Preview

Carol Payne's 'How Shall We Use These Gifts?'

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1310 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Carol Payne's 'How Shall We Use These Gifts?'
Carol Payne, an associate professor of history and photography theories at Carleton University, wrote an article titled “How Shall We Use These Gifts?” Imaging the Land in the National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division, in 2007. Her article was written to examine photographs and photo-essays that were produced by the National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division, during the 1950s and 1960s. The images reflect Canadian landscapes and natural resources. These images reached a large Canadian and international audience, numbering in the millions. In effect, it served as a portrayal as Canada. The purpose of Carol Payne’s essay was to focus on photo-stories that were produced between 1955 and 1969. She argued that …show more content…
These images were taken in Thunder Bay in northern Ontario, featuring Eskimos fishing in the frigid waters. According to Payne, these images presented an entirely different view as compared to the Prairie farm photos. The Eskimos presented in the second set were shown Arctic char fishing. The Eskimos used ancient tools such as spears and the procedures included wading into the cold waters with the fish catches lined up on the water’s edge. Payne utilizes the concept of gaze to illustrate that the concept of colonialism. In the textbook Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, modernity is a term that was used to refer “to the historical, cultural, political, and economic conditions related to the Enlightenment period”. Since Europe played such a major role in the modernization of many other cultures, there was a sense of “paternalistic benevolence” by the Europeans towards the subjects in the colonies. This concept was used by Payne to explain the same paternalistic attitude in the images chosen to represent the Eskimos. She presented the contrast of the farming images where the latest technologies were featured and compared it to those of the aboriginals which gave the impression they were primitive because they merely used basic tools and …show more content…
As stated earlier, I also do not agree that Euro-Canadians feel that they are entitled to use Canada’s vast landforms in any way they desire without regard for the environment. The reason is that although Payne did present an argument that photographs are not fully objective and can be presented with specific viewpoints to show the (and perhaps unconsciously) superiority of Euro-Canadians, there was no evidence presented that showed the NFB viewed this land as theirs to exploit. Another point that I felt was difficult to accept is that the land’s only value is related to what economic benefit it provides to Canada. For example, her photo of the deer wading through the waters of the Rocky Mountains do not portray economic benefit provided to us by the environment, unless it was intended as a statement encouraging maximization of economic tourism benefits. I do agree, whether deliberate or not, that Aboriginals are often presented in a stereotypical manner. Whether this is for paternalistic reasons or just to portray that they have a clean, simple way of life that does not harm our natural resources can be debated. Overall, it was a well-written article that stimulates

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Margaret Atwood, in her short essay “True North,” wants her readers to come away after reading her essay understanding that things have drastically changed from how they used to be and how they are now. Atwood begins to capture her audience’s attention first by reminiscing and recalling her childhood memories of how it used to be in the “old days” in “The North.” “The North,” as she refers to it in her essay, is more commonly known to us as Canada. Atwood then refers to the United States as “The South.” She begins to describe to her audience of how her childhood summers began with traveling through to “the north”, from “the south.” As she recalls her travels she precisely depicts the vastness of how Canada once was a more barren realm inhabited by people with far different views and lifestyles than those of American citizens. Atwood is brought to this mindset of dwelling upon her past because of her current job as a teacher in a college located in Alabama, where she was teaching, ironically enough, Canadian Literature. She rambles through her memories as if they were yesterday and she remembers the various entry points that could be used to enter into Canada and the many small, one industry dependent, folksy, towns she would go through once in Canada. Atwood then goes on to tell the reader about the times when she would take her kids to Canada and they would stay and swim in the lake when there were no boats zooming by in the water and gawk at supposedly “old” trinkets. One of the things that her children marvel over is an old metal icebox. This makes Margaret begin to think about the other things that they used to believe were brand new wonders of their day. As soon as she reflects on this thought she has a revelation. Everything from when she was a young child is now, in fact, changed and has become “old” and she wonders what the future generations will look back on from her present time and classify as some old artifact of amazement from back in the day. She…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The title of this narrative is “Grace is a Gift.” Author Laura Durham wrote this after learning an important lesson about grace.…

    • 123 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    An individual’s experience of belonging is invariably affected by their previous encounters with their environment and the people with whom they interact. This is clearly presented within the texts analysed. In the novel “The Simple Gift” by Steven Herrick the author successfully demonstrates the power of past experiences to both limit and enrich an individual’s sense of belonging to both their surroundings and influential people. Similarly in the poem “Drifters”, Bruce Dawe conveys the idea of constant change preventing people connecting and belong to a community or place.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Deiter, Connie and Darlene Rude. From the Fur Trade to Free Trade: Forestry and First Nations Women in Canada. Ottawa: Status of Women Canada, Saint-Lazare, Quebec,2008. http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.macewan.ca/lib/macewanpubpolicy/docDetail.actio…

    • 2423 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the article “Myths of the North in the Canadian Ethos”, Grant shows that Canadians believe that the northern Canada as a symbol of identity and is able to show their unique culture. Grant also states that, “Most Canadians believe that the north has somehow imparted a unique quality to the character of the nation”(Grant 1990:15). This reveals that the North is the important part of Canada and this also emphasizes our identity. Although the landscapes shown in the film is not exclusively found in Canada, it is the best part of the Canada for Canadian citizens to understand more about our culture deeply through the natural environments.…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “From 1871 to 1877, seven Numbered Treaties were signed between the Canadian Government and the First Nations people who lived between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains” (Arnold 2000, p.207). These treaties were often considered unfair and were not executed by the Canadian Government. The First Nations people received promises from the government that they would have access to natural resources. However, that promise was not kept (Arnold 2000, p. 208). They were also permitted a promise that they could have hunting, fishing, and mineral rights from the Canadian government. Once treaties were signed, settlers began to move across Canada to occupy the lands where the First Nations people had lived (Arnold, 2000, p.207). In the end, the Canadian government should’ve kept their promise to the First Nations people and should have not taken advantage of them because of the fact which they did not understand what was implied in the…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Themes In The Simple Gift

