The road to Jacmel. By: Gary Moore. Unwrapped.

On this leg. Glen Lahey, of Kids Explore International is unshaven and transfers his weight often to accommodate his dodgy hip, made dodgier by the agonizing flights and waits at the gates in the various buzzing airports. Lahey from Williams Lake, BC was on a mission to pave a safe route from the Dominican Republic to Jacmel for a steady stream of Canadian doctors, nurses and paramedics he would be bringing over for post operation care for the thousands of injured Haitians over the next three months.

Kids explore International, a non-profit family run children's charity has been bringing aid into the Dominican republic for seven years, hand delivering to desperate orphanages, schools, clinics and hospitals. The January 12th earthquake jolted the Lahey's into action as soon as they heard the news while coincidentally vacationing in Puerto Rico.

Their first trip to Haiti three weeks ago brought in 15 BC doctors, nurses and paramedics to Jimani on the border with Haiti. The volunteers worked countless hours and slept in a military zone dust pit surviving of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the kindness of the Dominicans with rice and beans for supper as an added bonus. Those Canadian medics would save lives and forever change and be witnesses to the human carnage from the earthquake.

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The thick, warm air smothers you and doesn't let go as you exit Cibao airport in Santiago. We make our way to the Centro Plaza hotel where a cool shower beckoned. We caught our breaths before the next leg of our trip which would ultimately land us the disaster zone in the coastal town of Jacmel, Haiti, where an estimated 5,000 people died and 80% of the buildings were rendered condemned.

The next day started like any other. Never knowing what to expect. It was Sunday, a holiday, it was spent planning our attack with the help of a dozen Presidente beer on rickety chairs outside a family run bar on a gritty downtown street. The area is coming alive with bass pumping Dominican music, people yelling and cracking whips which would snap inches from faces near to them.

Because of our two day delay getting to the Dominican Republic and SnowMeggdon, canceling thousands of flights along the eastern seaboard we landed on the day of the carnival.

The yearly tradition was an explosion of raw energy. Thousands dressed in various costume and make-up, transvestites and demons, gorillas and leggy dancers lined the packed streets in a swirl of color and beauty and bizarre sights and sounds.

Kids Explore Internationals contact in the Dominican Republic are the Messon's. A powerful yet beautiful family with huge hearts and headed by the matriarch Maria Messon, who has been helping the underprivileged in her country for countless years and runs a charity foundation. If it wasn't for the Messon's and her daughter Luisa Morales nothing would be possible.

At the gates of the Santiago airport, tobacco could be seen growing in a field for as far as the eye could see. It was a constant battle between the icy breeze from a blasting air conditioner in the vehicle or swimming in sweat even in the deepest, darkest shadow of shade if you could find it.

In a massive hanger, organized by the Lahey's and the Messon's, supplies from donors both Canadian and from the U.S was piling up in a corner. JetBlue, an amazing aircraft carrier has selflessly been bringing in countless pounds of aid destined to the struggling and desperate people of the devastated Haiti. Airport employees stack aid and supplies on a rusty and dented flat bed destined for a Santo Domingo orphanage housing earthquake injured children three hours from Santiago, it would also be up there as one of the most uncomfortable rides ever recorded.

Three hours later our contorted bodies and creaky sore backs stood in the entrance to the first bit of evidence we were nearing the border Dominican/Haiti border. Dozens of injured children peppered the small yard shaded by a massive low hanging tree. An older woman is at a portable chalk board teaching the cast wearing children and their parents Spanish. Their lives laying in pieces in a country that is not theirs. In the eyes of the children was vacancy and confusion, some cried now and then but for the most part there was silence, but they were safe for now in the hands of this Dominican orphanage.

The rental car would now be our traveling companion and mode of transport for the border leg of the trip. Pedernales an off the beaten track place, hardly touched by tourists or maybe for people trying to get away from tourists. It would be Pedernales that we would get a Dominican navy boat to Jacmel.

Except for a few wrong turns and a crucial piece of advice that would take us 100 kilometers to the wrong place things were going to plan until we starting coming across large rocks strewn across the road mixed with glistening pieces of jagged, broken glass and small smoldering fires. Our curiosity was soon fulfilled as we rounded a corner we were met by a roadblock and an angry group of stick carrying youths who surrounded the insured car, which if you read the fine print does not include "damage done by angry youths at roadblocks". The Dominican military were heavily armed but were congregating at a fence as we envisioned getting dragged from our cars and beaten to death. But the heavily armed military supplied us comfort.

If this was a normal occurrence we wouldn't make it to Jacmel never mind the medical staff who were follow on later trips. This route would be too complicated and dangerous for them. The protesting youths eventually let us through after a meeting with one of the Dominican soldiers. We found out later that they were protesting for electricity in the homes.

The rest of the trip was uneventful we had had enough Adrenalin leakage to last us the week.

Cabo Rojo or Red Cape in Pedernales is known for it's bauxite mines but is also home to two Dominican navy ships. One would take us and aid to Jacmel. Pulling teeth is a nice phrase when you compare to getting permission to get even close to the navy boats visible in the distance. Once in it was like we were one of the family. The Dominican navy and the men who ran it quickly became our friends. After the earthquake the Dominicans were the first to hit the ground getting aid to the people and the Dominican navy traveled everyday to Jacmel, sometimes twice a day to take aid to the desperate people. The Dominican people, the navy and the Messon family are credited to saving countless thousands of lives.

