Forest Glen, 1975
2015.01.26
George Thomas is an artist and photographer who lives in Nantucket (USA) and Inverness, Cape Breton. In 1963 he was a documentary photographer for Operation Crossroads-Africa and the Peace Corps in Africa. Between 1966-71 he was Assistant Professor of photography at MIT. In 1980 he photographed and published the book, “Margaree, Photographs of Cape Breton.”
Between 1971 and 1979, Thomas photographed various families of back-to-the-landers, and American immigrants, who lived in western Cape Breton. Thomas originally intended to develop this large body of work as a book, a project that was never realized. However, some of the images did appear in back-to-the-land publications such as Harrowsmith’s Almanac, or as promotional images for products like furniture and woodstoves.
During the 1970s, close to one million young people across North America moved “back-to-the-land.” Informed by a shared critique of consumer culture, the Vietnam War, and the often-oppressive effects of mass media, this generation sought to live in ways that were self-reliant and better attuned to the natural world. Many of these people acquired small farms and began new lives in places like Cape Breton, P.E.I., and other parts of Atlantic Canada.
Image: Peter Watt and Heather Herington, in front of the tipi that they lived in while they built their octagonal log house in Forest Glen.