Opposite page: Lloyd Chicot, Chief of the Kakisa Dene First Nation looks for moose on the shore of Tathlina Lake, NWT.
How did you end up, up north? I went to Humber College for photography and journalism and one of my classmates got a job as an editor for a magazine based out of Yellowknife. They were looking for a photo editor at the time so he recommended me and I was hired. The next day, I bought a used SUV, drove across the country to Yellowknife, settled into my job, and fell in love with the place. A popular saying is “I came for a year and stayed for a lifetime.” That pretty much describes me too. I came in 2005 and I’ve been here ever since. What’s the best thing about living there? The people, hands down. Yellowknife, and by extension most of Northern Canada, attracts folks with a sense of adventure.
Below: The first snowfall at a bush camp near Tathlina Lake, NWT.
It’s also home to a colourful collection of characters (miners, prospectors, pilots, filmmakers, journalists, musicians, artists) and many Indigenous people with rich, diverse cultures, and strong connections to the land. Everyone here is doing something interesting, and we have a LOT of fun doing it. How do you think your work/photographic process has changed since living there? When I started out, I did a little bit of everything: portrait, landscape, photojournalism, still-life, you name it. I had to be a jack-of-all-genres because I was covering a lot of diverse topics for the magazine. But since I went freelance in 2012, I’ve been focusing on long-term documentary projects for conservation photo ED 31
