Driftless

The Driftless region is defined by what is missing.

Millennia ago, glaciers scoured the Midwestern United States, gathering debris and depositing it as a blanket of "drift"—filling ravines and valleys as if icing a cake. The areas they skirted remained "driftless," while the world around them was forever changed.

Its topography is ancient. Towering limestone bluffs—remnants of a shallow seabed—were sculpted ten thousand years ago by glacial meltwaters coursing through the Mississippi River and its surrounding waterways. The porous rock is full of springs and caves, and the soil is fertile. For a thousand years, people have cultivated corn here, linking the present to the not-so-distant geologic past.

The work shown here is part of an evolving collection of photographs made in the region. An attempt to capture the history of the place, but as yet, meandering as the rivers and streams that shape it.