Amongst the Willows

During this assignment in Churchill, MB we didn’t have much snow that fell during my time there. Most of the days we spent on the tundra, we were surrounded by muted tones of grey, brown, black, auburn, gold with subtle hues of reds and a hint of green. Depending on the day and the weather patterns these colours would change their tones to match the mood of the sky overhead. If there was any form of precipitation and a little sun it made for very poppy and vibrant rich colours. Other days were more muted, and the tundra appeared to be draped in pastels.  On this day, we woke up to a winter wonderland. The evening prior the tundra received a light, but fresh dusting of snow. It was the hoar frost though that made this day so special to wake up to! Hoar frost is a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc. It turned the land for as far as the eye could see into what looked like a big, beautiful snow globe, as the frost caked itself to anything and everything.

My eyes were like big silver dollars in anticipation of finding some polar bears to photograph in this magical landscape. We thankfully had no shortage of bears, which I am grateful for. It was a brief encounter with a red fox that really caught my eye. Red foxes have such a strikingly beautiful coat and, against the frost covered willows, made for striking imagery! It also makes red foxes much easier to spot and track. This fox was on a mission to catch an Arctic lemming and gave us no more than ten minutes of its time before following its nose on the hunting trail.