Seed Engine: Two Highways

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The last days, Montreal to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Leaving Montreal.

Lots of rain the entire time.

Crossing the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island.

Jessie reflected in the damaged side mirror.

Dancing on P.E.I.

P.E.I.

North Sydney Harbour, waiting for the ferry to Newfoundland.

Singing at the Ferry terminal. Don't know why the flag.

On the ferry.

Starting the trek across Newfoundland.

One tire down.

This is the end! I think I was in shock.

The end of the line, St. John's Newfoundland.

My friends Catherine and Harold's place in Pouch Cove.

Jessie feels at home at last. It took 20,000k to find this place.

Bruce Barber in Halifax.

Nove Scotia College of Art.

Theodore Tugboat in the Halifax Harbour.

Nipigon to Ottawa, Ontario.

Wawa, Ontario. Did that goose land on us?

Lake Superior, best beach in the country!

Met up with our friend Mel in Ottawa and had a great afternoon. Then off to Montreal.

Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Nipigon, Ontario.

Saskatoon to Winnipeg

Saskatoon to just west of Winnipeg. July 30th.

Something we saw a lot of, mobile homes being transported. Families on the move, everywhere we went.

A Damian Hirst forming on the grill.

West of Winnipeg.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Now that I've been the length of Route 66 and have gone about 2500k on the Trans Canada it's clear to me that these highways, although both defining features of the North American landscape, are very different. The Trans Canada is a pragmatic strip of asphalt that is about moving stuff vast distances between locations. It's efficient, and everything is contained within the enclosure of the vehicles eating up the kilometres. Route 66 is about place names, people, and the stories they tell. It's landscape changes quickly, and the communities that are scattered along it's windy path are just barely a ghost of what they once were. The one piece of the Trans Canada that reminds me of Route 66 is the Fraser Canyon in B.C. I lived there as a child in Boston Bar. This stretch of highway was bypassed about 30 years ago by the Coquihalla Highway that goes from Hope to Kamloops. This left the small communities along the old Trans Canada economically devastated. Yale, Boston Bar, Lytton, Spence's Bridge, are all just shadows of what they were when they serviced the travellers moving down the Number 1. Like the Interstate Highway in the States, the Coquihalla was, and is, about efficiency. There's no room for individual stories when it's all about the most expedient way to move stuff. One result of what I've learned is that the focus for me on the Trans Canada has shifted away from the mirror object and is more about the process, which is manifesting in a number of new series.

A new project from the refocus that has occurred on the Trans Canada: