Shooting film of abandoned train tracks near his home in Port Sydney, filmmaker Sandy McLennan struck upon a simple idea for an art project that would lead him on a cross-Canada adventure.
He envisioned a journey in which he would research the existence of the surviving passenger trains in Canada to which he would travel alone without a crew, interpreter, or an automobile and film. He would reach his often-far-flung destinations only by public transit, riding only on a one-way train ticket, while filming with regular 8mm film on a vintage Bolex H8 Reflex camera, developed and projected with similar historical apparatus.
“It’s not a battery-operated camera I use. I have to wind them up and they only shoot for thirty seconds. You’ve got to operate the lens and the speed of the camera or else the image might not be visible when you develop it,” McLennan explains.
Strengthened by the detailed plans for his undertaking, inspired by a “sleeper car train ride through the Rockies when I was ten years old” with his mother, McLennan proceeded to the arduous task of outlining his scheme for a grant submission to The Canada Council for the Arts and based on the scope and breadth of his submission, his grant proposal was accepted.
At the heart of McLennan’s odyssey was this question: What remains of the vast rail system so foundational to the opening up of Canada to settlement and commerce and what would he find, document, and experience? In the fifty years since his mother opened his eyes to the world through a train ride, much has changed in the modern world. What could he capture through the lenses of his vintage gear, his older self, and his maturity as an artist?
Sandy’s love for film began when he was very young. “We had a double eight-millimetre film camera at home. My mother and father would shoot movies and they were available to be projected on the wall. That’s kind of where I fell in love with it. Loading up the projector, showing the films on the wall and some of the content was (from)when I wasn’t even born. There was this intrigue. What do these films show? They were an evocation of another time and place, by bouncing light off the wall.”
In 1981 he trained in Media Arts at Sheridan College and later embarked on a career in public education as an audio/visual technician, teaching and assisting students in photography and darkroom techniques. McLennan kept his love for film alive throughout his academic profession with arcane methods such as taking pictures using hand-made pin-hole cameras and continuing his passion for “diary films.” His resume of exhibitions and completed films is extremely impressive, displaying dexterity with a wide application of diverse technologies, or what McLennan pronounces as the “Right tools at the right time.”
‘My Canada Train Journey’, the title McLennan ascribed to his endeavour, began on a remote passenger train from Senneterre, Quebec to Montreal, early this summer. The fourteen-hour trip set the tone for the various rail lines he had discovered in search for still operating “commuter” trains, as he refers to them.
Often the only passenger, McLennan was confronted by the challenges both physically and emotionally that travellers face while traversing remote uninhabited forest lands, but also by the task of filming with double 8mm / Super 8 film stock on sixty-year-old cameras and relying only on his knowledge and skill to guide him. Without a darkroom, he couldn’t really be sure if his shots would produce imagery.
In stages, Sandy has travelled from his home across Canada’s enormous spaces, often on unfamiliar passenger lines, finalizing his shooting schedule by late summer, 2023. A highlight of his expedition was boarding “the Tshiuetin train owned and operated by “the Montagnais” from Uashat mak Mani-Utenam and Matimekoch/Lac John as well as “the Naskapis” from Kawawachicamach.
“I was the only ‘tourist,’” so it was a treat to be among families and workers, with almost all stops at hunt/fish camps and hydro/mining stations. The majority of travellers were going to Sept Isles for personal or perhaps work reasons. There’s no road to Schefferville, so besides expensive flights, the train is the only way for a family to get out and back.”
With a grant funding his work, a mother who taught him French which enabled him to converse with diverse peoples in distant locales, his passion for rare film stock and darkroom processing, and his recognition and personal awareness of how thrilling, expansive, and friendly strangers on a train can be, McLennan is indeed a “fortunate fellow,” as he describes himself.
“There’s a story in front of you all the time. So, I make myself available to the world of images, so what the eye sees is personal and what your head is thinking at the time, your mood, is personal too. Even though it’s a documentary of a plant or a railway track, it’s coming through my eye, my mood.” McLennan points out that the final outcome is more than light passing through a camera lens onto a medium. It’s about the art of seeing.
Find out more about McLennan and his works at: https://sandymclennan.com/
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