Photos

The farmhouse may have been abandoned long ago, but the fields don't stop growing.

I photographed this during the shooting of "The Orkney Lad", a documentary about a Scotish woman braving the dangerous and incredibly difficult voyageur lifestyle of pre-Canada, remaining disguised as a man to all but one until the day she gave birth. She was the first white woman in the area, as they were not allowed by the rules of the time... hence the disguise. After the birth, she was stripped of her voyageur status, and relegated to "woman's work" back at the fort, until she was deported back to the Orkney Islands of Scotland. She lived the rest of her days in ridicule.

Incidentally, over 80% of the manpower in the area that was administered by the Hudson's Bay Company and was to become Canada came from the Orkney Islands, which were known for their hardy men. Whalers and the British Army frequently drafted labour from the islands as well, but perhaps the fur trade was better than fighting battles against Napoleon for the country that defeated your own.

The Hudson's Bay Company is still a department store in Canada, even though it served as a sort of colonizing government before Canada became a nation in its own right.