5:00 A.M. came quick and the vibration from the Caterpillar engines on the navy ship could resurrect the dead. Paz, a Spanish aid organization had filled the ship that night before and we would be sharing the ride with them.

The Dominican navy and guests jockeyed for space on the cramped ship, rocking and diving through the Caribbean sea pushing closer towards the troubled country.

The port at Jacmel was secure. Sri Lankan UN soldiers manned the port and looked more curious than authoritative but the AK47 they were carrying could change that instantly. There was word on the dock that the Canadian military and the Sri Lankan soldiers were in a bit of a power struggle.

A battered pick up truck moved us through the rattled and rubble strewn city of Jacmel. Large trucks, taxis and motorbikes snaked through the streets until we arrived at Jacmel airport controlled by the Canadian military, most from Petawawa or CFB Trenton bases in Ontario.

We were let through by the Canadian soldiers at the security gate with ease. The nondescript, vaulted ceiling, open air airport was an oasis from the sweltering heat outside. It was filled with Canadian troops, there home away from home. In one corner at computer station, soldiers e-mailing family or playing games or just wasting time, donned in camouflage two CF women sit at a makeshift cantina, a list behind them rattles of the prices. I thought $3.00 for a cylinder of Pringles was steep.

On a collapsible table out of the way of the passing civilians sat a coffee urn, some sugar and coffee sticks, a visiting South African made the mistake of asking for a cup of the weak non-Tim Hortons coffee and was on the receiving end of a bitter tattooed soldier barking "They're only for the troops!".

Glen Lahey had disappeared and was worried since we had just got word that the Dominican navy had left us in Jacmel and had returned to the Dominican with most of our belongings on board. We later found out they were ordered off the dock the Canadian Forces stationed at the port.
They tried to return several times but were waved off repeatedly.
I was getting bored watching the soldiers unloading Dasanji and eating from aluminum pouches using cardboard holders if the meal was too hot to handle.

The next stop was a hub for kindness and love and the combination of the people from all walks of life in this rented home near Jacmel's center were saving life literally with their bare hands.

Kelly Dunn and partner Joshua Sarvis from Argenta, British Columbia who run Bumi Sehat along with Robin Lim are miracle workers. Their organization sets up clinics in disaster areas to help pregnant women give birth as stress free as possible in such dire situations and conditions.

They work at a local hospital in Jacmel where there is witness to dead babies in buckets and arms and legs thrown over a ravine cliff for instant disposal.

They invite us to stay the night but not before we take a post disaster tour of a couple of hospitals and a refugee camp.

Kathleen Curran, an US Emergency Medical Technician leads us through the pock marked streets and back alleys to a world of hurt.

10 minutes later we are walking through field hospital tents in Caje-Jacmel where Dr. Liz Drum works up to 15 to 18 hours a day on hundreds of patients who come and go. Drum a anesthesiologist from Philadelphia is dressed in green scrubs with a tropical featured hat, wears thin rimmed glasses and has a friendly face.
1/3 quarters of her patients are earthquake related the rest are a potpourri of disease and sickness. She admits things equipment is primitive with basic maintenance and hygiene and her days are filled with anxiety and hardship although she never complains once. For Drum the language barrier is grating and tiresome but the resilience of the Haitian people keep her going into the lonely nights.

She is headed home soon and on her face is the uncertainty of what will happen once she goes home just weeks away.

Next stop San Michele hospital, Jacmel. The earthquake has rendered it useless, wheelchairs and rusty bed lay crushed in a pile and rubble sits in large piles surrounding the injured in the cramped and oven-like tents as a cruel reminder. The days are long and miserable for the sick and dying. Food is still scarce and the aid workers fall over themselves to keep tabs on their patients god forbid another agency would come in and steal it away. "Welcome to the vicious and back stabbing world of disaster relief,"

Next stop. Portail refugee camp in Jacmel houses 1162 families. Thousands exist in the makeshift camp, life went on, a woman cooks, a young braids another childs hair and little kids fly kites made from garbage. Although they are good solid tents, many of the basic necessities are still not getting to the camp.

"Although there are tents there is little else," says Jacmel activist Charlotte Charles and the woman in charge of the squalid camp. She is working non-stop to organize the camp but she has the weight of the world on her shoulders.

At the camp we meet Roland Zenny, a Canadian citizen who grew up in Jacmel and has returned to help his people. He is also the President of the Chamber of Commerce in Jacmel.

He not only the president of the Chamber of Commerce in Jacmel but he also is a rich business man who owns a water making company, a radio station and some other obscure small businesses. He is not a happy man. The village has turned to him for support and guidance and he feels he is not getting help to do that. His water company "Rolando already pumps out 4000 liters of clean drinking water a day for his people but it is not enough, "I have lists and lists of people who want water, he flips through a folder holding countless pages of hand written pages with peoples names while a lone woman waits at the door factory door in the chance of getting free water. "You see, she is waiting for water," he says.

In Roland's air condition-less vehicle and a broken passenger side window we were melting as we crept towards the heart of Jacmel, pancaked buildings holding bodies in a concrete tombs passes us by one by one. People on the street yelled their concerns and pleas at Roland and I could tell everyone knew him in the village and he was expected to help but it was getting to him. He too had the wait of the world on his shoulders.

At a round-about Roland stops his car and it is not long before he is surrounded not only by devastation and tragedy but by angry workers demanding answers.

