Boreal Forest

Photography on cotton rag paper.

30.50x24x1"

Limited edition 1 of 10.

It was a Sunday afternoon in November 2016 and we had an American guest staying with us through AirBnb — we were running one from our condo overlooking Great Slave Lake. We decided to take her to see something of the Northwest Territories, so we drove south toward Fort Providence, the closest town to Yellowknife at four hours away. That's life at the 60th parallel.
Along the way, the forest stopped me. A few years earlier a fire had moved through this stretch of boreal, leaving behind blackened trunks and skeletal trees. But that November morning hoar frost had transformed everything — coating every burned branch and frosted grass in white crystal, the mist softening the scene until the trees seemed to float between earth and sky.
I had only ever seen hoar frost like this before at the top of ski mountains in Vermont. Here it was simply the weather. Two minutes and one frame later I made a second image from the same spot — the same forest, a different angle, a different world.

Part of my Life in the Knife series, Highway 3, Northwest Territories.

This fine art photograph, a limited edition of just 10, is printed on Cotton Rag paper using archival inks.