Were many of them friends or strangers?

All the women were strangers when I first asked to portrait them but they were also literally my neighbors that I saw every day. I wasn’t parachuting into the situation. Walking a block with a First Nations woman, she would say hello to half a dozen cousins. The sense of camaraderie and family between First Nations people is so amazingly tight; they all shared similar histories, and a certain sense of humor. Life is so tragic for so many that they really enjoy a good laugh amongst the tears. All the women were in the same boat and the men were always bad news: johns, cops, jocks, dealers, pimps, and killers, all out to get them. So they do stick together in a lot of ways, sharing what they have. If one woman had a room, it would often be a sleepover with five on a bed. Some of the worst violence was women having catfights over a $10 rock of cocaine; then the next day you would see them sharing a cigarette wearing their wounds proudly.