Roland begins translating for the workers.

"They are complaining because they are getting a $4.00 US a day from foreign aid agencies to pick through concrete for bodies and they are not even getting paid for three weeks and are never given any food, it's as if the international community forgot about them, while they drive around with brand new trucks and they're doing shit for my people, I'm going to report these bastards," Zenny says angrily.

Zenny who employs 50 people through his companies has a strategy plan he says will rebuild his devastated city with the help of the international community. "We were already living in poor conditions, it's even worse now," he says. "We have to tear everything down and start over. 80% of the buildings here are condemned."

Nearby engineers with the Canadian Forces bulldoze the road of jagged concrete jutting with re-bar, armed soldiers keep watch but red mist fills the air in front of Zenny and he approaches a soldier.

"We still have people under this building. We have been asking you for so long. My employees mother and children are under there. So far they (Canadian military) haven't done shit! What the hell are you doing here!, he yells. "You can't do anything because it's against their orders. So far we haven't gotten anything from the Canadians," Zenny yells.

Glen Lahey follows a soldier through the dusty, twisted re-bar and rubble and asks him to try their best to find those bodies for the people and the soldier nods and they shake hands. we live the somber may behind us in a cloud of cement dust.

We've had word the Dominican navy were on their way to pick us up at the port and we were dropped off by Roland. He thanked us for coming to his city we shook hands and he disappeared back into the damaged city.

On the way to the dock what we encountered a British Columbia couple Laura and Bill Allan of Shelters International Disaster Response, a registered NGO out of Kaslo, B.C. hunkered next to a destroyed wall of a school near the beach. A down to earth couple, builders by trade, who along with a dozen volunteers from Gonaives, Haiti, literally try their best to fix the school they found via a UN helicopter flight over the area. The La Familia school would test them all over the coming weeks.

"Two teachers and two children died in the school and you can tell they just ran by the way the belongings were left and the pieces of undone school work still on the desks," Laura said.

The Allans are experienced and have worked disasters in Morocco, Bangladesh, US, and Haiti several times over. There home is a makeshift camp next to the Minstah UN building next to the airport and they are the only volunteer NGO on the ground.

"We get dirty looks at the hippies from the passing NGOs," Laura said.

The Allans who were in Haiti when the quake hit almost had to ditch this trip since they were robbed of $4000 dollars and a laptop. They recovered the laptop and their crew captured and tied up one of the thieves until police arrived but all their food money was gone.

"An American DJ Brennan McNolte came through and put on a fundraiser for us and sent us $1600.00 US," Allan stated.

As dusk fell over Jacmel the navy ship crested the horizon and we departed from Jacmel after unloading a group of nuns and their aid from Spain.

Night came fast as the ship headed towards the Dominican Republic. It was a warm night and dolphins rocketed through bio luminescence as they swam with the ship popping up for air as it bow rides into the darkness.

Glen Lahey was satisfied that he could bring down the medics and will be looking to organize a trip next month back into Jacmel.

To be continued...

Hand delivered to Costa Rica. By: Gary Moore. Unwrapped.

 I left Kelowna behind for Seattle where the JetBlue ticket agents dealt with our own luggage and the 5 massive duffel bags Glen Lahey of Kids Explore collected from the generous people and businesses of Williams Lake. The kind-hearted donated a countless array of items destined for the lucky few in the tiny poverty stricken villages surrounding Juanquillal on the country's north east coast.

JetBlue and Kids Explore have combined efforts to not only help the needy but to save lives, to date they have delivered 13 40 foot containers to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

 From Seattle after an hour of banter with the check in desk we jumped on a 747 for the 5 hour flight to JFK in New York. After the plane quickley filled the pretty stewardess direct Glen and I to the emergency aisles for ourselves to stretch out in much to the dismay of the other minions around us. Glen had the gift of the gab and the employees really liked Glen and apprecitaed what he was doing for these poor people in the Caribbean.

The business of getting the goods where they are needed most is not new to Lahey but the bureaucracy of a new country was. Costa Rican immigration officials seized the swelling duffel bags. After a frantic hour of pleading minced with a bit of yelling and lots of sweating we were assured that the goods would be waiting for us at the immigration office in Liberia on Monday morning. Glen doubted that very much.

Our shuttle carried us a kilometer to the rental car mall, not long were we on our way with a mid sized Toyota and a wing and prayer.
Finding Liberia from the airport was a piece of cake, finding reasonable bar to have an ice cold beer wasn't. A few come back on ourselves, a right here and a left there, we found the typical city center square where people went for whatever reason. It was the community square and wherever there is a community square there is at least one bar and yes we found it. After a quick refresher it was time to head out.

From Liberia we headed for the coast to find a $60 a night waterfront hotel Glen promised existed but I was skeptical. We rolled into a tourist infested Tamarindo. Surf shops and restaurants dotted it. Blonde brown skinned surfers greeted each other with "dude" and throngs of other US, Canadian and European groups mingled along the villages main road looking relaxed and trendy. Our dinner consisted of a pulled chicken and and yam fries at a no frills restaurant run by a couple of young *local tipicos who complained the Canadians were the worst tippers. *(Costa Ricans)


The Tamarindo Best Western was going to have to do, Glen got the Argentian kid at the front desk to $75 a night for a small room with a cot, the maintenance guy struggle to get up some stairs and into our tiny room. By the time the bed was in every trip to the toilet would become a mini obstacle course but at the end of the day it had AC and a balcony and with a local sweating Pilsner clutched in our hands.

