Boreal Winters

First Newsletter on Substack

For nearly a year, I've planned on delivering a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter about what I'm working on, new trail guides, wildflower guides, etc. Honestly, it felt like a chore on Mailchimp. I was not too fond of the drag-and-drop templates. I didn’t like that it felt spammy whenever I wrote a newsletter.

So I have moved to substack. Now it just feels like blogging. Which I already do. But somehow, this is different. Today I’m writing about an old project that I’ve decided to pick up again.

These are a few photos that I produced seven years ago, a long-forgotten project. It was titled Boreal Winter - Black and White, Day and Night. It featured photos of our Alaska interior boreal forests, you guessed it, in black and white and both day and night.

I thought the aurora borealis photos in black and white were intriguing but ultimately backed away, thinking that without the context of knowing they are northern lights, the images might be confusing or look like clouds in some cases.

Yesterday, I was checking my website stats and saw that this old post was getting a lot of recent views, but I'm not sure why. But that doesn't matter. I'm sitting here now, thinking of how I want to pick up this project again. I've also been planning on doing an annual or bi-annual magazine, and it is growing increasingly likely this will be my first feature.

Our boreal forests in winter are already mostly desaturated in color. Except for the warm hues from sunrises and sunsets, we’re mostly looking at white snow and dark tree trunks. On the other hand, arguably, the most incredible part of witnessing the aurora is the crimson and green whipping across the sky. It feels almost sacrilegious to desaturate an image of them completely. But doing so brings out some other beautiful features: their brilliant luminosity and structure.

Looking for inspiration on furthering this photo series, I went for a walk around our yard the other day to take some (color) photos of the forest with all the recent snow we’ve had. It was eye-opening in another way to see all the trees resting on nearby power lines.

Since I started writing this, I’ve had to restart the computer twice from the power flickering. If you would like to see some more of the photos and read about them, check my blog post, “Leaning Trees.” Right now, it’s snowing, a bit windy, and the temperature is dropping. Supposedly it’s getting down to -24 °F tonight and -32 °F by Saturday night. Strangely, I enjoy taking photos in the cold, so I expect to get out at least a little this weekend.

Wildflowers

As many of you know, I’m currently working on an online Alaska Wildflower Guide. Also in the pipeline is a wildflower app and, eventually, a print field guide.

The most recent posts are on the Chocolate Lily (Fritillaria camschatcensis - pictured above) and the liverleaf wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia - pictured below). I have a backlog of about 20 species I photographed this summer that will have guides written before the April/May wildflower season begins. I’m really happy that so many people are finding these guides useful! This year they overtook my hiking guide in page views on my website.

It’s certainly a painstaking process photographing and identifying many of these flowers. Especially considering how many incorrect sources there are, the frequency of updates to species and subspecies, and the monotonous nature of the scientific descriptions of plants. However, I’ve found this project to be hugely rewarding as I’ve learned so much about these flowers and plants myself.

I’m looking forward to continuing this journey this summer and possibly spending more time in the Anchorage area and Kenai Peninsula to document more species that aren’t found in the Alaska interior and to add more diverse trails to my hiking guides.

Stay tuned for more guides, including historical locations, atmospheric optics (started), and Alaska Wildlife (one teaser post on the Wood Frog, the only amphibian in the interior).

Calendars

I want to include one last plug for my two wall calendars offered this year. A 2023 Alaska Wall Calendar with photos of wildlife, aurora, and landscapes, and for the first time, a dedicated Aurora Wall Calendar.

These are printed on demand by Lulu Press, and might be borderline too late to receive by Christmas, but should definitely make it before the New Year if ordered soon. I want to extend a big thank you to everyone who has already ordered them. Unfortunately, with printing through Lulu, I don’t get to see who has ordered, so I can’t send a thank you note to them. But, it is hugely appreciated as the funds from these are my primary means of purchasing equipment like lenses, bear spray, and new hiking boots that I seem to go through every season. Thank you again!

Last Thoughts

Thanks for bearing with me through my first newsletter in quite a while. I’m always interested in what you want to see more of (whether here or on my website). Let me know in a comment what brought you to my sites in the first place (hiking guides, wildflowers, photography, or something else entirely) and what you’re interested in seeing more of. Thanks for reading! Enjoy this parting shot from our front yard!