Cinematographer's 50-year-old photos bring a bygone Labrador back to life
CBC
A treasure trove of decades-old film slides of life in Labrador has residents of the region revisiting memories of times gone by.
Mary Ann Snow and Joy Turnbull Green grew up in the small Labrador town of Charlottetown in the 1970s. The two sisters would go to the store across the harbour with and hang out with other kids as their mother used the one phone inside.
Clear photographs of that time in the isolated community are few and far between, Snow said, but the two sisters were recently sent a link to pictures from the '70s that were posted online in the Facebook group Our Bigland.
"It was fantastic. I never knew the photo existed. To see myself and my sister and brother in this photo was very exciting," said Snow, who was nine in the image from 1971 and now lives in Harbour Grace, in Newfoundland. "I couldn't believe it."
The picture shows the girls looking at the camera with a gaggle of other children gathered around a large, old, yellow Ski-Doo. The two sisters have matching red jackets their mother had ordered from an Eaton's catalogue.
"I also thought it was fantastic," said Turnbull Green, who was seven in the picture and now lives in Wabush, Labrador. "I thought, 'Man, I'm cute.' Or I should say I was cute back then."
The pictures come from a cinematographer who travelled through the region, filming for CBC, from 1968 to 1987. While travelling, Douglas Pike used his own camera to take stills. Those slides were in storage until Pike started going through this year, showing life in the isolated areas that was rarely captured on film.
"I didn't have a lot of time to photograph stills when I was traveling," Pike said. "But occasionally I did go and get stuck in a place which was really nice, and it gave me the opportunity to go around and shoot a lot of stills."
His travels included Red Bay, Hebron, Charlottetown, Port Hope, Simpson, Makkovik and Hopedale. Pike remembers the photograph of the kids fondly as well as another image of a woman wearing a blue scarf taken in Nain.
"[I] met phenomenal people in all these places," Pike said. "Her face and her image to me is timeless. She represents the beauty, the innocence, the lines of hard work, toughness, nature, the environment it's in her, in her face, in her eyes."
After scanning only a few, his scanner broke down. Pike said it's a time-consuming procedure but now that he knows there's a demand for them he hopes to resume scanning the slides soon.
Pike said with a laugh he also isn't sure what may be on them.
"It's like anything. When you shoot something 40 years ago, you don't always remember what you photographed, but it'll give me pleasure to go back in and look at them and scan them."
Snow said reliving small moments through the images has made her think about how much has happened and how much has been accomplished by the people in the Ski-Doo picture, she said.
A recent market and fundraiser showcasing Palestinian-owned businesses in Hamilton, including new start-ups by people from Gaza who now call the city home, was met with “incredible” support, organizers say.
This time next year, Joellah Fletcher plans to be prepping or taking her final exams to become a certified Red Seal carpenter.
East of the small village of Coutts, Alta., a stone’s throw from the border with the United States, Cindy Bosch’s day-to-day life looks much like it did a year ago.
For years, police have been on the front lines of mental health crisis calls in Toronto, but the city's police chief believes it's now time to rethink that approach.
One of Prince Edward Island’s last surviving Second World War veterans has died.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada has too much regulation and not enough investments in clean energy and technology — and he's making his most direct repudiation yet of his predecessor's environmental policies.
WARNING: This story contains distressing content, including racist, violent and antisemitic language.
A national Jewish advocacy organization is taking legal action against Manitoba's medical regulator over a complaint it made last year alleging a prominent doctor made antisemitic comments on social media.
A cat that went missing in a remote area of northeastern B.C. is finally back home with its family in Oklahoma, five months later.
It wasn’t clear trolleys would be a hit in Medicine Hat, but the Sunshine Trolley has wound its way into Hatters’ hearts.
More than 200 volunteers and politicians gathered in Etobicoke Saturday for the Daily Bread Food Bank’s holiday sort.
The rising cost-of-living has already made supporting a family difficult this year. But, the holidays can make staying on budget that much harder.
Strong winds across the Maritimes left thousands of N.B. Power customers without electricity on Saturday afternoon — and it could be days before all customers have their power restored.