Saturday came and went and Sunday was a steamy 32 and Glen was hell bent on seeing a beach. The BW front desk Argentian gave us a crash course on roads in the area and gave us the disappointing news that there were no coastal roads along paradise. Most of the roads leading to the hundreds of beaches were dusty, gravel veins twisting through small villages consisting mixing of poor and rich lifestyles. The charred countryside looked like it was ready for the rainy season yet vibrant green patches of varieties of flora and fauna ran rampant along Hwy 21. Columns of black smoke rose contrasted against a blue sky from garbage burning. The country was immacualtely clean and the people were extremely friendly and helpful and it was hard to get annoyed when things took twice as long. Costa Rica is the kind of place that reminds you of what it is like to live life.

Fate tooks us to Playa Arrellana. The large beach was peppered with night black lava rock and an array of locals and tourists dotted the sun drenched beach. Surfers out in the distance patiently waited for that wave to sail them through the sticky air. Others crested the waves with a jump or duck. We were on tight budget and Glen hoped to get a $25 a night room with oceanview but I was starting to doubt it. We had no reservations for any nights nevermind this night. It After a quick visit to Playa Arellana, a surfers paradise, where the wide open beach met with  aqua blue waves which crashed in on a variety of beachgoers dotting the landscape under a scorching sun which could render you sunburnt in 10 minutes, we headed out into the unknown the dusty roads lead us


From Playa Arrellana we headed south into the unknown. Our rental car guided us through the windy pot holed roads intermixed with stretches of gravel roads until we reached an odd enclave named Jaunquilal. Glen decided that he would trust his instinct and climb a dirt road into a hotel named Iguanazul. Upon rolling into the parking lot you were invited by pathways draped in beautiful flora and fauna. The odd gecko and even a fair sized iguana would cross your path, stop, look at you, then slither off.

Glen stumbled across this place after seeing a weathered faded sign, he made his way to reception after parking near a lush forested area and I retreated to the shade. The wind rattled the palm trees contrasted against a dark blue sky making the scene look like some kind of surreal dream.

Iguanazul was a paradise lost literally the 20 year old hotel had seen better times economically and was now a big hotel with few guests. The high ceiling rooms with red tiled floors were basic but were air conditioned and had million dollar views. Their beach was one of the most beautiful and secluded beaches I had ever seen. It was called Costa Rica for a reason, it had literally hundreds of beaches along both coasts, a place where you could easily disappear from the world.
David McCaig from Vancouver ran the Iguanazul for twenty years. The tourist boom had disappeared and you could count the amount of people passing through on your hands and feet. Jones had cut Glen a deal on our rooms for a week.

Monday morning we headed to the Liberia customs office to see the status of the charitable goods being held for cash. The main customs guy, a friendly overweight man in his sixties promised he could help us through his interpretor teenage son.

The customs guy had to inspect the duffel bags which were being brought over by airport staff where the goods languished overnight. Each item was itemized and then hand written on a piece of paper Glen and I had to sit there waiting as he check marked and tapped in the prices into an old computer while his son and another aged man played games on their computers, an annoying bleep would go off every few seconds breaking the awkward silence. Eventually after beating the crap out of the calculator he passed it to Glen. He looked like he seen a group of ghosts. The price to release the goods were $800. I could tell Glen was about to cry in anger. After some wrangling and idle threats never to do business with Costa Rica again and help the countries needy the Liberian agent cut it in half to $400, then after more whining and a threat to go to the local media he dropped it to $240. But you would have to come and pick it up tomorrow when the paperwork was

After 9 trips to the Dominican in two years I could tell right away the latter was the poorer country and Costa Rica was well off in comparison to alot of other Caribbean and Central and South American countries. For one the country is immaculately clean and Costa Ricans take pride in their country except eating the odd turtle or it's eggs.

After a long day and frantic but beautiful ride back we dragged our tired and sweaty bodies into the dark parking lot of the Iguanazul in Juanquillal. A few cold beer were in store.

At the bar I met Dave Keist hunkered over his beer and I could tell he was traveling through dark days. Keist was a neighbor to the Iguanazul for 9 years since leaving behind the US for a piece of peace. But that wasn't coming anytime soon, he and his wife were in a bitter battle for the same property and the deadline for the case loomed a few days into the future and the thought of it brought him down into borderline despair mixed with terror and tinged with lonliness.

The grizzled Kiest was a journalist, without a pot to piss in, worked on countless high publicity crime cases in Fort Lauderdale in the seventies, then moved to Alabama in the eighties. His cheat sheets read like a mafia/gangs horror novel. Going from murder to murder, courthouse to courthouse to write about the worst of the worst of humanity covering The Outlaws Motorcycle Club during their rein of terror in Florida, the brutal hits the mafia carried out to the rise of The Triads in the bible belt. Many of his headlines involved torture and mutilation at the crime scenes, death threats were common along with the funerals he covered. A fire begins to rise in him when he talks about his bygone newspaper days. He talks about his good buddy Al Rockoff, who was portrayed the the Academy Award winning The Killing Fields. He told me a story when a group of Japanese photojournalists came into the newspaper for a visit and Keist brought Al Rockoff's name up in conversation and one of the Japanese men got all excited and said " I know Al Rockoff, he taught me how to shoot burning tank without dying in explosion!"

