Friends are Electric

When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I took a trip to Timmins, Ontario with my parents. Maybe it was later, the year does not stick with me, it is unimportant. Trips to Timmins were frequent enough that this one should hold no memories for me, no meaning. And it would not except for something I saw on the way.

We had stopped along highway 101, probably for the call of nature. The sun was bright in the sky, which itself was a deep and vibrant shade of blue. When I think back to growing up in Northern Ontario, the sky rarely stands out. The sky there always seems dull in my memory, as though the colour was washed out. But not this day, or maybe it is only my memory playing tricks on me. Either way, I remember they sky being unusually blue. We were walking along a side road, probably an old logging road, to the south of the highway.

We came around a bend and there it was. I did not take pictures. I had no camera, could not have taken them if i wanted to. Not that it matters, the image is clear to me even now. We had found a stretch of the highway from a previous alignment.

(Background information, highways in Northern Ontario frequently change their course, they generally start out meandering lazily along and are straightened out and shortened with each reworking.)

The old highway was beautiful. My mind recalls it to be as straight as an arrow, but this is likely not true. It had tree branches overhanging it from both sides. The dashed yellow line was clearly visible along the centre of the paved surface, which was itself broken by frost into many scale like fragments. Grass grew up from the cracks. The wind caused the overhanging trees and the grasses to move gently.

I have a fascination with things people leave behind. With old highways. Abandoned bridges. Forgotten foundations. The image above was taken at South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island. It stands on a point near the harbour, beyond it is Lake Huron. These relics, when I see them, almost call out to me. To be admired, to be photographed.

Maybe I want to understand why things were left. Why is there a chimney facing Lake Huron? What happened to the rest of the house? Who lived there, where did they go? Thinking about it, however, I feel as though I am more interested in the structures than their stories. The world seems to move blindingly fast. It is the defiant timelessness of these artifacts appeals to me.

From the Canadian Museum of Civilization