite nicely. kept walking back and forth in front of the house hoping that he would go inside so that i could make it. a tripod brings out all sorts of the curious. i am always waving to people in windows as i pass.

i even went back later that day with ubirajara to make the snap and as the shutter went off buddy came out the door.

finishing my allotment of sheet film for the day, and more or less trying to figure out what i was going to do for the rest of the residency. tried gluing the leg back on with the resin that i had bought to affix my front number plate when it came loose when foley pulled me out of a ditch by the post office - mirroring a similar mishap in 2005 - to no avail.

in the end when my brain started to function again i realised that i could use the tripod but in a height challenged mode. i could continue on my way, unknowingly using the pinholed bellows freely.

recaps

- that summer was a great summer. paul said as i ran into him driving through trout river. it was when i was up at parks canada with minnesota flats. photographing and hanging out at the seabreeze.

it must have been true as i was using that summer as a basis for this one, hoping to use what worked so successfully then once again in a place that was even more remote. it would be the same modus operandi where i would restrict myself only to the french shore.

it was the cusp of the season. the “warmth” had returned but everything was still on winter hours - closed. sunset café, granite coffee, trout river interpretative centre, even the post office. i had forgot this. i wanted to deliver some new snaps - taken during the navegatio but forgot last year. luckily trout river is small enough to go to the director’s house.

as i had stated there was a lot of equipment brought along but that was due to the anticipated length of my stay in the atlantic time zone and to the east. they all had their strict roles - joãozão could be used on the mainland and while wandering new york city, ziquinho would be brought out once in cape breton and on the way to conche. it would also be used when the residency ended. on the residency it would be only the deardorff.

after the gravel road to conche everything looked promising - heading down to the cove that first evening standing by casey’s store and seeing two orcas, a lot of dry wood under the bench on the porch, an assuming house with a large kitchen, but so clean i felt intimidated about developing and printing.

it turned out to be the anti parks canada - not due to anything the french shore interpretative centre or the people of the great northern did but due to everything else. the cusp of season where further down the great northern had me questioning why nothing was open as spring had won out. here winter was still trying to hang on - gale force winds with snow showers. when the snow did stop it was replaced with rain, and rain, and rain.

still quite proud of myself, i soldiered on. the rain - and snow - and gale force winds - came in spurts, i would head out and wait. i felt that good fortune was with me when even though the deardorff was blown over but the camera came out of it unscathed.

i think slowly so i was particularly proud when i rearranged the bathroom to develop film at night and the kitchen to dry the negs. i had a work routine down. there was even a lounge to replace the seabreeze. this was going to be great.

except that a good number of negs were ruined by a light leak.

puzzled over it and decided it was a double dark slide so returned the next day to re-photograph the images that i wanted a a few more.

again the light leak. the same spot but not on every neg.

it was intermittent. since i was developing half the negs every evening i didn’t worry as i could return if i really wanted the snap. it was there on quite a few but only because i knew what i was looking for. i reckoned that the images would reflect the place. functional but not pretty.

as i back up i would head out with either ubirajara or ziquinho.

a book of platinotypes - why not - came of it and am quite pleased.

returning to the states in the dark i placed a light within the deardorff turned off the lights in the room and had my own planetarium from all the holes in the bellows.

no final de contas ...

um jogo bonito vence uma laranja mecânica

i am becoming more and more certain that 10x8 no matter how seductive the negatives are, isn’t the format for me. while i like the rigour and the ritual and when wandering about here visibility works as i learn a lot about the the area from what i am told by those who stop and gawk. the slowness doesn’t bother me, i can still walk - although hills are a killer. i find that it is best walking with the camera if i have it on the tripod with the legs long enough to have a nice balance. it isn’t the limited amount of film that i can take at a time. 24 exposures which means twelve when i am too far away to be able to easily return to make another snap if something is wrong with the neg. it is how the decision making process is changed.

i knew of this in theory with the looking hard before placing the camera down, walking around to make sure there was a better angle then once the camera was placed playing with the edges of the frame before inserting the film. through this process first impressions are obliterated. due to the size of the screen, and with patience, the ability to see how everything lines up i am pretty much sure of what the neg will look like. there are no surprises. when an neg is edited out it is because it is boring, self evident why i cannot see this when i place the camera down i am not sure.

