September 8, 2025
I wake shortly after midnight. A full moon lights up the night outside the tent.
An hour later, I wake again. The moonlight is dimmer through the tent fabric. I look out — mist covers the landscape.
I have trouble sleeping. When I glance out again, the mist is gone.
Dawn is dark. The lake is dark. The forest is dark. The sky is dark.
Then it rolls in — the mist. It embraces the landscape. The world around me shifts from dark to light. My spirit lifts.
I paddle across the lake and walk over the marsh. I search for that feeling of the taiga — of the old forest. I spend an hour with an old pine growing on the marshland. The marsh floor has already turned to autumn, its colors shifting between brown, yellow, and red.
After a long morning, I’m about to get into the packraft and paddle back to camp when I slip on one of the uneven rocks and fall flat into the water at the shore. Somehow, I escape lightly. My left knee aches a little, but otherwise I’m fine.
Back at camp, I get a small fire going and make coffee. A couple of ravens break the silence as the mist lifts. My clothes dry in the warmth of the sun.
~September 14, 2025
I’m on a small mountain that rises just above tree level, hoping to make a photograph of the land to the north. It’s my third attempt — the first two have been fruitless.
Dawn is approaching. Mist has formed over the forest to the east, but where I am, there is none. I stand watching the dawn unfold over the taiga, and slowly, from nowhere, mist begins to form where I’d hoped it would.
The sun rises, and its light reaches down into the forest, the marshland, and the small river that runs through it. For a moment, everything shimmers in gold.
The light reaches the landscape through the mist, but it goes further. It reaches within me. For a moment, I catch a glimpse of something greater. There’s something about this scene that feels primordial — it carries me thousands of years back, to when this land was born after the ice age.
September 28, 2025
I wake shortly after midnight to a grunting and splashing sound not far from my tent. Moose, I suppose, though I’m not certain. After a while, I fall asleep again.
A few hours later, stars sparkle in the night sky. I inflate my ice-covered packraft and set off in the dark, heading toward the same spot as yesterday at the western end of the lake.
The horizon glows — first a light pink, then stronger. Vibrant reds and purples spread across the sky. For what seems like an eternity, the sky bursts with color. Then mist rolls in, and the palette softens, shifting from oil to watercolor.
A splash behind me. A beaver comes swimming from the lake’s outlet. It sees me, shifts its course slightly, and calmly swims away.
I decide to head to the eastern side of the lake. The sun is now higher in the sky, and the light is still beautiful. It takes some time reach the shore and make my way onto the rocky island. I just have enough time to make a few exposures before a light wind picks up over the lake and the moment is gone.
A sea eagle lifts from a treetop and flies southwest. A fine morning in the taiga.
~October 1, 2025
It’s the last morning of this journey. I’ve been at it for almost a month, and I take it a little slower than usual. I head out into the thick mist. A small island with three gnarly pines becomes the morning’s photographic project. The mist softens shapes and tones, giving the scene an ethereal quality.
I hear a call echoing through the fog. A sea eagle perches somewhere in a treetop beyond my sight. It’s strange how such a large bird can make such a gentle sound.
As I move, the call follows me. The sea eagle is keeping track of me in the fog, though I cannot see it.
Eventually, the weather clears. After breakfast and coffee, I break camp and head back home. On the way, a group of willow tits comes by to say hello. I say goodbye for now.
