Andrew Strain Photography » Atlin

The Spell of the Yukon

Strain — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 05:12:14 +0000

Atlin may be located south of 60 but is so isolated from the rest of BC that it may as well be a part of the Yukon. There is a real magic to the north – I’ve traveled to every corner of BC and have never felt the same electrifying attraction as the one that keeps drawing me to my childhood home. The south coast mountains may be where I live, but my heart will always belong to the vast wilderness of the north…

I spent the last 5 days visiting family in Atlin and find myself suffering from severe northern withdrawl. No one writes of the Yukon better than Service – I’ll leave you with this. Hopefully my vacation snaps do the words some justice.

I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it —
Came out with a fortune last fall, —
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
For no land on earth — and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it’s been since the beginning;
It seems it will be to the end.

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer — no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness —
O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I’ve bade ‘em good-by — but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land — oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back — and I will.

They’re making my money diminish;
I’m sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish
I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
I’ll fight — and you bet it’s no sham-fight;
It’s hell! — but I’ve been there before;
And it’s better than this by a damsite —
So me for the Yukon once more.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

The Spell of the Yukon, Robert Service

Atlin Arts and Music Festival

Strain — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:43:00 +0000

The chaos is over and the crowds are gone, so I’ve hunkered down to edit the photos I shot during the 2009 Atlin Arts and Music Festival. I wasn’t shooting on assignment for anyone so that left me with lots of time to spend in the beer gardens… here’s a few photos that I nabbed when I ventured out into the world of no beer.

Headwater concludes their Saturday night set:

Mamaguroove put on a killer midnight show on Saturday. I was really feelin’ the music, so I shot all my photos from the pit with my trusty 50 1.4.

You can see the rest of my photos here… I’ll post some more as I edit them.

Monarch Mtn

Strain — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:34:00 +0000

My spot in Atlin may be a little out of town, but it gives me a convenient head-start on the Monarch Mtn trail. I hauled up the trail last night, grouse grind style, to shoot some photos from the alpine at sunset. There’s no tram down to ease the knees, but there’s plenty of light to navigate by well after the sun finally disappears. Besides, you don’t get views like this from Grouse…

Looking south to Warm Bay and Teresa Island:

The town of Atlin:

The distinctive Mt Minto can be seen in the distance, rising above the north end of a glistening Atlin Lake…

Long Summer Days

Strain — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:13:00 +0000

A quick post of some photos from the last week or so… still lots of daylight to shoot/fish/hike (and work, of course)

Some more ND filter fun, as well as practice with another technique I rarely use, exposure blending (it’ll have to do til I pitch for a grad ND) – Atlin Mountain at [a very late PM] sunset:

Teresa Island gets hit by a mix of rain and sun as a storm tracks west:

A couple more photos after the jump:

The M.V. Tarahne sits on Atlin’s waterfront. Used to ferry tourists around the lake in her prime, these days she has been relegated to hosting the occasional afternoon tea:

Como Lake sunset:

Earlier that evening, we took my cousin to the lake and he caught his first fish, a nice little rainbow in a convenient single serving breakfast size:

I caught one too. Veronica Strain photo:

Down to work (and the wood).

Strain — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:55:00 +0000

I’m finally settling into the routine of fieldwork again after a week in Atlin, but the hot weather has sapped my energy really fast – there’s still a lot of snow on northern aspects, so we’ve been sticking to south faces up high in the alpine, where the sun beats down on us all day long. I’m not complaining – just tired.

The town of Atlin, from the morning helicopter trip to work:

The view from my “office” – Surprise Lake:

More words and photos in the full post:

We went out to the Globe Theatre last night to check out a performance by the Edmonton based bluegrass group Down to the Wood, passing through town on their way to the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival this week in Haines Junction, YT. I’m not big into bluegrass so I can’t give much of an informed review, but the guys were funny, played some killer music, and were well received by the crowd – I might have to start taking my dad’s advice and listen to more bluegrass… Me and the family headed out to a little jam sesh after the show, where we stayed up til the wee hours of the morning jamming with a group of extremely talented musicians (I definitely don’t include myself in that category), and even got a free lesson on upright bass from the band; much appreciated, thanks guys! I used to play quite a bit of bass, but haven’t in years – the upright makes me want to get back into it asap. Just what I needed, another expensive hobby…

Atlin Mountain at sunrise from the Monarch Mtn trail. I was wondering how I would ever bring myself to wake up at 4am to get a sunrise shot… problem solved last night – go to bed at 530am…

A woodpecker hangs from a homemade feeder:

Decades of living off the land has led to quite the impressive collection of antlers above my grandparents woodshed:

Atlin, BC – my summer home.

Strain — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:48:00 +0000

I’ve spent the two weeks since returning from Chile job hunting for mineral exploration work, and with seemingly every inquiry I made resulting in a reply of “sorry, we don’t have financing for a field program this season”, I was about to give up looking and start a summer job in the city when the call came in to send me north. I was on a plane for Whitehorse 3 days later – gotta love the go-go-go nature of this industry. I should be here til August, but there’s really no telling for sure, and I’ll likely be on the road on just a few short days notice, as usual.

I was pleasantly surprised on the flight up to make a flyby of my final destination, the small town of Atlin, BC. I lived here when I was a little kid, and the last time I visited was in 1998. I snapped a photo of the town, the lake, Atlin Mountain and Teresa Island from the plane:

Many photos to come over the next few months, as I roam the hills looking for gold (and photo-ops, of course). I still need to post some of my RAW edits from South America – maybe tomorrow.