But quickly between the news stories he is lost to bouts of depression over his local beer as he slips back into the nightmare of losing his acre of paradise to his wife.

Glen and made sure the rental car received a good pounding. The veins of roads stretching from city to village some only a dirt road with every vehicle pass belched out a red storm. The windows went up ahead of time and went down as it settled but this Costa Rica road ritual was repeated constanly. The Argentian guy at the Tamarindo Best Western wasn't lieing when he said the roads were hit and miss.

But every road took you to a new town hidden from the world. A group of spiders monkeys danced from tree to tree while we ate at a local Costa Rican home turned restaurants on any road headed towards any beach the signs told you to follow.

Back at the Iguanazul the peacful nights with the sound of waves crashing and a bright moon set against a star peppered black drape it was easy to forget the rest of the world for moments.

The next day we had to get up early because the kids were showing up for a party at the resort and to receive a gift from the overflowing duffel bags Glen brought from donations from generous people and businesses in Williams Lake.

I was ready! Had both a stills camera and a HD Sony palmcorder in position to record the onslaught. It was calm and first and then they started to stream in like popcorn on a stream. Then the kids would break apart and make small pools around the carefully seperated charity merchandise Lahey had lugged half way around the world which  consisted of second-hand shoes and toys. The parents swarmed in and hovered around ther curious kids and for a few seconds we all believed a riot was imminent.

Glen tried his best to quell the situation in really bad Spanglish but it was no use, they didn't understand a word he was saying. I could only film and try not to burst out laughing. Glen looked at me in desperation but I didn't sign up to be a translater. Not long after a female employee took the reins and stuff was even put back so it could be distributed fairly. Glen pulled it together and everyone left happy but not without a hot-dog, drink and a dip the the Iguanazul pool.

The last couple of days were spent marvelling at even the smallest things in Junaquillal, Costa Rica. A beautiful country with so much to offer. It recent years certain areas were hit by the economic downturn but the beauty of the country and the safeness lures people to the Central American jewel.

Costa Rican photographs:

Rocky Road. Unwrapped. Gary Moore. Chapter 1.

 Rocky Road. Gary Moore. Unwrapped.

