by Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Sep 05/97) - You might say that Austria's Oliver Bolch has a job most of us can only dream of landing.

Bolch, a travel buff and professional photographer, has been hired to spend six months in Canada taking photographs of the country. Next year, they will be published as part of the German Dreamstreets travel publication.

No part of the country will be missed and he arrived in the NWT from Alberta a week ago.

Stopping in Kakisa, the photographer was fortunate enough to stumble upon the annual Deh Cho First Nations annual assembly in Kakisa.

"I couldn't get over the drum dance," the European says with a sparkle in his eye. "I shot three rolls -- the drummers, dancers in the foreground and the fire with the sparkles. It was mystical."

One of those who caught Bolch's eye and will be forever immortalized by his lens was Fort Simpson's Mary Louise Norwegian, who graciously allowed the photographer to spend an extended period taking pictures of her and her crafts display.

For the job, he uses a Nikon camera and he brought four camera bodies and six lenses along. Unfortunately, not all of them have survived the trip.

"I dropped my 400-millimetre lens in the ocean while I was whale-watching off Vancouver Island," he says of his most expensive piece of equipment. "I wanted to jump overboard and get it."

Overall, he expects to shoot more than 300 rolls of color slide film before his Canadian experience ends come mid-December. "I hope it won't be too cold," he says, laughing.

Asked for camera advice, the 30-year-old pauses for a moment before answering. "You need a lot of patience," he says. "I have pictures all ready in mind before I shoot."

Bolch first visited Canada nine years ago and this job has allowed him to travel to the place again that he's been fascinated by since his youth back home.

"When I was kid, I always wanted to have my cabin in Canada and to fish and hunt bears," he says.

A few years later, after taking a photography course in Vienna, Bolch decided to combine his two loves -- photography and travel -- into a job.

He wrote letters to 15 German publishers and received an offer at his fifth interview.

The result?

A trip across the Trans-Siberian Railway and on to New Zealand and Australia.

While Bolch says he wouldn't trade his photography job for anything in the world, he does admits that being a travel photographer does have some drawbacks.

"It's tough to meet a woman at home after they find out you'll only be home for 12 weeks of each year," he says.

It's something he'll just have to work on.