Newsletter #216: June, 2025
© Chris Harris. All rights reserved
Welcome everyone!
Contents:
- The Alberta Badlands
- Celebrating Images with Meaning.
- A New Exhibition: The Ilgachuz Volcano
The Alberta Badlands
On May 1st, instead of heading west on one of our customary adventures in the Coast Mountains, Rita and I headed east to southern Alberta to visit the Badlands, a place neither of us had been before.
After passing through the Rocky Mountains and visiting friends in High River, Alberta, we headed to Drumheller and the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. Covering the 100 million year geological and biological history of the region, including the famous dinosaur era, it was the most educational and fascinating introduction to the region one could ever hope for. We were excited to start our adventure!
The primary areas we explored:
The first four images are introductions to the main areas we visited; Horseshoe Canyon, the Hoodoos, Dinosaur Provincial Park, and Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi Provincial Park.
Horseshoe Canyon
At Horseshoe Canyon, we hiked amidst a formational landscape initially laid down 70-100 million years ago (Cretaceous Period), a time when North America was split by a great inland sea stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic. The spectacular landscape above, which we walked through and marvelled at, was sculpted by melt-water from the last glaciation; 12-14 thousand years ago.
Dinosaur Provincial Park
Saturated with rich colours after a rain squall, Dinosaur Provincial Park is part of the same geological history. A large variety of dinosaurs lived in this region; a story revealed by one of the richest collections of dinosaur fossils in the world.
About 75 million years ago, this part of southern Alberta was sub-tropical, with lush forests, swamps, and estuaries, which were influenced by a fluctuating inland sea coastline. It was a dinosaur paradise.
The Hoodoos
Hoodoos, or rock pinnacles, are found in several areas within the badlands. They come in many sizes and appear in areas where rocks are of different hardness. As a result of water and wind erosion, the hard caprocks protect the softer rocks beneath.
Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi Provincial Park
Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi Provincial Park is situated along the Milk River Valley in the southern part of the Alberta Badlands. Today, the river which now flows into the Missouri-Mississippi drainage to the Gulf of Mexico, is tiny compared to the glacial torrent that created the valley some 10-14 thousand years ago.
Indigenous people have utilized this sacred landscape throughout human history. The cultural identity of the first people to discover this area is uncertain, but since the 1700’s, it has been recognized as Blackfoot territory. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it recognizes the continuing traditions of the Blackfoot people, its rock art, and its culturally significant landforms.
Compositional studies:
The Badlands were a new landscape for me, one which I had no prior connection. Unlike my more recent work, where I return to the same place over and over again to explore a deeper connection and sense of place, I sometimes felt my documentary work in the Badlands was superficial. I kept searching for a deeper meaning for the images I was making.
Much of that meaning came to me through compositional studies.
The landscape was a living landscape with a strong narrative and ever-changing features. As Mother nature was creating new art-instillations by the nano-second within its evolutionary journey, I too was capturing it in a nano-second (1/125th sec) within my own evolutionary journey. Each composition represented this intersection. I was thoroughly enjoying the creative adventure!
Rills; a geological feature caused by rainstorm runoff.
Features of the landscape are the result of their resistance to rain and wind erosion.
The Badlands landscape is comprised of hoodoos, rills, pipes, tunnels and layers of sedimentary rock.
Through the process of erosion, geological form is varied…..
….. and beautiful.
Composition moves the eye; my eyes as the image creator, and your eyes as the image viewer. The beauty of the Badlands is shared through this energetic exchange.
The creative process is an exciting one!
Flash floods & the sculpted landscape:
After a 5-minute rain squall in Dinosaur Provincial Park, evidence of flash flooding appeared almost instantly.
The story of how the Badlands are the result of rapid erosion, quickly became apparent as rivulets of rainwater soon became gushing rivers. Each year, two million tonnes of sediment erode and are washed into the Red Deer River from the northern Badlands.
Soon after the rain storm had passed, sediments began to dry out; Nature’s art installation had changed once again.
In broad strokes, this is an amazing story of how sandstone deposition along the shore of a rising and falling inland sea over 70 million years ago became a dinosaur fossil-rich graveyard. The very recent and rapid erosion of these layers has revealed one of the richest dinosaur fossil locales in the world.