with a hand camera, an image can be made before i am aware precisely why i have stopped. after the first impression i can guess as to the reason and make snaps that maybe improve on what i thought that i saw. this usually entails worrying about the edges, how lines match up shifting back and forth a bit more or less what i would be doing with the plate camera. when i look at negs from a hand camera even though i go through the second guessing at the time of the taking, the initial impression usually holds up. that decision though is made when i am away from the scene, sometime later when cooler heads are in play.

i also pity those who are taking the standard image class. while i hate the fact that large format classes seem to outfit students with monorails - cameras best suited for the confines of a studio. you can spot a large format student kilometres away with the steamer trunk hold the camera attached to a cart the tripod precariously attached to the top. when if schools only went for field cameras a tow decent courier bags would carry camera and film. the tripod could be carried on a shoulder.

this will be worse with the standard image. while the 10x8 deardorff isn’t light it is well balanced. i can place it in a back back, place the dark slides in my timbuk2 bag and throw the tripod over my shoulder, after the first image the camera never leaves the tripod. the new new outfits while the cameras will be flatbeds - sort of there is an excess of wood meaning that they won’t fold as compactly. the “cases” will be plastic tubs with wheels, that barely fit the lockers hardly portable. after reading about lois connor biking with her banquet camera in china and how important portability is with nicholas nixon can only image how this mini caravan will effect the way those in the class will photograph. what ever the case there will be no hiding in the studio.

if all the people that i want to hang out with weren’t on the avalon, i’d probably not return. yeah sure i’d miss, hava java, the duke, and being able to find the globe, bottles of coor’s light and the western star aren’t quite the same, but the reason that i liked places like pouch cove are so much more present along the great northern. i realise that this is back to my isolationist tendencies but due to the circumstances of these places there is a sense of community and while it at times may fall short of my “strange” needs - no curry powder at the foodland in roddickton things seem geared for those who live here and here that is a much more exacting balance. conche has two conveniences less than 300 metres apart. i am sure that if something was in either of them that didn’t sell the profits would plummet as there would be no back-up.

while right now this is extreme,unlike bonne bay where being the off season only the essentials in town are open here everything is. granted the lounge only has three people in it during the evenings, but kearneys does a good substitution for tim’s where people meet over their morning coffee and the restaurant under the bed and breakfast is open.

i like to have to actively entertain myself. the days are longer but time doesn’t drag, with less amenities, it seems that more gets done. i like this paradox. i also know that this is a choice due to the house having neither phone, internet nor television service. houses over the area have satellite dishes and i heard the morning crowd at kearney’s talk about updating their face book page.

i miss pouch cove but in the times that i have been going there i have noticed that it is becoming more and more greater st. john’s it is becoming less of a community and more a place for people to sleep at the end of the day. st. john’s provides most of what is needed cape st. francis and while there are also two conveniences in pouch cove, two restaurants, and a lounge.

being off the avalon, i also notice how much the rest of the province is ignored by the capital, except for the call in programmes and the fisheries broadcast, it gets little notice. labrador might as well be alberta.

last year seemed to be a high water mark for everything. while i didn’t mean it to be my attempt of photographing everyone who spoke to me turned away from away of making the trip personal and to remember those with whom i came in contact with and became more of an exercise pathetic midwestern art schools would foster.

that is not true for the most part those i photographed last year had the importance of those of the past, but i could feel myself become more sanguine to the point where it became a photographic portrait session. there were a few times when i was with the wrong camera - it seems that during the navegatio of 2008 the people camera became the digital - and would ask the people to wait while i got the proper one. talk about spoiling the mood.

even in 2008 i was worried that the process of getting the photograph was more important than the underlying reason. last year was worse.

this year there is no running back for the correct camera, in fact i have photograph few of the people i have talked to as the chat was more important than the photograph. there are a few times that i regret this - fred in her machine telling me about potlotek, the guards at marine atlantic escorting me back to my machine after i left the confines to get something from tim’s, the scandanavian who befriended me but with the exception of fred they would have all been the type of image that the documentary expert in the department would have made - completely soulless ripe for theory.

