Medicine River Photographic Expedition

About twenty-five years ago or so, I talked my brother into roaming around Canada and the U.S. with me, as I set about to emulate Edward Curtis’ turn of the century travels into Indian country. Curtis was concerned that Indians were going to disappear, and he wanted to capture images of these “wild and untamed” folk before the tribes vanished from the earth. 

As we did not vanish, I thought it might be fun to do an extensive, contemporary portrait series of Native artists. 

So, Chris and I traveled around the countryside, meeting artists, taking pictures, sharing stories. I called the project The Medicine River Photographic Expedition for no better reason than my first novel was called Medicine River and the main character was a photographer.

The original idea was that these photographs would be turned into a book. That never happened. Photographic books, I discovered, are difficult to get published, I didn’t have a strong enough reputation as a photographer, and worst of all, the Indians I photographed didn’t look like the Indians that Curtis photographed.

In a word, contemporary Native people had been so inconsiderate as to change with the times. Leathers and feathers had been exchanged for jeans and work shirts. Ponies had been replaced by pickup trucks. Turns out contemporary Native people didn’t hold a candle to the stereotype.

So, while you won’t find the portraits in a book, you can find them here. Unfortunately, most of my early images were on film, and while I have been able to digitalize a portion of these photos, I still have a great many left to scan and post.  

Which I will do. As soon as I find the energy to get off my butt and sort through the boxes of negatives waiting for me in the attic.