Yukon winter trip recap
The annual Yukon workshop has just concluded. Each year we take a small group of photographers up to enjoy the winter wonderland of the Yukon. We travel around southern Yukon to take in a lot of fun activities that include a wildlife bootcamp, visit lots of areas for landscape photography, and ride some dog sleds out in the wilderness.
This year started with two full days at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve. Because Yukon wildlife is exceedingly elusive, we always arrange to get access to several iconic animals at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve under the guidance by trained wildlife guides. This is the only captive wildlife experience that Muench Workshops offers and is a chance to hone your wildlife photography skills and come home with images of some extremely elusive animals.
We spent two full days at this facility. The group was given classroom sessions on wildlife photography techniques, followed by hands on learning taking photos of the animals. Then at night we would go over images to see how the group did taking their wildlife image.
This years favorites were the Canada Lynx and Arctic Fox. We were lucky to receive some very nice light while we photographed these indigenous animals of the Yukon.
The weather this year also lent itself for some excellent landscape opportunities. We travelled around Southern Yukon on a few days. We were rewarded with some great winter conditions that saw the trees covered in Hoar Frost and some fresh fallen snow.
You can see from the images below that the winter scenes produced some fantastic images.
The aurora was very hard to get this year. With lots of snow falling and cloud cover, we only managed to get one decent night of aurora. We had a second night but the aurora was faint and low lying on the horizon.
I really didn’t photograph the aurora this year. These images are from previous years as a demonstration of what is possible to see while in the Yukon. We usually average two nights over a week if the group is willing to put the time in at night, and mother nature co-operates.
A highlight of this year’s trips, as with all the trips is dog sledding. It is an all-day activity where you are given the opportunity to ride your own dog sled. We then retire to the ger tent for a warm home-cooked meal and a chance to laugh about our morning adventure.
In the afternoon we took the group back out onto the lake where they were given the opportunity to photograph a professional dog musher and their dog team. It is always a lot of fun, and a chance to photograph this iconic winter transportation method in the rural areas of northern Canada.
On the last day the group had their chance to drive snowmobiles out into the remote areas of the Yukon. This year they drove down to the end of the lake and made a small hike up to remote cabins. Next year we have decided to expand this day. It will give everyone the opportunity to drive the sleds farther into the remote area and photograph more of the Ibex mountain range.
This workshop is always one of my favorites. Its the opportunity to see a beautiful area of Canada in a great time of year.
Please consider coming with me next year. Michael Strickland and I are headed back in January of 2021. You can see all those details here… https://muenchworkshops.com/workshops/yukon-aurora-wildlife-photo-workshop