Up Here Magazine

1 month ago | uphere.ca | Randy Freeman |Amy Kenny

Colin Fraser steps out of his office and heads down to check the water intake for the desalinization plant at B2Gold’s marine port at Bathurst Inlet. This long fjord extending inland south of Victoria Island is mostly ice covered, with deceptive bits of open water, in late November. The lights from this large camp reflect brightly off the snow. In the dusk, movement overhead catches his eye—six birds, circling, flashing wingbeats in the glow of the lights.

1 month ago | uphere.ca | Amy Kenny |Trina Moyles

Col. Harry Snyder lived by a philosophy that may seem strange in the modern world. He credited his extraordinary success in business to a belief that “big game hunting is the surest… way to gain strength for success in modern business and professional life.”Born in 1882 in Vinton County, Ohio, and growing up surrounded by woods with plenty of small game to hunt, the young Harry Snyder came to realize that all he wanted in life was to hunt big game.

2 months ago | uphere.ca | Rhiannon Russell

EVAN RICHARDSON watched from the helicopter as it flew over frozen inlets where the ringed seals rear their pups. He was part of a team conducting a polar bear survey north of Wynniatt Bay on Victoria Island on a -25°C morning in April 2012. “What is that?” one of his colleagues exclaimed over his radio headset. Richardson looked out a rear window and was surprised to see a large grizzly bear chasing a small polar bear across the sea ice.

2 months ago | uphere.ca | Rhiannon Russell

Cold-water swimming is now more than a New Year’s ritual or a rite of spring. It’s booming globally and, in Whitehorse, has been a winter-long activity among hardier residents for about five years. The Yukon Ice Swimmers Facebook group boasts 1,500 members. But the practice is not new. As early as 400 B.C.E., Hippocrate was writing that cold plunges relieve muscle fatigue. Vikings bathed daily in freezing water and the practice has centuries of history in Eastern Europe and Nordic countries.

2 months ago | uphere.ca | Rhiannon Russell

Jeela Palluq-Cloutier sat at her dining table in Iqaluit, staring at her aging MacBook Air. One side of her laptop screen listed English sentences, while the other featured Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun translations. She rated each sentence for accuracy from zero to 100 per cent. “War in Afghanistan” became “pandemic outbreak in Arviat.” Zero. “Prime rib” became “prime minister.” Zero. Some text about housing in Nunavut mentioned single units, apartment buildings and then—usuup puunga. Condom. Huh?