Shore Road

2012 - 2016

Shore Road examines the idea of a strong regional identity forged in a part of Canada with a deep connection to living at the ocean's edge. Over the course of five years, Peter visited the coastal areas of the Canadian Maritimes, documenting while exploring questions of how people relate to the places they inhabit, what it reveals about us collectively, and what it means specifically to be living on the coast of Atlantic Canada.

As with any place where people settle, the built environment represents a necessary response to a particular natural environment. Here, both land and sea depict this environment, and as happens over time, the relationship to place becomes deep, turning from a predominately pragmatic one to more of an emotional one. This region is not an economic powerhouse, and in certain respects feels like it has been forgotten by the modern progress recently enjoyed by other developed parts of the world, but it is by no means a poor region; its pragmatism perhaps leading to a closer connection and respect for its land.

On the surface, Shore Road is a visual survey of the region, but the observations reach deeper, touching on the grounding force of nature and the passage of time as central forces, sometimes advancing and sometimes leaving communities behind. The unassuming shore roads that connected the early settlers living mostly off the sea, over time become a connector of another kind: as the roads follow the contours of the shore, snaking along and linking one coastal community to the next, they fuse and reinforce a greater shared identity of a rooted maritime region.