The Taylor Highway
turns into the Top of the World Highway and crosses from Alaska into
the Yukon on its way to our destination of Dawson City. The Top of the
World Highway derives its name from the fact that it follows high
ground, with frequent expansive views on both sides of the road. Just
inside the Canadian border, where the elevation is particularly high,
we noticed a white encrustation on one side of the sparse, little
trees, which we came to realize was a heavy coating of solid ice. The
air was cold enough that apparently it was condensing out of the misty
atmosphere, continuously supplied by a stiff wind. We pulled off at the
top of the hill and came upon this field full of inuksuit. (I only
recently learned that this is the proper pluralization of inukshuk.) I
processed this image with the same digital dreamscape technique I
described for the preceding Feature Photo, Autumn Renewal, but I
applied it much more subtly in this case and masked it out almost
completely in parts of the foreground inukshuk. I feel that the effect
supports the mystical quality of the scene. The smoothing and blending
of the colour imparts a warm and gentle impression to the scene, which
perhaps belies the bitterly chilling conditions, though the ice on the
rocks reveals that truth. Pentax K-1, Pentax HD D FA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6 ED DC WR @ 45mm, f/11, ISO 400