The wild west of Canada: Images capture isolation of the country's forgotten rural towns


After Thomas Gardiner left his small town in western Canada to go to college in New York, he began feeling a nostalgia for the people and landscapes of his country.



The remote towns of his youth in western Canada with their harsh winters and economies based on the area's abundant natural resources such as mining, oil and gas began to take on a new perspective for the Yale graduate.



His photographs represent the places he lived as a child and coming back, he viewed small towns and communities differently when he considered their relationship to the big cities.



'I began to consider their social, economic, and geographic relationships to major metropolitan centers,' he says.



Gardiner's photographs, taken with an 8x10 camera, depict a somewhat surreal vision, the trailer parks and smokestacks forming a strangely picturesque backdrops for the varied human life.



'I always got the sense of isolation living out there, being outside of the big cities. I think that maybe propels a sort of culture,' Gardiner told Slate.



His work will be next displayed at One Eyed Jacks gallery in Brighton in January.



Dennis: Gardiner met Dennis in Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, after taking an interest in his collection of mechanical objects

Village of the dammed: Seven Mile Dam is a concrete gravity-type hydroelectric dam on the Pend d'Oreille River in British Columbia

Empty lot: A parking lot on Broad St, Regina. The city was destroyed by a cyclone in 1912, and the 1930s brought drought, the Regina riots and the Great Depression

Being watched: A big cat stares out the window and a once-plush sofa sags on the grass of this house in Regina, Saskatchewan

Dumping ground: Gardiner's old friend Jerry climbs on the back of a truck at the dump in Regina, Saskatchewan

Childhood friend: Gardiner photographed his longtime friend, Kuntz, in the kitchen of his home drinking a beer

Grandmother's home: Gardiner shot photographs of this old wreck of a car in the alley behind his grandmother's house in Trail, British Columbia

Wild west: A four-day country music festival called the Craven Country Jamboree brings more than 23,000 people to Craven, Saskatchewan