At the time I thought: “Here’s a personal project I can sink my teeth into outside of my job and freelance work, and maybe spend a year on.” I’ve now been visiting Hutterite colonies for more than 15 years – a few dozen of them so far.
Low point: “The deterioration of photojournalism as a viable career, especially in Canada, feels like a continual low point that gets lower every year.
When this photograph was taken, in 2015, I think they had around 11,000 chickens, and every able-bodied person in the community helped out in the two days of butchering.
But there’s clearly a huge draw to the kind of community life Hutterites practice – that closeness, not having to worry about losing wages if you get sick, or who’s going to take care of you.
He said: “If you help out in the morning, you can photograph in the afternoon.” The chickens are stunned with an electric rod, then decapitated, then they go in a big drum that removes all the feathers before the carcass goes down a sort of assembly line to be cleaned and packaged to be frozen.