i like this new moderation, as again the moment is more important than the photograph, marianne who cut my hair with her next customer - joking about a may december - “november i’m not that old” relationship, tom coming back and the camera being raised while we talk about the time that has passed since i was at the bank or montréal building.

last year was a good wander, while part of it bordered on pure mannerism and it seemed that i forgot why i like to wander, not to get some place but to go, it allowed for all the excess in what i thought i was supposed to be doing run through my system and i am much better for it.

this is certainly different than my last wander up here. i think that last year things became overly complicated due to forgetting why i come up here. i over packed in cameras, although this time it is worse with the deardorff, the medium format crowd even joãozão who hasn’t seen the rock in a good six years and and a digital. this time however it is the trip that is multitasking. the race to the rock, the race back to nyc, what was to be another more leisurely return to the rock - frequent boating miles on marine atlantic, meant the different cameras. am sure that i’ll be asked to make snaps at the graduation hence the digital. joãozão because it is still my favourite camera for flânerie, the other medium format crowd for everything in atlantic camera and for the second crossing.

last time like a camera clubber i worried about what camera to take when i headed out - would i run into people, would i need something for this, i realised that i was more worried about the postings that i was about making work.

it was a breaking point, by this time last year there would have been seven postings i would have stayed up to write, make the jpgs, and publish. this time, i am making sure that i remember the day first that i get down all the - even more - boring detail of what happened and if there is time, i make an entry. while there are snaps appearing, i leave the digital behind when wandering. i have become quite disciplined. an outing entails taking the deardorff, using it until i run out of film then picking up ubirajara and continuing until i have to leave before it gets dark - so far i have seen 20 moose along the road - mostly cows - and i plan to be in conche before it becomes duckish.

also the excitement of posting has somewhat diminished. this could have been a flash back to the days where there was no wi-fi in pouch cove and i would make midnight runs to the airport to file, if i didn’t make it to wordplay on time. as i sit outside the french shore centre here to check email, that excitement could have returned but i found something equally as exciting - post cards - think of them as postal tweets, which i have been sending out to those who do write. i can do this from the comfort of the kitchen here in conche again following a deep tradition here in newfoundland - being kitchen centred. sat in the front room by the wood stove once but it didn’t feel write. i write the tweets, head down to the post office chat with the worker and off they go, nothing is of immediate importance that it has to be read immediately and while i do like seeing that people in iran, saudi arabia and from coast to coast to coast here read it at times, i can get to sleep much earlier.

at the end of term, being asked what i was planning to do, i mentioned my driving once again to the rock and my desire - since i have now been in every province east of the prairies - to hit all the provinces before the end of summer.

it was met with horror from one student. that’s so far why not fly?

my glib answer was typical of someone who finds anything longer than a tweet “war and peace”. turning onto autoroute 20 just beyond the city of québec the true answer was made apparent.

while i tend to grin and bare the area between the u.s. border and montréal, once on either 40 or 20 things change. it is here that i see the geography change hints of the north show up from the first moose warnings to the beginning of the pine forests that first whiff of newfoundland while still in the nation of québec.

having said this though southern ontario is necessary as i need the flat of the land outside sarnia to appreciate the views of lake ontario around oshawa, the beginning of the saint lawrence at kingston, the wetlands that confuse the ontario québec border. how can i see that topographies have little to do with borders.

how does one experience 100km/h meaning 130 in ontario, 100 south of montréal but 120 between montréal and québec and 150 on the côte sud.

from however high you are in a plane how can you distinguish the flat of southern ontario from the that of côte sud of the st lawrence. a comfortable flat between with the river and the laurentians in the background. where silos and churches compete.

there is no scale in a plane like there is no scale from map to map, ontario prince edward island they both fit on the same size map. going from sarnia to cornwall i now know what 800 kilometres feels like, i also know that while it is the same distance between port-aux-basques and st. john’s the latter takes longer.

how much time should travel take?

how much dignity should be surrendered for speed. full body pat downs and no liquids?

would i have seen the skate border along autoroute 20 westjetting it east?

how about the oh so tired overworked server at the tim horton’s in brockville who wasn’t sure what was left as even though it was 10pm she had just started but none the less when she had got her bearings, apologised for not having bread for a large egg salad sandwich nor lettuce - we’re just off the 401 and it has been non stop - gave me extra tomatos to make up for it.