For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be a photographer or cameraman. I remember as a small boy watching on television Palestinian children, no older than me at the time, throwing rocks at soldiers in Israel. I didn’t understand the politics of the time but I know I was fascinated with the images that were be portrayed on this small screen in front of me as a young child and knowing then that this is something I wanted to do when I grew up.
I grew up in a semi-normal family with a good upbringing since my parents arrived in Toronto, Ontario from Liverpool in 1972. I was two.
My days were spent mostly outdoors playing street hockey, chasing sticks which were imaginary boats, as we chased them along a creek not far from where we lived, we caught frogs and snakes and we were terrified yet excited when the girls from out street would chase us. Everything was pretty well normal.
Except for those images of those kids throwing rocks never left my mind and as I grew into a young adult the world around me interested me more and more every day. Photography and film started to become a passion and I picked up any magazine that had photographs in them and could pretty much look at images all day. Film was a release for me and confirmed there were people out there that loved the media machine as much as I did.
I didn’t get my first camera until I was 16 for Christmas. My parents bought it for me and I clumsily learned it from scratch. In 1986 digital cameras still belonged to the aliens, so film was your only option but wow did you have choices. Most of my early photographs were either over or under exposed, blurry or poorly composed but now and then I would get something I was proud of. I took a night course in photography and filled in the blanks from there I was on my own and never took a photography course again.
By the time I was 17. I had become a student photographer and reporter for a city newspaper. The subject matter was fluffy but gave me a taste and the thrill of having something published. It was almost like a drug knowing that your images or words could reach people and if you could save or help one person it is all worth it right?
As time passed and my interest bloomed the money spent became a problem, Having crappy part time jobs after school didn’t support the costs being an amateur photographer and the cost of beer and hash.
I never had any extra money. The money I did save went directly to paying for slides, darkroom kit and used heavy Nikon lenses passed on from a long dead, old man. My mother hated it, whenever I brought home another lens or $50.00 stack of printing paper. She could see a career in photojournalism or becoming a photographer and that really pissed me off at the time and pushed me harder when I look back now it was just a little tough love.
It took me 53 hours from Toronto to Banff National Park on Greyhound. I had left my mother crying in the cold Toronto winter evening with my dad consoling then settle in to listen to The Wall I had bought earlier from Sam The Record Man downtown on Younge Street.
Although gritty and sometimes smelly the bus ride was liberating, stopping through countless towns, villages and cities of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Jumping on and off the bus every few hours only to jump on again and repeat it over and over but only to find a different place, face and time which we left behind the bus once those giant doors closed behind us. The trip was helped along with bouts of hacky sack with a guy I would recognize if I saw him in the street. The two of us also befriended a young Vietnamese kid, he could have only of been about seven, didn’t know a word of English but was headed to Vancouver. I wonder what ever became of him.
The taxi driver dropped me off at the YWCA next to the Bow River. It was three in the morning but the clerk seemed content and gave me a key to the dorm style room. He threw me a towel and I washed two and a half days of Greyhound scum from my shell shocked body. The dorm room was empty and I grabbed a bottom bunk in the corner of the room. Banff was a great place to rest for a day before I headed to Vancouver my final destination.
Light gave way to some of the most beautiful views I had ever seen. Not only were there majestic mountains there were wild animals walking down the street. I fell in love with Banff instantly and ended up staying for 4 years. It was also known as part of the VD triangle which also included Jasper and Lake Louise for the simple reason of having thousands of young men and women who come to Banff for a working holiday mix booze and drugs and voila. If you had something growing off the end of your penis you were one of the boys.
It was nearing the end of ski season in Banff and managed to pick up a job as a valet attendant at the Banff Springs Hotel in the first week. I pretty much parked every car made at the time except for one no one knew how to drive, some sort of tree branch gear shift, only one guy knew how to drive it and he looked nervous. One of my valet moments was when Clint Eastwood came to Banff for Thanksgiving, they were having a break from filming “The Unforgiven” in Northern Alberta. I ended up getting his rental car, he had photographs on his dashboard of himself behind the giant Panavision cameras on set and all his clothes and personal belongings were strewn across the back seat.
After work that day I saw Morgan Freeman in the currency exchange. I felt like going up to him but chickened out but I did stand there and stare at him for awhile. “Holy Crap! That’s Morgan Freeman” I remember saying to myself.
The next day I had the morning shift and stood at the entrance watching Clint and a pretty young blonde packing up two feet away from me. Some chubby tourist to cars away was freaking out. It was fun to watch but never did get a pic of ole’ Clint.
Another funny night came when Don Henley showed up drunk in the lobby of the Banff Springs late one night as the bellman and I talked shit to pass the nightshit. Accompanied by a gigantic bouncer and two sexy blondes who I heard from one of the bellman were the backup singers. It was my time to freak out because I grew up listening to The Eagles and knew Henley very well. “Are you Don Henley?” I screeched. I knew it was but my brain was too excited to comprehend that the drummer for The Eagles was standing right in front of me. I must have looked almost excitedly psychotic because the bouncer stepped in between us and from behind this gorilla protector I heard “The last time I checked I was” Henley slurred and the two blonde women’s giggles soon followed. He could hardly stand up.
I didn’t think I was like that freaking out when you see a celebrity but that time I did and felt like an idiot. Even the bellman looked at me and said “WTF?”
Nightshift is brutal wherever you work but it gave me my days free to photograph and hadn’t been to the only local paper in town called the Banff Crag and Canyon.
The sole newspaper, a town treasure owned by Small newspaper mogul Bob Doull, a quiet but nice man who for the large part kept out of the editorial side of things. With a circulation of 3,500 was tucked in a non-descript single story building on Wolf Ave next to a café with the best chocolate chip banana muffins you’d ever tasted. You couldn’t help but get a whiff through the Banff fresh air as you neared.
This was really where it started for me as a photographer. I had self-taught myself for the most part. I took a few adult education courses but never spent a penny of photography school. I had a couple of old Nikons which I was struggling to get my head around. I hated math but soon discovered the Law of Reciprocity would need hours and hours of practice to get it just right. Back then digital wasn’t even in the dictionary. Can I can’t even count the amount of lost photographs to inexperience and technical inability. But for every lost photograph was a push to learn the craft to the best of my ability and be ready and prepared at all times when photography people, news, wildlife, everything and anytime because you just never know when something will happen.
