How did Western civilization become so estranged from nonhuman nature, so oblivious to the presence of other animals and the earth, that our current lifestyles and activities contribute daily to the destruction of whole ecosystems –

whole forests, river valleys, oceans – and the extinction of countless species? (137)

David Abram. The Spell of the Sensuous. 1997

What geology and climate married over millions of years, man can put asunder in a global heartbeat. All our human mess of history hardly registers on the scale of geological processes. (238)

Richard Fortey. Earth: An Intimate History. 2004

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Society today – valuing speed, efficiency, and technology – primarily identifies us as “consumers”. I counter that we are more than simply economic beings; rather, we too are complex creatures of nature. Spiritually and philosophically, I aspire to communicate the message that we need to slow down and appreciate the land from which we all sprung and upon which we continue to be totally dependent. My message is one that is cast through the wholistic imagery of photography. To describe nature only in words – even in powerful words – is to include little and exclude much through the cultural construction of language. Naturalist David Oates (Paradise Wild 2003) comments that to impose a nomenclature on the universe is “…to thingify, to turn itself into an object or essence” (38). Through the use of photography – an art form – I record a portion of the universe and leave interpretation to you the viewer, for I believe that art can connect us to nature, once again.

Geographically, my artistic mission is associated with a region portrayed in my life’s work as the “The Far Northeast” – my land. This region extends from the state of Maine north through the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador, and up into the new Canadian Inuit Territory of Nunavut and then over to Western Greenland. This region roughly corresponds to the fishery region defined as “NAFO [Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization] Convention Area” which has the goal of management and conservation of Convention area fisheries. But, while the term “northwest” modifies the term “Atlantic” as a body of water and a fishery, my application of this conceptual device incorporates a land and cultural dimension as a distinct region of eastern North America. From my home in coastal Maine from where I sit and write, when I look north down the coast, I continue to see further to the northeast which has become the place where my story plays out.

Through photography and field notes, I chronicle my continuing discovery of this region as, with each trip, I continue my exploration. My work is a celebration of the beauty and value of northern places, which, I believe, hold significance for urbanized locations where culture has subsumed much of nature.

Through images and associated text, it is my deep hope that I communicate the values that the north holds for me, as well as for us, in these increasingly uncertain times. These images I offer with my reflections on how a life with meaning can be realized through a closeness with the land as our current “globalized” world founders on the shoals of placelessness and impermanence. These images are footprints to lead a viewer of my work with me into truly amazing lands.

Often I wonder what on earth I am doing while crossing swollen glacial streams with a 75 pound pack on Baffin Island, or in a July snow storm on Ellesmere Island, or attacked by legions of flying insects in Labrador. These assaults of nature give life intensity and meaning. In our western culture, we hear much about worshipping at the altar of “happiness” which is to my mind the product of a cultural naiveté. Through my own life struggles I have learned that if life is neither intense nor has no personal meaning, then one will not realize happiness – or for that matter satisfaction, completeness, fulfillment, accomplishment.

There is a role for divergent human cultures to ensure continuation of hominids. Within The Far Northeast, less-than-mainstream cultures, such as Down Easterners, the Amish who have recently migrated to northern Maine and western New Brunswick, the Maritimers of Newfoundland, the Innu of Labrador, and the Inuit of Nunavut – all employ place-specific knowledge predicated upon a human/land relationship. As a human culture, we have the need and the responsibility to provide for the continuity of all human cultures. For the success of species continuity – all species – is in maintenance of diversification. We follow this logic elsewhere as, for example, through portfolio diversification, computer operating systems, alternative travel routes, and contingency planning.

Writing almost a century-and-half ago in 1864 of The Maine Woods (1988, 212; orig. 1864), Henry David Thoreau sought wilderness as the “raw material” of civilization for without it, we would “be civilized off the face of the earth”. In a recent article by Greg Barrios (2003), nature writer Barry Lopez of Arctic fame comments that we inflict damage by trying to separate ourselves from nature. Indeed, all cultures that attempt to separate from nature are in great danger of becoming socially as well as ecologically dysfunctional – and ultimately extinct.

Thus, knowing this place, The Far Northeast for me, is knowing the touch of the sea through the skin of a kayak slightly skimming waves. It is hearing the first snow of winter “hiss” as symphony of crystals land on the dry forest floor. It is observing a chickadee as it works a sunflower husk on a branch to get at the seed. It is the taste of fog off the cold waters of the North Atlantic. It is annually cutting your own firewood – for central heating does not warm the soul while a hearth does. It is feeling and celebrating the return of the sun as the first golden rays of morning light penetrate 40 to 50 degrees of frost on the wall of a tent. Only though experience, through use of the senses, do we develop an identity with a place – a sense of place.

All too often, our social mobility and our passion for technology obfuscates our awareness of place, of the natural environment of which we are a part. Thus, we become more isolated – or alienated – from planet earth, as we obsess with a simplistic, exogenous “economic” system and become oblivious to the complexities of our one “ecosystem” which we all occupy. As alienation from the land deepens, it becomes ever easier to ignore our responsibilities for maintaining our planet, first as biological beings and then as social beings.

The more intimate our connection is with the land, the greater is the possibility of wisdom being realized through the direct experience of life on the land. From my own travels, through peoples whom I have met, through photography, I offer a principle. With a sense of place, individual roots are likely to be established through which wisdom will grow. As wisdom is the product of sensual experience, this link to place and the realization of wisdom are sometimes pleasant; sometimes it is unpleasant as when one gains self-knowledge. This experience, this realization is like life and death, one does not exist without the other. They complement each other as does binary code, male and female, yin and yang, black and white. Confused is the culture and the individual who lacks a connection to place as wisdom and contentment will remain elusive. For one, through my travels, thoughts, and images, I continue to seek a land, a culture, a place that is not dominated by materialism. I continue to seek a place where technology has a role but where it does not completely block the human condition and connection with the land.

Wilfred E. Richard, PhD

January 8, 2005