It is hard to find somewhere these days where you are completely removed from access to phones, internet or email. In all honesty, I hadn’t set out to fulfill a technological reprieve, but I found myself involuntarily experiencing it when I boarded the M.V. Gulf Spirit fishing vessel as it made its way up the north coast of Vancouver Island, Canada.

I boarded this boat to spend a few days photo documenting the commercial fishing industry in Western Canada. The Gulf Spirit is a 100-foot long seine fishing boat that sets her nets for groundfish such as hake and pollock.

With a crew of four we left Steveston Harbor in the early afternoon. As soon as we pulled away from the dock I realized that time ceased to exist in the same way that it does on land. The clock is now dependent on the net; when it is full and when it needs to be emptied and reset. The crew catches sleep in between this grueling schedule.

I felt guilty that I could sleep through the ringing alram that notifies a full net, and then wake when I was rested to spend the day taking pictures of the fabulous scenery. The scenery was nothing less then breath taking. We were in an inlet that had lush forests on either side. It was completely isolated except for a random helicopter flying overhead to collect logs from a logging camp up inlet.

For five days we saw no other people and had no contact with the outside world, other than the odd radio contact with the fish processing plant. It was like living in a bubble of bliss; completely ignorant of anything happening outside of the 100 feet of space we occupied in the middle of the remote wilderness.

On day five, with the last load caught, and our storage holds full of fish, we made our way back into civilization. As we entered satellite range, I was somewhat annoyed to realize that I was again responsible to respond to the ringing alert of text messages and an inbox of unopened email, things that whilst aboard the Gulf Spirit, seemed to take on no importance whatsoever.