The Crag and Canyon editor at the time was Richard Blonski, a very welcoming man and we hit if off right away, he was impressed with the work I had already published and sent me off into the street with a dozen rolls of bulk rolled HP5 black and white film. It was like winning the lottery. Not only did I have loads of free film to shoot and practice with I had the chance to be published in the paper and do what I loved to do, although I would have to support myself with the night-shift at the Springs I still had my foot in the door of the photography world and there was no stopping me.
From the day I received the film from editor Blonski I was published every week at the once a week paper. I would get home from work parking cars and head straight out to photograph the Town of beautiful Banff.  I would weave in and out and up and down the back alley and streets since I didn’t have a car at the time, I didn’t even have a flash for my rusty Nikons.
My days walking around Banff meeting and photographing people was amazing but what I ended up really truly loving was photographing the wildlife that came into the town site for safer ground from predators higher up in the mountains. I was by no means a wildlife photographer I wouldn’t make it one night in a hide up in the woods by myself.
They were mostly Elk. Urban Elk as they came to be known that came into town. I had heard of countless stories of attacks on humans who ventured to close to one of these huge ungulates and paid the hairy price. Now and then you would see a wolf somewhere in the distance but they stayed far away from human activity. Can you blame them. Black bears were everywhere and caused Bear Jams as they ate berries on the roadside, traffic would stop to look and take pictures causing vehicles to jam up the road watching the bear eat or shit. Saw many coyotes. I even took a photo of a police officer holding a dead one night a drunken man was seen carrying downtown.
For some reason the Elk and I clicked. We liked and respected each other, well that’s what I thought until one charged me and I almost killed me down by the Bow River early into my time in the park.
But every day as I toured around they were either in the cemetery, eating prize flowers in people’s gardens, walking down the street, stuck in fences, threatening tourists all before my camera. Every week for three years Urban Elk photographs adorned the pages of The Crag.
I had even caught a frozen elk rescue on the Bow River after an elk went through the ice with wardens struggling to come up with a way to free it including a chainsaw. Eventually it was freed. The photographs were first published in the Calgary Herald and then were wired to newspapers across Canada.
It wasn’t until 1992 that I grabbed the photographs which would race around the world and put Banff on the map for its volatile dilemma with elk and humans.
It was like no other day in fall in Banff. The mountain chilled air hinted at what was around the corner. Locals began to wind down and the last few tourists scurried around Banff’s downtown park as giant buses lumbered in the parking lots nearby.
This time of year is mating season, or the rut. Large male elk which aren’t see that much during the summer descend on Banff to coral their harem of female elk and this day was no different except for the fact that there were a larger number of elk than usual in and around the park. Asian tourists would tiptoe up and then turn their backs to the elk for that human animal encounter picture and then tiptoe back and giggle to themselves. With locals and tourists mingling in the small park, It was starting to resemble a petting zoo and that’s when all hairy hell broke loose.
The Crag and Canyon in 2000 contacted me and asked me to write an article on my experience that day.
ELK photo brought fame.
Published in: The Crag and Canyon. Wednesday December 6th, 2000
It would be a late evening in in the fall of 1992 when a hairy terror would rip through the peace and serenity of Banff National Park. The day a mist shrouded bugle would be heard around the world which would, for years to come, leave a lasting imprint on those who faced it.
It all came to a head in Banff’s Central Park. There were quite a number and mixture of people milling about for that late in the evening, I remember thinking.
Unknown to most as they shuffled towards a harem of elk in a clearing by the Bow river, it was mating season. While a mini circus began to develop, a furious 1,000-pound bull elk was crashing towards the crowd from the opposite side of the river.
By the time the antlered beast made it to shore, the scene almost resembled a petting zoo as people posed next to the docile females.
The bull elk struck with a wild-eyed fury not even Mother Nature could contain. A young, bike-riding Japanese girl crashed to the pavement as a result of the first assault. It left her crouched under the massive, drooling mammal.
The bull elk bowed its head attempting to ram his sharp rack into the terrified girl’s back. As the scene was unfolding, I had positioned myself behind the bull elk and was trying to distract it away from the girl by stomping my feet. An older man had the same idea but had literally taken the bull by the horns.
In an instant, it had turned on him. Life drained from his face when he realized how quick this mammoth monster could move its tank-like torso. He had barely inches between him and possible permanent disability as he darted up the path towards three other unlucky people.
There was almost a split-second hesitation as their brains tried to comprehend what fresh nightmare was racing towards them. Fortunately, they all did the right thing and scrambled behind the nearest tree, which gave them only a couple of vital seconds to capture the spot news photo.
The elk quickly tired of being predator and slowly trotted off towards the watching harem, giving the tree-bound four time to exhale deeply and move away swiftly.
I managed to catch four different photographs of the events at its peak without getting antler wounds myself. It seemed like slow motion as it played before my eyes, yet it could have only lasted a few terrifying seconds.
My titanium Nikon was really like a bar of gold.
Reuters Wire Service purchased the series of elk attack photographs the next day, and quickly distributed them across the wire to newspapers and magazines across the globe from The Washington Post to The Financial Times to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Out of hundreds of elk incidents recorded between people this was the first-ever captured on film.
The Washington Post was the next to pass through the doors of The Crag and Canyon and soon after ran a large piece on Banff and its elk dilemma.
The image was soon plastered on T-shirts and postcards then later went on to win both National and Provincial awards for spot news.
A couple of months later a National Geographic crew arrived to shoot a television documentary highlighting the problems between man and elk in Canada’s oldest national park.
The day of the National Geographic Explorer shoot was quite fun. Not only were my photographs going to be published in their magazine, they were also going to feature them on a half hour documentary called, you guessed it, “Urban Elk”.
Two crews showed up to film the episode, back then they were shooing on Aaton film cameras. One crew would shoot the interviews while the other crew show b-roll footage of the elk problem. They were able to get some great encounters with humans and elk. I don’t know what is was that year but they were very aggressive. My segment involved walking around various parts of Banff photographing and talking crap about elk while their camera rolled. I was no biologist, to me, I only knew they were great photographic subjects, especially when in weird circumstances or areas where you wouldn’t usually see a wild animal. Other than that Gregg, the director wanted to visit the site of the attack.
