The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is framed by governments, employers and some academics as a win-win: an affordable labour scheme for Canadian farmers, and a social mobility strategy for Mexico thanks to the millions of dollars in remittances to the country every year.

The idea of family is a central justification to the program's "forced rotation" model in which workers spend most of their year in Canada for decades on end.

But worker's stories - what drives them to participate, how they navigate the risks of the program, and the actual consequences of long-term separation from their families - are invisible to most Canadians and Mexicans. Indeed, those stories are sometimes deliberately obscured to maintain and reinforce the program's status quo, which provides governments and employers with a ready supply of cheap, flexible labour.

The Trans-Canada Highway is one of the longest contiguous stretches of road in the world. If you follow it long enough, you will eventually reach its terminus, marked by a small sign next to an unremarkable wharf extending into the Pacific Ocean. The surrounding town, Tofino, is known - literally and figuratively - as the end of the road. Less than 2,000 people call this community home, living and working at the meeting of land and sea.

Salmon are the lifeblood of the area, feeding the bodies and spirits of both First Nations and settlers alike. In life, they swim far into the ocean, feeding the endangered southern resident killer whales. They return to the coast in the late summer and move into rivers to spawn, their bodies nourishing wolves and bears. In death, their decomposing form fertilizes the earth, feeding the forest that produces the very air we breathe.

But they are at risk of extinction as some salmon stocks have declined by 70 to 93 per cent since the early 90s, resulting in scientists saying some populations could be wiped out within 20 years.

This project aims to illuminate how salmon are intrinsically linked  to the identify of British Columbians. This iconic species is the backbone of the coast, not only for my neighbours, whose lifestyles revolve around their life cycle, but for the estimated 137 species that rely on the surge of protein brought to the rivers by salmon each year. If salmon disappear, so much more will disappear with them.