Any woods, but particularly my own bit of woods, feels peaceful and comforting to me. Just stepping into their company is quieting to body and mind. 

The northern woods that I walk in were originally Ojibwe homeland. Growing in glacial soil, the trees’ shallow roots have always been environmentally fragile. After European settlement the woods were heavily used for their material resources and are now healing from over a century of gravel mining and clear-cut logging. 

Though still struggling and scraggly, the woods are full of movement and light. There is beauty in this recovery, in this fragility. I see my images as portraits, singling out small areas to bring forth the presence and mystique of this intimate, damaged and threatened ecosystem.