Hancock Woodlands is a ten-acre property in Mississauga planted and maintained by generations of the Hancock family. It was created by Leslie and Dorothy Hancock in the 1930s when they launched a nursery to propagate ornamentals from South East Asia. Today this woodland has become a park and is a wonderful example of a Carolinian forest with azaleas and rhododendrons under the canopy. 

During the Second World War, the Hancock family converted their office/garage into a bunkhouse for use by Japanese workers employed at the nurseries to save them from Canada’s internment camps. Recently, the city of Mississauga acquired the land and it has been made into a public multi-use park. I began photographing this site over thirty years ago in black and white with my Widelux film camera. Chromogenic panoramic images, edition of three at 24"x14", or 20"x35".

I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, the original peoples of Menecing now known as the Toronto Islands where I work and live.