spearin:

Graduation Pow wow at the University of Saskatchewan

thesheaf:

Canada Post today issued three new stamps as part of the Art Canada series. These particular stamps are based on the work of Saskatchewan sculptor Joe Fafard. 

Fafard has received numerous honours for his work, including being named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981. He is well known for his cows and currently lives on an acreage near Lumsden, Sask.

Andrew photographed a snowy owl near Colonsay at dawn on Sunday morning.

spearin:

I photographed a snowy owl at dawn today near Colonsay, Saskatchewan.

Unfortunately this is as close as I could get, with a 300mm plus 1.4x extender. Stalked him through a farmer’s field, and fortunately it wasn’t a typical frigid prairie morning.

Dropping Colours: Breaking from gangs is a matter of life and death.

By Charles Hamilton, Bridges

Photos by Andrew Spearin

One frigid January morning, Brad Christianson woke up in his own bed, knowing he would fall asleep that night in the confines of the Saskatoon Correctional Centre.

The evening before his sentencing, he had a tattoo inscribed on the inside of his right forearm that read: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

The tattoo is a permanent resignation, a symbolic end to his life as a Saskatoon gangster.

Christianson joined his first gang when he was 14-years old. Six months later he was doing his first stint in prison.

He has a sordid history of selling drugs and possessing weapons. He has been charged at least five times for break-ins.

“You can be a good gangster, you can be good at stabbing people, you can be good at robbing people; no matter what you want to do you can be good at it,” he tells a group of Grade 11

students, many of them noticably emotional as he gives his presentation. “But if you are going to gang bang you are going to jail. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when.”

At age 23, he barely looks older than a teenager. He wears baggy clothes and a baseball cap rests loosely on top of his head. This, despite the fact he has spent six of his last nine years in prison — first in Kilburn Hall then the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, where he was transferred on his 18th birthday.

It’s the day before his court appearance and Christianson is sitting on a couch at the back of a classroom at Holy Cross high school. He is spending his last day of freedom with these students, hoping to convey to them the brutal reality of gang life.

“I used to drive over here and park behind the hockey rink and sell dope out of my car,” he says, almost beneath his breathe, before making his presentation.

He pulls up the sleeve of his baggy skateboard hoodie to reveal another of his recent tattoos. In jagged script is the moniker of his new-found brotherhood, Str8 Up.

“It’s all or nothing,” he says. “It’s either you’re 100 per cent gang banger or 100 per cent working man, trying to make his life better.”

Read more…

Photo essay by Andrew Spearin for next week’s Bridges cover story about former Saskatchewan gang members in the STR8 UP program founded by former prison chaplain Father Andre.

spearin:

Former gang members (with the exception of one who still is involved in gang activity… guess which one…) in Saskatchewan who have joined a program called STR8 UP, founded by former prison chaplain Father Andre, to withdraw their colours and leave the gang lifestyle behind. All have been to prison. One was sentenced to five more years in prison for weapons charges the day after I took his photo.

Photos by Andrew Spearin / The StarPhoenix