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Tyee Photo Essay

Portraits of a Province at Work

Reader-submitted photos capture British Columbia on the job.

By Shannon Smart, 5 Sep 2011, TheTyee.ca

  • Men scale Canada Place sail

    Workers touch the sky from the roof of Canada Place in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Photo by Douglas Williams.

  • A steam devil boils in Gastown

    "Gentrification steamrolls through the heart of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside," writes The Blackbird in the caption in Flickr. The steamroller was turning Vancouver's Carrall St. into a bikeway.

  • Logging operations

    They've obviously been working hard, but photographer Hans Peter Meyer manages to get a smile out of at least some of these forest industry workers in Mt. Waddington, B.C.

  • A policeman texting

    Knightbefore_99 calls this one "Two Thumbs of the Law."

  • Looking down the shaft of a crane

    Going vertical isn't the preferred career path for everyone, but our photo pool contributor, okanaganboy, doesn't seem to mind heights.

  • Woman working in a diner

    Few work harder than those who run a diner. In this shot, rick forgo captures half-full condiments, stainless steel warming trays, and a woman with her back to the customers. Classic. Image by .

  • Woman pushing wheelbarrow

    Bruce Dean's "Working Girl" looks like she means business.

  • Man carving sticks

    At the Prince George Farmers' Market, DJHuber captures a local artisan hard at work.

  • In the future, Labour Day photo essay

    In the past, you might have thought this. Photograph by Space of Imagination.

  • Spray painting graffitti

    Graffiti artists get creative in Victoria, B.C. Image by Lotus Johnson.

  • Dawna Friesen, Global News, Kamloops, Labour Day photo essay

    Dawna Friesen films on-location in Kelowna for Global TV. Photograph by Jason Drury.

  • Man pushing cart with bottles and cans

    Collecting bottles and cans. Photograph by popeye logic.

  • Office worker with coffee thermos

    Ah, coffee: the source of this office-worker's strength, captured in this image by Lawrence.

  • Helicopter and forest fire

    Getting ready to fight fires from the air near Golden, B.C. By Vertically Inclined.

  • Welders on the new Port Mann bridge

    Welders on the new Port Mann Bridge. Image by Roger.

  • Flower farmer in field in front of barn

    On a clear April day, Tobe takes in the daffodil rows at Saanichton's Vantreight Farms. Photographed by Jane Boles.

  • BC Fruit Packers Cooperative shut down

    Jeremy Hiebert's photograph highlights the lack of labour in a formerly bustling part of the province. In Summerland, he notes, about 100 people lost their jobs when the BC Fruit Packers Cooperative closed their facility there.

  • Barista, Labour Day photo essay

    Really. What collection of work-related photos from B.C. would be complete without the obligatory barista pic? Photograph taken in Richmond by Andriy M.

  • Office workers in convention centre

    The Vancouver Convention Centre makes for a picture-perfect work environment. Photo by picaday.

  • Man painting paintings

    No water cooler chatter or dingy cubicle for this guy. This photograph, by The Photography Elf, catches an artist selling his work in Vancouver's Gastown.

  • A woman drags trash in Chinatown

    Popeye logic calls this one, "Work, the old fashioned way."

  • Tugboat on the mighty Fraser

    The Dorothy MacKenzie 2 works a log boom on the Fraser River off Burnaby's Foreshore Park. Photo by Glenbucket1.

Whether you spent July and August working hard or hardly working, September means it's back to the daily grind. And so for Labour Day, The Tyee's staff mined Your BC: The Tyee's Flickr Photo Pool for reader-submitted pictures about working life in British Columbia.

As usual, the talented photographers that contribute to pool didn't let us down. We found more beautiful, employment-related pictures than we could fit into one photo essay. From shots of chalk and graffiti artists at work on urban streets, to airborne firefighters, we've got 'em. From pouring espresso to soldering steel, it's all in here.

We hope these images inspire (and perhaps pacify) you, dear readers, as the harsh realities of bills-to-pay and mouths-to-feed eradicate any lingering glow you have left from this year's too-short summer.  [Tyee]

5  Comments:

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  • mcwar52

    37 weeks ago

    Labour Day Photo

    Too bad the Labour Day Photo has to be of site where workers were "represented" by undemocratic, pseudo-union CLAC [Christian Labour Association of Canada]. It is especially ironic because a worker was killed on this site on December 2, 2010. About half an hour earlier, on the same day, another worker was seriously injured and later died on another downtown project run by the same prime contractor, Ledcor, and so "represented" by the same pseudo-union.

    Unfortunately, this reflects the truth of the current situation for workers in B.C., a hostile government which enacts labour legislation allowing employer-friendly unions the mask of legitimacy and which puts worker safety a very distant second to employer profits.

    When the Liberals came to power, they gutted, among other things, the Workers' Compensation Act. As a result, the B.C. construction industry fatality rate is twice that of Ontario and the lost-time injury rate is 71% higher than the Canadian average.

    Good photo, tragic context, happy Labour Day, British Columbia.

  • David Beers

    37 weeks ago

    Administrator

    there are 22 photos, not just the one

    mcwar52, thanks for the comment. just a note to say that the photo you see with this story isn't 'the Labour Day photo' but rather one of 22 taken by our readers. You can click through to see them all.

  • hankster

    37 weeks ago

    A few more pics

    Hi TheTyee, I'm working on a book about the coastal forest industry, "Working in the Woods Today, the Coastal Forest Industry in the 21st Century." Here's the Flickr slideshow: http://ht.ly/5QRUU

    TheTyee has featured a few of my pics in the past. Thanks!
    hpm

  • tony Puddicombe

    37 weeks ago

    mcwar52 COMMENT ON lABOUR DAY PHOTO

    I worked as a carpenter with the carpenter's union in 1980-81. I am in very much in favour of unions as a useful organization for health and safety,wages, etc. However, at that time the construction sector was booming and our union executives sat on their asses and did not go out recruiting enough.You need to constantly talk to new workers to emphasize the use of unions.What happened? Young workers said -I dont need a union- what use are they? The strength of unions dwindled and today they are much weaker.

  • Ginger Goodwin

    37 weeks ago

    Beautiful pics all around

    Thanks for this.

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