The Hutterites

Life on southern Alberta’s Little Bow Hutterite Colony is much like that on the nearly 350 colonies that dot the landscape of western Canada. The Hutterites believe that the essential values of their faith will be best preserved in the rural isolation of their small communities. In the late 1990s the people of Little Bow Colony were told that they would have to move. A major dam and water diversion project would eventually see the place where their houses and barns and church stood submerged under 100 feet of water. After hearing this I made a trip to the colony on Easter Sunday 1999. It took time win the trust of the community. I started slowly, initially photographing only the building and animals. After several months I became a familiar and welcomed guest and eventually a friend to the people of Little Bow. A powerful bond of intimacy can be seen in the photographs I was able to make until the colony was abandoned in the spring of 2002.