Erosional patterns:
As I wondered through the sandstone formations called “matapiiksi” by the Blackfoot peoples, I began to understand why they had spiritual value, like all other earth beings.
In making the following four images I moved back and forth between big-picture formations and intimate compositions of erosional details. Exploring expression is an adventure that excites me. I felt privileged to be here.
Shallow sedimentary layers revealed through time.
Within these formations, I felt spiritual values.
Visual design leads the eye throughout the picture space.
Art revealed.
The art by Mother nature and Indigenous peoples:
Rock art
The art of shadow and light
The art of wind, rain, and sedimentary rock
For the Blackfoot, their rock art is understood through traditional knowledge and stories that affirm their deep connections to Áísínai’pi.
Blackfoot people still come here to be with these rock carvings and to seek spiritual guidance. They depict indigenous life both before and after the arrival of Europeans. They are not open to the public and can only be viewed with park interpreters who work closely with the Blackfoot nation.
Form reimagined:
At Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi Provincial Park, I spent the first four days feeling mesmerized by form, exploring and photographing their 3-dimentional realism from multiple perspectives. It was on day-5, when forms became more familiar, that I slowly felt the urge and the capability to see beyond realism. As I began to interpret form differently; it felt transitional. My style of expression began to change.
Imaginative shapes began to appear…..
….. and perspectives began to change.
Geological ‘rills’ became shapes rather than lines…..
….. and the nest of a Canada Goose became animated.
As landscapes became inscapes, I felt a new sense of excitement. New styles of photographic expression brought geological features to life in new ways. It was no longer just a literal documentation; not just what I saw, but what I imagined. It was a creative study in composition. I wanted to stay longer.
My farewell image of the Badlands. All together it was an experience of nourishment and replenishment.
Images with Meaning
Due to an unexpected response to my February newsletter article Winter Images with Meaning, I’m continuing with the stories behind other image captures which have remained most meaningful to me for different reasons over the years. These images are deeply connected with memory, association, and strong personal feelings.
This newsletter’s image, Red Canoe at Dusk holds a very special place in my 53 years of paddling the Bowron Lake canoe circuit. Much like The Royal Hudson image in Newsletter # 215, it is one of my top three selling images for both stock sales and as a photographic print.
Red Canoe at Dusk. Film capture.
Fifty-seven years ago, while enrolled in a business course at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, a field trip took me to the Chestnut Canoe Company factory. I clearly remember entering a large old wooden building, and when my eyes finally adjusted to the poorly lit and dust-filled open floor space, I saw several elderly master craftsmen building different models of cedar-canvas Chestnut canoes. It was a visual I have never forgotten; a sight from a distant era.
Little did I know that four years later I would order one and have it shipped across Canada to Vancouver. She was the canoe of my dreams and I have paddled her several thousand miles; her name is ‘Chestie’.
On a solo photographic adventure in September, 2006, while sitting by my campfire near the Bowron River marsh, I glanced out at the evening light. The sun had set and I was appreciating the shapes of the landscape set amidst the twilight blue, when one of those shapes, Chestie, caught my attention. The shape of the canoe was dark and silhouetted but, in my mind, it was red. This sparked an idea.
Taking my camera, tripod, and my Maglite flashlight which I had specifically outfitted to paint subjects in the night with light, I left my campfire and set up my composition based on shapes. Once I had figured out my exposure times, and then painted the canoe with the light of my flashlight during a long exposure.
A New Exhibition: The Ilgachuz Volcano
Through photography, I invite viewers to share the nuances of visual discovery.
During the past 35 years I have had the good fortune of exploring, photographing, and published 13 books on the Cariboo Chilcotin region of central British Columbia. As I continue to curate my entire image bank, I make changes to my three website platforms for sharing imagery; Portfolios, Visual Narratives, and Exhibitions.
Exhibitions: These are similar to art gallery exhibitions which provide viewers with a sense and spirit of a specific place. They are also designed to preserve a moment in time; a historical and educational resource designed to generate a visual identity along with a sense of understanding, appreciation, and value for both local residents and global visitors.
A new exhibition has just been published:
The Ilgachuz Volcano
As viewers, you are invited to join the adventure of seeing my world as a sacred landscape; as an emotional response; as an artistic philosophy; or as a creative expression.
Enjoy your visit.
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