The Family Homestead at Woodlands, Manitoba

This year, 2010, marks the 100th anniversary of our family home in Woodlands.

Purchased by my parents in 1965, the house is situated on 320 acres (one half of a section) of bush, sloughs and numerous clearings. I lived there until I was 19. At that point, I knew it was time to leave. The lights of Winnipeg, reflected on the clouds to the south east signaled promise and opportunity.

Country life was great – don’t get me wrong. Many of my fondest memories are linked permanently to a childhood steeped in its aura: our border collie, Hamish, chasing thunder, certain it was a wild animal trying to attack; a large, bent maple tree, festooned with branches, draped with bedsheets, that served as my pirate ship sailing across the ocean lawn; the CN freight train lurching slowly northward toward Gypsumville at 10:30 each night (I knew then, I had stayed up too late); the richly sweet aroma of fermenting grain in late summer.

Though my parents left Woodlands several years ago for a less demanding, though no less fruitful lifestyle in Stonewall, the homestead remains in the family. My brother and his wife bought the farm – adding their own signature to the house and property.

How much longer will our family govern the Shoal Farm estate? Will it all be around 100 years from now?

I don’t think that’s as important as what I bring with me after growing up in such a special place.

One of my earliest and most perplexing encounters with photography happened while I was a kid growing up in the country. My sister and her friends organized a summer camp of sorts, as a way to offer structure, I guess, to an otherwise carefree three month holiday. It was an honorable plan. The only problem was that it happened at school – the last place anyone wanted to be between the end of June and beginning of September.

After several days making papier maché hand puppets and putting on plays, it was time to procure my own fun. At the back of the classroom was a closet that contained assorted boardgames, brooms, dust pans and lots of extra chalk. My friend Randy and I would spend part of the afternoon inside that room playing “Masterpiece” – a Parker Brothers board game that pitted wealthy art dealers against each other at a fictional auction house.

It was often difficult to see what we were doing at first because the only source of light came through a plum-sized hole in the door. Eventually, after a few minutes, our eyes adjusted well enough to properly distinguish between the card sized paintings of Vermeer, Constable and Rembrandt.

While waiting for Randy to take his turn (and hopefully purchase a forgery), I looked towards the back of the closet and saw on the wall a blurry, moving picture of the other students in the classroom. As if that wasn’t peculiar enough, the image was also upside-down. We were both completely transfixed by this inexplicable projection. Though dumbfounded, it was also thrilling to witness something that neither of us could rationalize – at least not then.

An illustration depicting a camera obscura

It wasn’t until many years later, while studying the history of photography at university in Montreal that I discovered we had been sitting inside a camera obscura or dark chamber – a device used, coincidentally, by artists like Johannes Vermeer to help render their paintings.

Some say knowledge is power, but maybe too much knowledge can end up spoiling a perfectly good mystery.