The Ice Shack project explores the solitary tradition of ice fishing shacks—temporary homes returned to each winter—on Canada’s frozen lakes and rivers. Set within vast, minimal landscapes, these structures embody quiet beauty and cultural significance, evoking isolation, nostalgia, and a deep sense of belonging. Each shack marks a return: to familiar ice, to memory, and to a way of life shaped by season and repetition.
I am drawn to uncovering truth and beauty beneath the surface, elevating the seemingly mundane through careful attention to land and light. These are places I revisit year after year, shaping both the photographs and my evolving understanding of identity and home.
As winters warm and ice grows thinner, this tradition faces an uncertain future. The work asks what happens when a place can no longer be returned to in the same way. Captured on medium-format film across Ontario and Québec, this ongoing series may become a document of a disappearing subculture—a fragile threshold where resilience, ritual, and memory converge.
