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NANCY JACOB ARCHIVES

 
 

WHAT IS DRI-KI?

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“Dri-Ki” is a term loggers coined to refer to the scraps they left behind after harvesting - short for “dry kindling”.

Over the years, these weathered scraps have come to resemble driftwood. Some pieces sit on shores of lakes where logging operations happened and some pieces sank into lakes and continue to surface. These days, Dri-Ki is collected and sold on Route #1 or Route #27 as souvenirs used for home and landscaping decoration. Some is burnt for campfires. They are disappearing pieces of our past, as they are removed from the shores and lakes where they fell or surfaced.

Enter a mystical world of nostalgic memories - a Land that has surely twisted hearts and tested strengths since the Ice Age. A land inhabited by Gods and too rugged for casual entrance. It took logging roads, strong men and the logging industry to bring non-natives to touch that Spirit. The Dri-Ki in these photographs have Power. The Spirit of the Land, though cut over and at times seeming desolate, endures. The Tribe of the Dri-Ki speak beyond temporal life on earth. They show us strength through endurance by example.

Logging companies own two-thirds of Maine. Logging pioneered this look. Regardless of how we use our earth, regardless of how we see our environment, we find what we need from the Creator. All is not lost if it evokes our dreaming. I have spent much time in these haunts in daydreaming visits.

I have taken these photos soundly in the belief that the beauty and power of nature is not lost through seeming devastation. It is beautiful.