or the worker at canadian tyre who commiserated with me when those out of wedlock pæderasts at bank of america denied my purchase.

or the people at the town and country motel who took the time to have a bit of small talk before giving me a room over looking the saint john river.

there is the advance warning of atlantic canada along 185 between riviere-du-loup and the new brunswick border and while the trans-canada in new brunswick is now all new and moose free with an arizona like border fence to keep them off the road - playing tag with the saint john river proves that you certainly in a new terrain.

i can taste the coffee at the bridge street café in downtown sackville - and wish i wasn’t rushing and could stay for food.

i can see the red of the mud when the rivers leading to the bay of fundy are drained due to low tide.
i can marvel at another flat of the tantramar marshes.
i make sure that i am not importing bees in to nova scotia.

but above all, while photographing a ball park in potlotek nova scotia, a machine pulls up and the driver’s window rolls down. having seen me photographing the chubby’s in st peter thinks that i would be interested in potlotek chapel island to the non native. it is a sacred place for the mi’q mak. fred then goes on to tell me that i am interested her sister works for the mi’q mak interpretive centre and she could arrange to take me out to the island by canoe to look around and photograph. when i come back through if i have a couple of hours it could be possible. it is still not the tourist season so being out there could be great.

now i feel like i am in a rush. jokingly tell her that she is going to have me miss my ferry and apologising in advance as i shall be racing through cape breton on my way to nyc for a graduation. nevertheless she hands me her email and says if it is possible let her know.

i head down to the shore to look at the island - her cousin said it was a mere kilometre away - and she is right, i so want to get on that island. i thank her in absentia for telling me about the place and try to get in touch with my sister to see when exactly i have to be in nyc.

this little outing has me questioning my dedication on some of my more audacious wanders. leaving bonne bay where i had my oil changed by paul martin - not that paul martin. i still liked the world down the 30 odd kilometres of route 431. bonne bay nestled in between the water and the tablelands. sped down the trout river gulch - 150 k/mh again gobsmacked at the tablelands still with snow on the top and the green of the opposite side. it was more peaceful now it was still winter and all but the essential were still closed.

leaving i am always aware of what is left behind and out on route 430 it is hard to image that the towns exist.

this was the reason for wanting to head to other more remote towns, to travel the now completed trans-labrador.

this curiosity was due to ignorance. while i still use maps instead the of google equivalent - scale changes and while i know that some distances are long i have no tangible reference.

this wander has been all about scale. here i am on the island further away from the avalon than chicago is from new york. i have gone almost from tip to tip - channel port-aux-basques to conche 400 odd miles - i have to deduct the bonne bay diversion. for most of the transcanada i was alone, north of rocky harbour the same but that was nothing. driving roads like this is driving in autopilot - except for the moose. it was when i finally left the 430 for roddickton that my patience was tested. a mere 70km but one that had to be done at the speed limit. this wasn’t due to the three moose grazing near the edge of the road. this part was due to the size and number of potholes. there were parts of the road that looked like someone had just finished having war games. the speed limit went down to 50km/h and that was optimistic. that could only be obtained in a 4x4 or a big rig, a saturn would be swallowed up.


i know that i could make 70 km, i was way ahead of time - time being getting off the road before dark when i would have to worry even more about the moose population. i felt the amount of road kill deer in michigan was some sort of warning - there must have been two dozen. then heading up the transcanada just before the codroy valley a road kill moose. i also knew that the road from roddickton to conche was dirt 24km of dirt. roddickton itself was not only the moose capital of the great northern but also the pothole capital - marked speed limit is 30 clicks and even at speed the road turns into a slalom event, dodging portholes and on coming traffic.

i now wonder while i could possibly do the bay d’espoir and burgeo highways as i am sure that they are fine 100 click roads, i wonder what would have happened if i could have book passage on the ferries last year and thus had crossed over into labrador from québec via that dirt road and then dealt with the trans labrador - 481 km of unpaved driving.

bought supplies in roddickton as while i was told there are two conveniences in conche, i doubted whether they had vegetables. then made my way to conche making mental notes on what to photograph - so many wood piles so little time. unpacking i realised that i had forgot to buy table butter. i’ll do without it.