North Via South: Near North

We’ve been following Magda Biernat and Ian Webster this past year, as they’ve travelled from Antarctica to Alaska. This week, we checked in with the couple in Canada, near the end of their journey.>

As we travelled further north, the sun began to hug the horizon, barely rising high enough to cast full daylight on Canada at the edge of winter. We drove thirty-four hundred miles across this vast country, from northwestern Ontario up to the Yukon, exploiting the six hours of sunlight a day. The thermometer dipped to eleven degrees below zero, and we began to question the sanity of driving through the boreal forests in winter. The structures we passed had an air of communion with their landscape, a partnership with the cold and with the resources that the vast expanse of uninhabited land provides. Since eighty per cent of Canadians live within a hundred miles of their southern border, the settlements quickly subside in the north and nature returns to rule all but the thin ribbon of concrete on which we drive.

Above is a slide show of Magda’s photographs, accompanied by Ian’s captions.