“Chuck Crate was born in Ontario and came west with the Alaska Highway development and has since – except for a stint in the Navy – remained a “”westerner””. Chuck has lived in five provinces-including Saskatchewan-Alberta and British Columbia-and in both territories. Although keenly interested in art from his high school days and active in experimental photography for a number of years-Chuck did not begin his serious work in collage-and-paint until 1975-when teaching on the Blackfoot Reservation. Although he feels that his style is uniquely his own-Chuck feels that he has probably been influenced from many sources-particularly by the European Surrealists de Chirecto-Dali and Max Ernest-by native Indian artists (particularly Beardy)