Arriving in this city I’d never visited before was a homecoming. This place, most of a world away from my birthplace, and related to me in no obvious way, was where I belonged. My sore heart rejoiced to be back and my soul was soothed by the familiarity.

There were people living there, nestled between the ocean and the mountains, long before the city of glass and wonders existed. At that time, the tallest man made structures were not skyscrapers, but intricately carved tree trunks. The people who produced these artefacts were, like every other human, storytellers.

They explained the world around them in their myths and legends, and reflected both nature and these tales in their art.

The Raven and the First Men was carved by descendants of these people. It is a visual reminder of the creation myth of the Haida, a First Nations tribe.

One rainy day, I photographed the carving on slow film without a tripod. It was a painfully long exposure.

Raven, trickster though he is, allowed the image. Thus, I am his.