Taylor Roades (b. 1990) is a Canadian documentary photographer based in Victoria, British Columbia. Her work is grounded in place and the natural sciences, exploring our connection to land, culture, climate and the environment.






































































  
         










Skye and John | Clam Gardens

Photographed: 2020
Published: October 2020 Eating Well Magazine
Location:  Victoria, British Columbia

For thousands of years First Nations in the pacific northwest have developed specific techniques to harvest clams on the shores here. Butter clams. Littlenecks. Cockles. John Elliott is an elder advisor to the W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership and together with Skye Augustine, the project manager for the Sea Garden Restoration Project and now a doctoral candidate spoke to Eating Well Magazine about bringing Russell Islands’ Clam Gardens back to life.









Friba Rezayee teaches judo to women and children in Vancouver. She’s also a relentless advocate for gender equity in Afghanistan, where she was born and raised.

I’ve always believed, even as a child, that if you are born, you have the right to exist, to learn, to play sports,” she says. “I believe that human rights and women’s rights are innate, and we should have the right to practice and enjoy them.”

In 2011, Rezayee immigrated to Canada as a refugee, and a few years later she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of British Columbia. Her eyes and heart remained focused on Afghanistan.

In 2021 she incorporated her nonprofit, Women Leaders of Tomorrow, an organization dedicated to securing educational and sports opportunities for Afghan women and girls. “We advocate and work tirelessly,” she says of WLOT’s board, staff and volunteers. 

Since its inception, the organization has secured 20 scholarships for Afghan women and girls to come to Canada to study and has helped Afghan athletes further their education at home and abroad. 



Friba Razayee |  Afghanistan’s First Female Olympic Athlete

Photographed:  February 2024
Published: Best Health Magazine 
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia

In 2004, when Afghanistan was welcomed to the Summer Olympic Games in Athens after being blacklisted during the Taliban regime, Rezayee made history at 18 as one of the first two female Olympic athletes from her home country. 

“My participation brought Afghanistan back into the world sports arena,” she says. “It was as if a door had been opened for the next generation of women and girls to play sports and participate.”









Brooke Semple | Artist 

Photographed: June 2024
Location: Victoria British Columbia


Hereditary Chief TELAXTEN, Paul Sam Sr. of Tsartlip First Nation, is one of the W̱SÁNEĆ hereditary chiefs who say they haven’t heard any movement from the federal government on their assertion of Treaty Rights to fish and their demand for a moratorium on the commercial herring fishery in the Georgia Strait.
SXÁLIYE, Tsawout Hereditary Chief Vernon Harry, said herring are “vital to the health of our people.” 
Tsawout Hereditary Chief Eric Pelkey, or WIĆKINEM, says herring spawns used to be common in the Saanich Peninsula but now his people have to venture further out to harvest. The herring spawn of the Georgia Strait is the “last gasp” in the territory, he says



W̱SÁNEĆ Hereditary Chiefs Protect Herring in Salish Sea

Photographed November 2025
Location: Vancouver Island, Canada

W̱SÁNEĆ hereditary chiefs are urgently trying to get a fishing moratorium in place, for B.C.’s commercial herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia. They signed a declaration calling for a 20-year closure to allow herring to recover in November of 2024. They are asserting their rights to fish as they did before contact, as protected in the Douglas Treaty and maintaining W̱SÁNEĆ Title.

Before contact, First Nations had access to herring year round, herring provided a big feast in the spring, while smoked and dried fish lasted through the winter and served as a trade item.Even in his own youth, WIĆKINEM recalls, fish were plentiful in the area. Right into the 1970s, herring was still a reliable food source. Then, the decline began. “Every year the spawning got worse until there was nothing,” he says.

    




    


John Fyfe |  Senior Research Scientist with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis

Photographed:  August 2021
Published: The Narwhal
Location: Victoria, British Columbia

“We’ve known for decades the earth is warming. We’ve known of these impacts. What we predicted 20 to 30 years ago with our climate models have now been realized. So we’re in a situation of no particular surprise to me personally.

My emotions are probably no different from anybody else’s: it’s concerning and distressing.”








Scientist Amy Tabata |  E-DNA Research Team

Photographed:  October 2017
Published: The Narwhal
Location: Central Coast, British Columbia
Scientist Amy Tabata records coordinates of a water sample taken off the central coast of British Columbia, Canada. Using gene sequencing, scientists are able to paint a much fuller picture of which marine species are where, simply by testing the water. 

The practice, used in Canada since around 2013, is helping environmental managers get a more accurate sense of what species live in or migrate through a specific region and — rather than relying on difficult, expensive and, at-times, flawed use of by-catch or radar techniques — the capture of eDNA is as simple as tipping a cup off the side of your boat.

    

Pauquachin Chief Rebecca David

Published: The Globe and Mail
Location: Pauquachin, Territory
The federal group in charge of testing the safety of coastal waters, the Canadian Sanitary Shellfish Program, declared Cole’s Bays waters too polluted in 1997. For 26 years nothing has been done to address it. David says this is unacceptable and is standing up to the federal government.


















Healthcare and Science Portraits


Location: Toronto, Victoria, Vancouver, Canada




Col. Chris Hadfield | Astronaut

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia Canada


Dance Instructor | CUPE 79

Location: Toronto, Canada





Albert Van Wijngaarden | Real Ice 
Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

Location: Cambridge Bay Nunavut






Maddy Macdonald | Best Friend

Location: Patagonia




Heiltsuk Hereditary Chief Harvey Humchitt

Location: Bella Bella, British Columbia Canada








Painter Robert Bateman

Location: Saltspring Island, BC





Jacinda Mack | Water Activist

Location: Victoria British Columbia











Judy Thomas | Retired Forester

Location: Prince George, British Columbia




John Eis | Former Fisheries Observers

Location: Victoria British Columbia
Published: The Narwhal 

Jon Eis was one of 11 current or former fisheries observers who came forward to speak to the abuses observers face out at sea. Fisheries observers are responsible for monitoring bycatch on industrial trawlers off the b.C. Coast. Bottom trawl fishing involves dragging a net through the seabed, harvesting a variety of fish that live near the bottom of the ocean, including pacific cod, hake, rockfish and pollock. 

Yet an imperfect system means observers — whose reports could result in a shut down of a boat or the entire industry — are vulnerable to intimidation from ship skippers and crew members. Not enough is being done to protect them from this harassment while at sea, which results in the vast and systematic under-reporting of deep-sea fish harvested.