Ten Generations Then an Artist: The Susan A. Ross Story (Softcover)

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By: James R Stevens

The late Canadian artist Susan Andrina Ross left art lovers an indelible record of images of the country’s far north; of the boreal forest, the barrens and the ice-bound arctic. Her gift to Canada is unparalleled by other, more well-known artists in North America. She arrived with her sketch books, paints, and easel when the northern regions were transitioning. Ancient culture was quickly submitting to the efficient appeal of westernization; gasoline and propane replacing whale and seal oil, snow machines faster than dog teams, prefab buildings trumping igloos and log homes in the boreal forest, and herbal remedies forgotten in the face of penicillin. The changes among Inuit and Indigenous families from the Seven River Flowing into the Hudson Bay north to Baffin Island were arriving on government-built runways. It seems remarkable now that a 48-year-old artist with a husband and four children would begin such a journey into the Aboriginal world in Canada. The creative record that she left of changing northern culture is a gift to us all.