As the camera rolled Gregg would ask questions while I explained what happened the day of the elk attack, the first attack ever to be recorded on film. In the corner of my eye I could see an elk in the distance approaching a man on a picnic bench. I yelled to the crew and we both were able to capture an aggressive elk chasing the frightened man off the bench, and it was only that bench that separated death or at least serious injury. My shots turned out great, it was late afternoon and the light was perfect. National Geographic Explorer used their footage with my photographs from that day, as well as using the elk attack images in the NG magazine. For a 22-year-old photographer it was quite a thrill. How was I going to top that?
Not long after my brush with photographic fame in 1992 the photographs were plastered on t-shirts and postcards thanks to the late Larry Marshall who was the Managing Editor at the time. Banff residents who traveled would send in photographs with the t-shirt elk attack from all over the world which were published in The Crag each week. Even the park wardens and the mayor got into the spirit by wearing them to educate the public with the slogan Marshall came up with “Wildlife means wild”.
A year later National Geographic entered it into the Banff Mountain Film Fest and won an environmental award.
Soon after this my position at the newspaper became more embedded, I bought a car and started listening to the police scanner which I tried to avoid but fate would have a different idea of where my photography would take me. My equipment was all over the place and I was constantly borrowing pieces from everyone in the office, who seemed to be alright with it as long as I came back with a great shot for their article. This remember was the film days, so in many ways it was touch and go if you didn’t know your way around the law of reciprocity, which is basically matching your shutter speed with your f-stop to get the right exposure.
One of the assignments I covered was Banff’s first and only murder and Banff’s largest police investigation in history. Lucie Turmel, 23, a taxi cab driver stabbed to death in a frenzied attack for a measly $130.00 dollars. I hadn’t been in Banff for the murder but I was there when they arrested a Ryan Love after obtaining DNA from him and linking blood found in the cab after the murder.
The newspaper received a tip they were bringing Love into the detachment in Canmore, Alberta. I drove the few kilometers from Banff and waited outside the RCMP detachment’s small walk of shame into the building. A police car pulled up and jumped the curb and flew two feet in the air. I don’t know what freaked me out more that or coming face to face with this murderer. They brought the handcuffed Love out and placed him against the brick wall while they waited for the secure door to open and take him in. I took a handful of images and then we just stood there looking at each other awkwardly in silence for what seemed like ages. I had an urge to ask him if he did it but I quickly shot that idea down. Then the door flew open and he disappeared and the door shut tight behind him and the escorting police officers leaving me is disbelief. It’s not every day you stand in front of an accused killer in a brutal attack that made news all over the world. (Press clipping with photo available)
I Googled him after writing this in Dec 2011 and found out that Ryan Jason Love had just been granted day parole after serving a life sentence for the second-degree murder of Turmel.
At the Banff Springs Hotel I had been promoted to bartender and most of my shifts were evening and nights which left me the days off to photograph the tiny town and the news happening around it.
Now and then we would get a spectacular car accident or other equivalent newsy event and myself and the other photographer would go together and then sell the images to the dailies in Calgary sending the film via the Greyhound bus back in those days.
They were photographs of twisted wreckage with a media-vac helicopter backdrop or the photo of the paramedics working to save motorcycle accident victims on a quiet street in Banff silhouettes of body bags against a clear sky after an avalanche or fall from the mountains. (Photos available)
One of our editors at The Crag and Canyon was ???. A nice man and we got along very well whenever we met in the office. I guess we all have skeletons but the one big skeleton in ??’s closet was the fact he was a bank robber. His marriage was going downhill and he was an alcoholic spiraling down towards the bottom of desperation. Once the skeleton was out he was quite open about his criminal past and the subsequent jail time he received when he was caught by a rookie cop leaving the scene in a cab after robbing a bank. After sometime in jail he started writing for a daily newspaper from prison, a prison column.
I was surprised at first but never thought twice about it since I believed everyone has a second chance to turn themselves around and change and become a productive part of their community.
But it was ??? who sent me out into the frigid Banff winter to my next assignment. My car was dead so I took a cab to Banff’s helipad just outside the township. Winds were whipping up tornadoes of biting snow and too much time spent in these temperatures would release you from a few fingers or toes or both. I paid the cab and stood outside like an idiot in front of the meshed fence surrounding the pad morbidly wondering would it would be like to stick my tongue to it.
Not far from the Helipad I could see a café which I didn’t know existed in the semi-industrial, Canada Parks lots which housed equipment and some of the wardens offices as well as some construction type businesses. The café was small but cosy and gave me a full view of the area around the Helipad.
I sipped coffee while I prayed my cameras didn’t malfunction by way of condensation on the lenses in the conflicting temperature change.
About twenty minutes later an official looking vehicle pulled up to the gate, I thanked the café owner and I walked over the driver’s side window and a man rolled the window down.
“Are you here for the helicopter?” I asked. He nodded and we continued the small talk. He could see I was freezing so he asked if I’d like to sit in the car. Even before he could finish his sentence I was half way around the car and slid with a sigh into the comfortable seat.
I can’t remember his name but he was a special branch of the RCMP, usually older members who are assigned to security to visiting royals or politicians. He had looked after Prince Charles and his family on a recent visit.
The senior police officer then radioed up to warn the occupants of the helicopter that there was a photographer on site. It wasn’t long before we heard the whir of the helicopter getting closer. We both got out of the car and the officer opened the gate. The rotors along with mother nature’s blizzard created a white hell on earth as it landing. I hunkered down and protected my cameras from the onslaught.
Then everything slowed down and the rotors began to die down. The side door to the helicopter opened and out jumped to burly looking men. Behind them was my target. Margaret Thatcher.
I don’t actually even think I saw her other than through the lenses of the camera. I remember her saying hi to me but I must have been a little to close because one of the men actually lifted me off the ground and spun me around and dropped me to my feet on the frozen earth again.
I had phoned a taxi from the café earlier and once again I stood alone freezing waiting for the cab to chase Mrs. Thatcher to the Banff Springs Hotel. He finally arrived and with some encouragement we  raced along Banff Avenue trying to catch up to the Thatcher carrying vehicle in order to get to the Iron Lady before she entered the majestic hotel for a convention.
We screeched to a stop and I jumped out of the cab like it was life or death towards the parked government vehicles and managed to get right in front of her, she had a look on her face that said “Oh, not him again!” before she entered the hotel never to be seen by my lenses and I ever again.
I started to make good money bartending and Banff’s streets were becoming all too familiar and I felt it was time to move on from this beautiful mountain paradise. It would be a place I would never forget and always love.
My next trip was to El Salvador in Central America. My plan wasn’t to fly but to take buses through Canada, the USA, Mexico and then finally into San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital.