Damn, I think I love this dam

Though contentious, one of my favorite local road trips is to the old Pinawa Dam site. Located on the Winnipeg River in Manitoba, the Pinawa Dam was decommissioned in 1951 in order to make room for a larger and more efficient dam downstream. Since then, the dam has been returned to nature and now exists as a Heritage Park. It is about an hour and a half drive from the edge of Winnipeg.

The Pinawa Dam was Manitoba’s first hydroelectric generating station, with energy production beginning in 1906 as part of a larger network of damming projects around Manitoba. At the time, hydroelectricity was quickly becoming the energy source of choice among field experts, yet many people were concerned that a lack of demand would cause most of the produced energy to be wasted. However, by 1916, after experiencing a decade of unprecedented population growth, the city of Winnipeg finally put all of that power to use.

A complex and daunting task, the Pinawa Dam project took three years to build, with workers labouring all year round. With no paved roads or trains leading to the site, horses, steam power and human muscle were all integral to the project. It is estimated that teams of up to 75 horses were used during construction. In fact, the horses were so essential to the endeavour that they were kept in heated barns during the winter. As a result of the dam construction, a small town also emerged around the construction site. The town was mostly self-sufficient with a community garden and log cabins, as well as a few brick homes.

As Winnipeg’s energy requirements continued to expand with the city’s population growth, more innovative damming projects were beginning to surface. After about 50 years in use, the Pinawa Dam had become outdated. It is the Seven Sisters Dam, still in use today, that ultimately replaced the Pinawa Dam. With the closure of the dam, many of the log homes that were located near the original site were moved across the ice during the winter months, to the nearby town of Lac du Bonnet. Shortly after the dam’s closure, the Canadian Armed Forces started using the original dam location for training purposes. This involved bombing the remaining brick houses that could not be moved for demolition practice.

Although this is a fascinating history of what was certainly an innovative project at the time, the damming of the Winnipeg River has had adverse effects on Aboriginal peoples in the area. As the water at the dam site was intentionally slowed, large tracts of land upstream were flooded. This meant that colonial encroachment was occurring again, but in a more subtle way. The flooding altered animal habitats and impacted the trap-lines of Aboriginal people who still worked closely with the land. Though this is the story of one dam, this same predicament has been happening all over the province and the world as dams continue to be built.

As well as being aware of the injustice served to the local Aboriginal peoples by the creation of the Pinawa Dam, it is also important to realize that the workforce that laboured to build the dam likely did so in very unsafe and unfair working conditions. However, despite these hidden social concerns, the contradictory beauty of the decaying concrete is still fascinating as it slowly returns to nature. Perhaps one day in the future, people unearthing these ruins will puzzle over their function.

Majestic concrete circles that used to have water flowing through them and symmetric walls of rectangular cutouts amid a forest of overgrown trees will provide numerous photo ops for the photography aficionados out there. You can also follow interpretive trails that weave through the site. For all of these reasons, I really do love this dam.

A version of this article was originally published in the Manitoban.

Will these shoes ever get old?

The footwear that you choose to wear offers much insight into your lifestyle and frame of mind. The shoes you wear on a road trip will largely dictate the type of adventure that you will have.

Versatility, style and comfort are all key concerns, which bring me to Chucks, my current faves. The Converse All Star, if ever there was a classic shoe, this is it. In fact, it is the oldest and bestselling basketball shoe of all time.

First created in 1917 by the Converse Corporation, the shoe was not initially a success until a few years later when they caught the attention Chuck Taylor, a basketball player for the Akron Firestones. Taylor liked the shoes so much that he decided to promote the shoe by becoming a Converse salesperson. He pushed the shoe at basketball games and clinics that he attended, and even contributed to design modifications of the shoe. As Taylor’s name became synonymous with the Converse All Star shoe (Cons), it was added to the shoe’s ankle patch in 1932.

Inspired, Taylor went on to design a white pair of Cons that were introduced at the 1936 summer Olympics, held in Berlin, Germany, and soon basketball teams and high school kids were sporting the shoes. Their popularity even infiltrated the U.S. Armed Forces, as Taylor joined the Air Force and coached their basketball team. It is said that, at the time, servicemen could be seen doing their exercises in the white high-tops.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) formed in 1949 and many of the professional players in the league wore Cons. In fact, Converse had an 80 per cent share of the sneaker industry by the late 1950s. This was the heyday for the shoe as Taylor died in 1968 and other shoe companies were busting onto the basketball shoe market with innovative and alluring ideas.

After this dry-spell, Chucks experienced a revival in the late 1970s as the shoe became more of a fashion statement than a performance shoe. The company responded by designing more variations of their classic shoe, but could not hold on to the momentum. In 2001 the Converse Company filed for bankruptcy and was bought out by Nike. Ugh. We all know what that means.

It is remarkable to think that the structural design of this shoe has not changed in 90 years. The clunky rubber sole and lack of arch support point directly to why Cons are no longer considered performance athletic shoes. Yet, with shoe designs like the “Kurt Cobain,” which are brand new Chucks that look like they have been worn for years, it is obvious that this shoe’s ability to reflect popular culture is the key to its staying power.
I suspect that, even though Cons are produced by the sleazy Nike corporation, their trendiness and affordability will never get old.

Long live Chucks!

And what about the Adidas Superstars? Those symmetrical three stripes have had their ups and downs, but are also making a comeback as superstars such as Jay-Z, Cold Play’s Chris Martin, and Fergie, to name but a few, have all sported the shoes either on stage or in videos.

These are all recent incarnations of the basketball shoe that was first released in 1969 and worn on the court by Kareem Abdul Jabbar. One of the first low-top shoes in a high-top market, the Superstar quickly became the shoe-of-choice for NBA players. But like the Converse All Stars, the Adidas low-top became an even more popular shoe off the basketball court, thanks to the ‘80s hip-hop group, Run-DMC.

Run-DMC were popular for wearing their Adidas Superstars on and off the stage without laces and with the tongue sticking out. This lace-less style imitated prison style, where laces were removed from prisoners’ shoes so they couldn’t be used to strangle a person or for people to hang themselves. Shoes without laces also hindered a prisoner’s ability to run because the shoe was so loose on the foot. Commenting on the lace-less shoe trend happening on the streets, African American poet and activist Dr. Gerald Deas wrote a poem in 1986 called “Felon Sneakers.” With lines like “Peace black brother/the race of life is hard and long/and your sneakers have to be tight,” Deas’ poem cautioned against the lace-less street style and urged young black men to lace up their shoes tightly, a metaphor for not getting caught up in the prison system.

The following year, Run-DMC released the song “My Adidas.” The song basically praises the versatility of the Superstar shoes that can be worn everywhere, but the lines “with no shoe string in ‘em, I did not win ‘em/I bought ‘em off the Ave with the tags still in ‘em,” seem to be a direct response to Deas’ poem. Run-DMC is promoting the lace-less style, but also making the specific point that their shoes were not illegally acquired. Thus, it appears as though they are attempting to disconnect the lace-less street style from the lace-less prison style, and therefore trying to legitimize their style.

It is not hard to see why, with such flagrant brand promotion, Adidas made an endorsement deal with Run-DMC. The million-dollar deal was the first of its kind between hip-hop artists and a major corporation, and resulted in a Run-DMC line of clothing.

From a revolutionary basketball performance shoe to an unprecedented endorsement deal, the Adidas Superstar is a shoe with a rich cultural history. Forty years later, as the shoe continues to persevere, let’s not forget where it came from.

Rest in peace, Jam Master Jay.

A version of this article was originally published in the Manitoban.

Taking difficult pictures: Photography as activism

Some road trips are best recorded in your heart and in your head. When there is no photographic evidence, first impressions remain intact and the craft of storytelling is renewed.

For those with a penchant for taking pictures, it is best to indulge artfully and intentionally, as photography can range from insultingly simple to deliciously complex. With the accessibility and abundance of digital cameras and phones with built-in cameras, our collective photography skills have generally improved. This can be attributed to more opportunities for affordable trial and error shots and cameras that automatically do what previously could only be done manually. Photos are also surfacing from previously obscure places due to the portability of cameras.

This can be perceived as a sort of artistic leap in time, however, this is sadly not often the case. We are now inundated with low quality, superfluous images from average people doing average things. In a time when reputations and personas are managed online via social networking sites like Facebook.com, photographic evidence of coolness carry a lot of weight, but make for very uncreative photography.

It seemed excessive when people would keep dozens of dusty photo albums on their shelves or in their attics, but now, the situation is worse. People store thousands of images on their computers, and post photo albums online that consist of hundreds of pictures that were taken in the same room with the same people over the span of a few hours. Editing skills are clearly needed when it comes to these types of virtual photo albums.

Breaking away from this realm of mundane photography, people do take difficult pictures. When I say difficult, I mean photos that are hard to look at. Cameras tend to be used for two main reasons -- to capture images of what they consider to be beautiful, as well as to document daily life. Departing from human-centered photography, lingering on scenes that highlight human impacts on animals and the environment can be very powerful. There are no humans in the following pictures, but evidence of our largely arrogant presence cannot be ignored.

In this way, such shots can be considered a form of witness, as well as a form of voice for animals and the environment. Each image insinuates a story that lead to the scene in the photograph, and also brings to light a larger narrative between humans, animals and the environment. Through this relationship, photography becomes activism.

In the above photo of the seagulls feasting at a landfill, this is a situation and place that most people will never see with their own eyes. We leave our garbage neatly lined up in bags at the curb, and that’s where our concern about garbage stops. Our waste is trucked outside of city limits where it is not a pressing concern. In a sense, this is a very sanitized experience with waste, not realizing the filthiness and excess that characterizes dumps, not to mention the animals that now frequent landfill sites for food, as well as the toxins that leak into the ground at these places. In essence, human garbage has become a part of these animals’ habitats as human consumption continues at a frantic pace.

 In the above photo of the fox, it is a scene that any highway driver has likely passed by many times before. Road-kill -- if you aren’t the one who hit it, you are likely to drive by the death scene so quickly that you don’t even feel a hint of emotion. Yet, the larger story implicit in this scene speaks volumes. Questions as to why someone didn’t move this animal out of the middle of the road and the issue of human encroachment on animal territory are poignant.

In the above photo of the bison bones, the line between tradition and modernization becomes blurred. In a traditional context, the entire bison was used by First Nation peoples as a source of food, shelter, clothing and tools. With the near extinction and recent revival of bison herds, seeing a pile of bison bones is both foreign and startling to most people. This scene juxtaposes the old and the new, illuminating the passage of time and the necessary fluidity of tradition.

 In the above photo of the pelican, the size of such a bird becomes astounding, as does the beautiful symmetry of its structure. Washed up on the shore of Lake Winnipeg and in an advanced state of decomposition, the cause of this bird’s death is not known. Yet, given the rarity of such birds and the recent pollution concerns surrounding the lake, it makes it harder not to wonder about the human implications in this death.

Standing somewhere between art and responsibility, these photos reveal that a clear line cannot be drawn between the two realms. Photo activism is one of the clearest examples of this ambiguity. Yet this kind of photo activism also demonstrates that there is a tangible responsibility to keep the artful aspects of photography alive and moving, thus avoiding photography’s decline into a mere form of documentation, a casualty of technological advancement. 

This article was originally published in the University of Manitoba Gradzette. All photos by N. Mae.

Road tripping: A back-road to enlightenment

 

There is an art to road tripping that is both gritty and glamorous. Requiring a willingness to embrace the unknown and forego comfort, road tripping is definitely for those who can appreciate the capricious.
 

Let’s face it, for those of us stuck in small cities for the summer, dreams of escape follow us like ominous rain clouds. With financial and chronological constraints a pressing reality, we must vacation creatively. And there is no better way to do this than by getting in a car and going on a road trip.

The destination is always secondary. It is the meditative quality of sitting still for hours on end as scenes pass by your cerebral cortex faster than you can process them that forms the life altering essence of road trips. Suspended in this peaceful state of transition, insights about the home we have temporarily left behind and the people in it are frequent. At its best, we leave our everyday lives to road trip in order to know ourselves better.

I can attest to this as each road trip that I have been on has immeasurably contributed to the person that I am today. Through shitty road trips and electrifying road trips, there has been something formative about all of them.

My most recent road trip, to the town of Steep Rock, has helped make this jaded girl a little less jaded. Nestled on the shore of Lake Manitoba, there is nothing about this place that remotely reminds me of being in Manitoba. The lake water is clear, and on sunny days is the turquoise colour reserved for tropical destinations. There are limestone cliffs that line part of the shoreline, as well as caves that offer stunning views. Just a few hours from home, this place feels like it is a world away from everything that I know.

Next to the shore is a place that I like to call Peter’s Paradise. It is a small red and white kiosk equipped with hammocks and patio umbrellas -- and unparalleled hospitality from its owner Peter Hofbauer. A world traveler who summers in his hometown of Steep Rock, Peter rents out canoes, kayaks and paddle boats, as well as sells drinks and snacks. Always friendly and engaging, Peter is akin to Steep Rock’s unofficial ambassador.

There is one privately owned campground just past the town’s defunct quarry and seemingly endless vista of hay bales. Appropriately called Steep Rock Beach Campground, this is a popular spot for campers. The wide selection of VHS movies available for rent in the campground office adds to this place’s small town charm. Most of the campsites are private and well-treed. Wild raspberries and saskatoon berries are abundant around the campground and are a tasty accompaniment to any fire-cooked meal or walk to the bathroom.

Catching the sunset from the pebbled beach is not to be missed and if you are fortunate, you may get to meet some of Peter’s lovely family. You may even hear Peter’s musical dad play the mouth organ or even his accordion.

Yes, it is finding places and people like this that make road tripping a necessity. As much as road tripping is not about the destination, you can meditate on feeling doubly blessed when your road trip destination delivers just as much satisfaction as the journey.

A version of this article was originally published in the Manitoban. Photos by N. Mae.