CALGARY!!!!
im in calgary. really tired at the moment, so pardon if i don't make a lot of sense.
DOCUMENTATION:
I am trying to get comfortable with carrying my camera and recorder around...I haven't, so far, taken any pictures! boo! Posts are always more interesting with pictures and i think it could have been very cool to track things visually.
THE PEOPLE:
I arrived Saturday late at night, like midnight.. sunday spent the morning with my dad discussing oil and gas stuff then went out to buy a microphone so that when we talked we could have better sound quality. however, my intention was to just quickly zip out for the mic and come back to talk, but by the time we got out the door and then back the day was very much upon us and talking seemed a little bit jarring and a bit faked.
THE RECORDER:
i am noticing that it is going to take a while to get accustomed to having a recorder around, especially with my pa.. i often feel like something changes in our tone or the way i talk or my self consciousness about what questions i am asking when the recorder is on...
we tried to make a date to talk the next day in the morning, but when we got up, dad called up his buddy in the oil patch to see if we could go in and get some geological maps of well sites... so we got in the old jeep and drove downtown to do that instead.. got lots of crazy maps.. i really wish i could have just taken the ones off his wall, but of course, there is sensitive information on those ones! drats!
my interest in those maps is to try and take on the lens of the industry, look at the many different ways people look at land... it amazes me, walking around the buildings downtown, that all those people in all those offices are mostly looking at maps of land. Sitting in the city, but with a mind full of land rights, mineral rights, drilling rights, concentration of oil, rock formations, seizmic measurements.. ... ... ...
FOLLOWING INSTINCTS:
early on in my trip i got the sense that i should be going to the tar sands.. and so thats my plan... probably tomorrow or the next day im going to drive up to fort mack and hopefully connect with some people there..
A NOTE ABOUT PROJECTS:
I feel like the project is finally getting very organic.. which i am loving, i am meeting people, talking, investigating, probing, witnessing, opening.. its great.
... A NICE SURPRISE:
when i got into town, i ran into chandra melting talow on sunday at
caffe beano (calgarys downtown cool spot for coffee drinking).. what a surprise, she is from here and living here! Her family is from the
Siksika reserve when we saw each other we made a plan to meet up and despite my shyness I texted her and it was great to talk with her. Her family is really involved with the reserve here and she said its doing really well which is amazing. It was neat to hear her talk about the history and her family history there. I really loved the sharing. Chandra is really open and sweet in her conversation about these things which was lovely. I didn't get to talk to her much about what she is planning on talking about in October for our show, but hope that when I come back to alberta we can take a drive out to her reserve and i can ask her then.
After meeting Chandra I went to the house of my old boss and as we were leaving the house she mentioned something about someone in her family who is working as a nurse on the Moberly reserve (also in Alberta) and she mentioned in passing that on the moberly reserve there is still a lot of desperation,a lot of suicide and abuse. Still many reserves in dire circumstances, definitely, but always amazing to hear success stories such as the one Chandra talked about.
annnnyway.
...
im sleepy.. going to go to bed and make a resolve to bring my camera with me and document all the amazing people who are helping me with this project!