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A sense of Belonging to others and place shapes our position in society through relationship and place…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the simple gift essay

    • 1027 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Belonging can be interpreted in many different manners. It can be a person’s connection with people places, and even ideas. The material that will be encompassing this is the simple gift and as a related text Mr Cheng.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Being one of the first feature length documentaries, it is obvious that Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North’s (1922) emergence served as a great model for all documentaries to come. The way it was structured from beginning to end was all part of the fantastic feel that Flaherty had in store for the world. His obsession with the primitive state and man’s fight for survival against nature’s resilient obstacles is precisely well represented in this film. Flaherty introduces us to a family of five, Nanook, his two wives Nyla and Comock and his two children Alee and Cunayou. As we must know when addressing any of Robert Flaherty’s documentaries, the characters that he has chosen to portray as a family are merely “actors” but there is a difference between these kinds of actor and those from Hollywood. All that he looked for in these individuals when picking them out was a pleasant face and aesthetical form in order to represent the people that he chose to portray as beautiful people. And so, calling these people “actors” is a bit too much, knowing that they themselves live in the same community that is being represented. Nanook of the North is not a Cinema Verité nor is it reportage. It is not a fictional film either but merely a representation of the simplicity and struggles in the everyday life of an inhabitant of this Eskimo population of less than three hundred people all spaced out along the shores of the Hudson bay on the Ungava land “A little kingdom in size nearly as large as England”. Now, obviously most of the traditions that Robert Flaherty chose to represent in his documentary in order to epitomize the Inuit way of living had already disappeared amongst these Eskimos, but that doesn’t mean that these practices were not once used. In order to fully portray his primitive and ideal simplistic theme that is ever so recurrent in his films, he had no space for guns and motorboats. Instead Flaherty…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There’s something about the way trees form a thick canopy over a quiet forest that whispers of barely contained power. The wilderness seems to hold its breath and hide its secrets amidst the incursions of curious humans. However, the lucky few, such as former president Jimmy Carter, are made privy to the innermost workings of Mother Earth’s mysteries through their time in nature. Ink becomes paint, pages become canvases and Carter becomes an artist in his impassioned foreword to, ‘Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, A Photographic Journey’. In an effort to convince readers the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should not be developed for industry, Carter utilizes powerful imagery…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “It is more than four centuries since the Aboriginals, francophones, and anglophones began their complex intercourse in this place. We are one of the oldest democracies in the world—152 years without civil war or coup d'état. Look around at our allies. Compare. Each of us, through birth or immigration brings something new to this experience. We add. We change. But for better and for worse, we do not erase . . . We often say that compromise is a Canadian virtue; that compromise has got us through the difficult situation of our complex population, complex internal geography and complex foreign relations.”…

    • 798 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Aboriginal Inequality

    • 2010 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Aboriginals, which include first nations people, were the first people of Canada however, the treatment they receive today shows otherwise. Aboriginal treaties, Westphalia Treaty of 1648, that were established in Canada in the mid-seventeenth century were used to “harmonize discovery and conquest principles” (Frideres, 2000). The land that Aboriginals occupied was more than just land to them, they felt a connection with Mother Nature and they established roles in their families that helped them create a working community. Without even trying to understand how Aboriginals felt about their treaties and their land the British Common Law abolished Aboriginal…

    • 2010 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    As stated by Marcia Crosby, difference is being encouraged and praised (277). However, this does not change the fact that much of this is still done in North America from a Western perspective, with Western interests. All throughout history, the way the “white man” has interacted with cultures foreign to its own has been very rooted in the way their society did things; women in cultures who wore less clothes were considered crude and sexually available, grass huts and canoes were considered primitive and uncivilized (Kelly 2015). Despite this, the West has always been very much interested in the cultural production of these populations, which stays consistent to the nature of colonialism and imperialism and its colonial history. Crosby discusses how the Western interest in First Nations people extends across history from “dominating or colonizing First Nations people, [their] cultural images and [their] land” to “salvaging, preserving, and reinterpreting material fragments of a supposedly dying native culture for Western “art and culture” collections” (277). From such examples as Captain Cook’s Club gifted by the Nuu-chal-nulth, indigenous works and artifacts are being labelled with unbelievably high prices—the simple club…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blackfeet Tribe Essay

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The photographs taken on the reservation informs us about the Blackfeet tribe’s incorporation of modern materials goods that were often rewarded to them for bringing publicity to the Glaciers National Park during the early 1900s. As shown from the photographs in Going to the Source, it is clear to say that the Blackfeet tribe had no hesitation in embracing the modern material goods presented to them as they would regularly use them in their daily lives. The opportunities given to the Blackfeet Tribe, however, were often their lone way of surviving as they were, at the time, labeled as a “vanishing” population for their drastic decline in numbers.…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    and relationship with, the world around them? You may, if you wish, concentrate on one…

    • 2308 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays