I've been working on a book project this past year. Wherever I travel I cross people in the street and I have to wonder - what is their dream? Where are they from? Where do they want to go ? Personally, my dream is to share the beauty of the night skies with the world. Originally, I did this style of photography taking people's portraits under the stars, using flash.

Unfortunately you can only see those pure night skies in a particular place .. not all over. As I traveled around, I took it upon myself to photograph people, interview them, and then photoshop them under the aurora borealis & starry nightscapes. Sometimes I meet people in the street. Sometimes people contact me after hearing about the book and want to be specifically photographed for it. Either way I'm happy to share their dream.


Here are a few of the stories from people I've encountered along the way. I usually just record them on an audio app from my phone, or the camera itself (5D mark II).



Photographed just outside of Fort Macleod, Alberta, on the Prairies.
Karl: What is your biggest dream in life ?

Farren: My biggest dream for my life is to operate a therapeutic riding center. My sister is disabled and therapeutic riding was the highlight of her week as a kid; her love of horses and riding is the reason my family moved to an acreage and bought our own horses.

When I was 14 my uncle asked me if I could take his friend riding, she had cancer and was going through chemotherapy - he thought it might help.

After several weeks of trail rides she brought her husband out to ride with us. Upon our return he thanked me for taking his wife riding and explained that she seemed so much happier and more energetic after riding, even though she was sick.

I believe horses are very therapeutic. They don’t speak, just listen. They have positive, safe energy and they can help heal and strengthen our body, mind and soul. My dream is to make people happy, and I want to do that through horses.



Outside CBC office in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

KARL: 'Tell me your dream. '

Vincent: "I want to open the north's first video game
studio. I want to do video games that haven't been
done before. I don't want to do the typical shooters
or the typical cash cow dollar cell phone games. I
want to create things that take completely off the
wall experiences that nobody's ever thought of before
and just make a game out of it. "

KARL: 'Like what?'

Vincent: "I got this giant game going right now called Fleet
Captain. It's going to take a long friken time because
it's just me. Right now we do a podcast almost weekly
- It's called My Stupid Opinion www.mystupidopinion.com - I really want to see this website take off. It's a show about
expressing opinions, sharing views, being with friends
and being able to just talk about serious subjects in
a very light hearted tone.

Along-with the podcast I have a website that I'm working on where it's kind of like a social type app - set subjects on the website
like hot topics - environmentalism, religion, various
news posts. You'll be able to go on the site and tag
your opinion as 'For or Against' .. I sure hope this
doesn't get out before I'm done! Ha ha!"
— at CBC North.



On the shores of Oldman River in Lethbridge, Alberta

KARL: What is your dream?

Sierra Aurora : "I've always wanted to either be a marine biologist and study sea life or study space. basically just discover the unknown ..shooting for marine biologist because they don't really send people to space anymore." — at Lethbridge alberta




Talking with a woman on her porchstep in the Northwest Territories, enroute to Grand Prairie, Alberta.

KARL: ‘Do you think Grand Prairie will take you towards what your dream is in life?’

DREAMER: “Yup, I think so – the woman that we are working with. She has great visions. She works with the community, especially with women, and healing and she’s also very business minded. So she and I seem to have a good synergy. She’s just acquired this spa that a friend of hers is giving up so we’re going to take it over. She’s going to keep the spa part of it but we’re going to make it a more holistic center. Yoga, dance, energy work, massage, who knows – we’ll do workshops there, weekend retreats, all sorts of fun stuff we’ll get to do there. That definitely seems to be in line with the type of work I want to do – which is just integrative healing through yoga, through dance, through circle work, ya’know? Working with the indigenous ways of healing – talking circles and drumming circles. Bringing people together and helping people connect, helping them heal, bringing them back to their authentic selves, and yeah – having fun doing it. Just reconnecting people with the beauty of life and the vibrancy of life, the humanity of life and the rhythm that people seem to be very disconnected from. And the light, and doing shadow work, because it’s really really important to help people work through their shadow stuff so that they can embrace – “

KARL: ‘What is shadow work?’

DREAMER: “Shadow work is just like working with your challenges. Working with traumas, challenges, parts of yourself that you don’t like in your character. Being able to talk about it. Doing your self work where you’re focusing on yourself and being like “Okay I’m like this. And able to talk about it, able to see it, and start being able to transform it. Because those are the places where we have blockages in our life mission. So when you start working with your shadow self you start to break down what it is and you can move further into your life path. It’s like so many therapies. I tend to focus more on shadow stuff because many people don’t like to talk about the hard stuff.

May is very like that too, she wants to bring awareness to the things that people aren’t talking about, especially with youth in Grand Prairie. Date rape drugs and all of those things. The bullying and the dark stuff that can target teens and making it a conversation. It’s just like in most families you don’t talk about abuse in the family until you start bigger conversations about it that people start to realize we have to talk about it in order to help heal. But it’s not easy because many people don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff. So you know, anything in line with that.. my dream.. it keeps evolving. I’m sure my dreams will keep evolving with it.

KARL: ‘That’s a very noble dream.’

DREAMER: “I guess it’s just what I’m drawn to. You kind of just have to follow what you’re good at and follow your passion – I’ve always tried to do that. If it works for people it works and if it helps it helps, I make sure I stay on my path.”



Featuring a Politician from the NWT outside his constituency office.

Went out for a cup of tea, this snowy afternoon, and I was asked by someone if I would do a Christmas card portrait for him and his wife. I said ' sure, give me 10 minutes.

"Hey, I'm doing a book right now called Pursuit of Dreamers - I'm wandering around ‪#‎Canada‬ asking people what their dream is. Would you be interested in participating ?"

He said OK, & so I asked: "What is your wildest dream ?"

'I'd like to bike around the world.'



I ran into brother John D at the overlook of a river in Fort Smith, NWT, one cloudy day. He was on his bike and I just walked up to him and asked him :

KARL: "What is your dream?"

JOHN: 'To experience Eternity...'

KARL: "You've probably seen this spot over the last 60 years in all kinds of different contexts"

JOHN: Well, every moment is unique. We are in eternity. Our minds, our spirits, our Spirits work through our minds. And our minds are material..and they are discovering how the brain is working, how its processing things. Its coming from the spirit world and its going through this material world. And we're reduced, our perception is reduced to our five senses.

The spirit world doesn't have any limits, there is no senses involved and we see things as they are, and we're not limited by moment by moment which are required by the human beings. We are in eternity. We can't grasp it because we are trapped in our bodies. I want out of my body. I want -

KARL: 'to experience eternity.'

JOHN:“yeah!!.. experience the source of all this grandeur that we see. A moment at a time. A moment at a time. And You can travel for a lifetime and barely touch the surface of one planet. In the universe there is.. countless stars..planets..glories..reality makes perfect sense.




Fae Leah’s Dream

In front of a health cafe in Fort Smith, NT.

Karl: “What is your dream?”

Fae Leah: “I have a lot of dreams, but I know that my biggest dream is essentially to see the dismantling of industrial civilization.

I know that it is inherently destructive and completely unsustainable and operates on hierarchies of privilege. There are many others who are less privileged who feel the impacts of this industrialized way of life a lot more deeply than we do.

Speaking for myself, I’m quite insulated in the grand scheme of things. With the ever accelerating need for finite resources and the stuff that we’re seeing now with drilling into the arctic, offshore drilling, tailing pond spills and massive, massive devastation.

I think that, ultimately, it will be a lot less messy if we bring it all down ourselves. I’m not deluded in terms of recognizing how this is going to look. I get that it is very serious and very messy. It is something I want to be a part of and something I want to see happen.

It’s been a very big factor in me having my own children. This really grave concern of; what are we going to leave for future generations?

So to see something – like the phoenix arising from the ashes – to see something emerge from this way of life. And have these sort of reciprocal communities that take over, that recognize the intrinsic worth of everything and the sacredness of ALL life, and that ripple effect – that regardless of whether you are on the top and reaping the benefits, there is no other planet – y’know?

At some point this can’t go on. It’s baffling to me because it isn’t rocket science, and there are so many people who don’t seem to really get it. I think it goes back to being insulated from privilege.

I would say by-and-large my biggest dream is to see the dismantling of this system and something that takes its place that is far more reciprocal and recognizes the sacredness of all life and isn’t founded on hierarchies of exploitation and oppression.”




Jodi’s Dream

A conversation with a young woman, in front of Fort Smith Recreation center, who is  going through the change from a man to a woman.

Karl: “What is your dream?”

Jodi: (laughs) “It’s kind of hard to answer. Before I had a difficult, unrealistic dream: one world religion, world peace and all that crap…and I find, it’s become a little closer to home, something I can achieve.

Obviously, I’m a little bit different compared to most people…and I’m part of a very small minority, which has a bad view as it is.

I’d like to be one of the people who change people’s view of what I am, what we mean as people. And so basically, I want to be successful. I want people to look at me and think I am respectable.”

Karl: “Well, I think you are for sure…I think when I first heard…I thought: ‘Good for her’. Truly. It takes a lot of guts to be WHO you are, and really not only WHAT but WHO you are inside.

I think you are respectable; for working towards your vision, you know? Whatever that vision is…it is really cool.”