Paul Seesequasis on John Macfie’s pictures and reclaiming images of Indigenous folks

In the Nineteen Fifties and ‘60s a trapline manager named John Macfie spent time travelling throughout the Hudson Bay watershed.

His work took him to Sandy Lake, Fort Severn and many other communities where traplines were flourishing.

He took his camera with him, and in doing so captured the daily lives of the Anishinaabe, Cree and Oji Cree people he met along the way. 

Those images have been brought together in a book called People of the Watershed.

An exhibit of those images is now on at the Lake of the Woods Museum in Kenora, Ont. until Dec. 21. 

The curator behind the exhibit and the author of the book, Paul Seesequaisis, is Willow Cree from Saskatchewan.

Seesequaisis spoke with Mary-Jean Cormier, the host of Superior Morning, about the book and how he’s been working for years on reclaiming images of Indigenous folks. 

This interview has been edited for size and readability.

Mary-Jean Cormier: When did you uncover the pictures of John Macfie? 

Paul Seesequaisis: It was across the pandemic time. I used to be doing a little analysis and I got here throughout these pictures within the Archives of Ontario they usually actually intrigued me as a result of firstly, they lined such an unlimited territory they usually’re from a selected time frame as within the Hudson’s Bay watershed. 

So, I started to surprise who was this individual? And ultimately I tracked down John Macfie. He was nonetheless alive. He was on Facebook and I messaged him and that is how we linked. 

MC: And who’s John Macfie? 

PS: He was fairly a exceptional man. When I met him on Facebook he could be already in his early 90s, however nonetheless sharp. His thoughts was nonetheless sharp as tacks. He labored as a trapline supervisor by way of the entire Hudson’s Bay watershed from the early Nineteen Fifties by way of to his retirement from the ministry, which might have been in early Nineteen Sixties, which was fascinating in itself as a result of he travelled to all these communities by float aircraft, by canoe, by canine group within the winter, etcetera. We’re speaking pre-snowmobile instances. 

But he additionally was very a lot an newbie photographer. And that is sort of the legacy or present John Macfie, on this explicit undertaking, left us. He additionally was a group journalist in Perry Sound, very nicely often called a neighborhood author and commentator and really a lot a person of the folks. He was a type of sorts of journalists who I suppose you’d name a working journalist and photographer. And his present of pictures, I feel captured a vital time frame. 

MC: Do you realize why he was so serious about pictures and in taking photos of the folks he was encountering?

PS: I do know a bit of little bit of his household historical past. His mom had been a photographer and he was given a digicam himself. So, he at all times had an curiosity in it and he additionally was very a lot serious about folks and writing about folks. And that is how he turned a journalist as nicely. But when he received the job as a trapline supervisor, it afforded him a chance few folks on the time had, which was to journey this huge expanse of northern Ontario, which was not simple or low cost on the time. 

So, he had this chance and he had this digicam and he simply started to take these pictures, each in color — these lovely color slides — and likewise in black and white. I targeted on the color for [People of the Watershed] as a result of the colors have been so vibrant. They weren’t retouched they usually simply seize a time frame and a life-style that’s not there in fact, when folks very a lot lived off the land, nearly semi-nomadic and the fur commerce was nonetheless a viable financial possibility. 

So, it was that time frame of transition and he simply occurred to be positioned there at the moment and I feel that simply made his pictures all that extra impactful. 

MC: Do you’ve gotten any explicit photographs that actually jumped out at you or have been favourites?

PS: There’s so many. Some of my favourites are the Tikinagans, that are to hold infants —  carved out wooden with a moss bag with them. And in my travels just lately and speaking about John Macfie, so many communities try to revive that, and possibly the final one who knew how one can make them had handed 20 years in the past, and now they’re attempting to revive it. 

So, that connection, these easy day-to-day issues that persons are attempting to revive are one thing that actually has made an impression for me from these pictures to appreciate that these are literally not simply aesthetically pleasing photographs, however they’ve issues in there that persons are attempting to regain. So, that was actually one factor that is caught out thematically throughout the exhibition. 

The different one that may be a favorite was a girl referred to as Maria Mikenak and she or he was a girl who lived out within the bush, and she or he solely got here into city a pair instances a yr and she or he’s very self-sufficient. 

Macfie heard about her, that is his journalistic aspect, he was curious sufficient that he hung round for a few days ready for her to come back in as a result of he knew from the group that she could be coming in for one in all her uncommon visits to city. So he waited, waited. Finally she confirmed up and he took a collection of pictures of her together with her nephew in a birchbark canoe that she made herself.

So, that sort of impacts me as a result of he made a report of her and she or he is likely to be a girl who, apart from a number of folks, could be completely forgotten at the moment. But his pictures depart as pictures does, no less than the legacy of her and her story, which is a really fascinating story. So that one I feel could be a private favorite of mine. 

MC: Non-Indigenous photographers are typically seen as having a gaze or an anthropological method to taking images of Indigenous folks. How would you describe that relationship right here when it comes to photographer to topic?

PS: I feel that is true of not simply Indigenous, non-Indigenous pictures. It’s true throughout all pictures. There’s at all times this extractive aspect of the picture. Do you’ve gotten permission? Do they know you take the picture? Are you framing one thing that is contentious or tragic? All these points provide you with pictures. 

I feel what makes John Macfie sort of transcend that distance — one was in all probability his persona. He’s a really partaking individual. Also, his expertise as a photographer and that individuals knew him. So, the extra folks noticed and the extra comfy they have been, so you aren’t getting the sense of him sort of sneaking or extracting pictures to seize ethnographic materials, however kind of somebody who’s recognized locally and is trusted. And I feel that sort of rapport he had offers his pictures an intimacy that you do not see in all pictures. He actually had a connection and, to me, that makes his photographs rather more highly effective.

MC: I perceive that in a few of your earlier work, you have heard from individuals who have recognized folks within the images. Have you heard from anybody in the midst of publishing this ebook?

PS: I’ve. There have been a number of messages coming in, individuals who say ‘that’s my grandfather, that’s my uncle.’ So this stuff have all come up due to folks seeing the exhibition. There’s been plenty of that occuring and I think about there’s going to be extra because the exhibition goes on.