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Posted November 21st, 2016

Inuksuit on Top of the World

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