A member of the First Nations, Mary left her reserve thirty years ago and has lived on the streets ever since. She shares her life with Bob. For a year, photojournalist Stephan Thomas followed their wanderings in the struggle to survive, and what endures despite the street: tenderness, humor, faith.
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The story
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Bob and Mary, two Indigenous people experiencing homelessness, followed over the course of a year. Like many Indigenous people from the far north, they are internally displaced by essence.
Bob, the morning after a street fight — sometimes necessary to survive the night.
Mary sits with her hands behind her head wearing a brown jacket.
Peeling wood siding and a graffiti-tagged door left open into darkness.
Bob holds Mary close, a Christian gold cross pendant between them.
A snow-buried basketball court lit by two wall-mounted lamps in Montreal.
Bob looks out through the metro station window at the snowy air grid where he will sleep tonight.
Bob lifts his shirt to show his tattoos while sitting on a sidewalk beside Mary.
Mary and Gary (Mary's son) sit on a bench outside a restaurant with takeout food, praying. Bob was incarcerated a few weeks before for murder.