The Season of Twilight | National Geographic

The best photographs keep something from us, and there's no better time for mystery than the Twilight hour. Much of my work as a photographer takes me to the Arctic, but I really haven't spent much time in Canada in the winter. Shorter days allow me to catch different types of light. Oh yeah, that's gorgeous! So I'm excited to explore Alberta and British Columbia during the season of Twilight.

I'm starting off in British Columbia on the banks of the Skina River, where I'm meeting renowned local artist Roy Henry Vickers, who I photographed before and has become a friend over the years.

"Hey there Roy, good to see you!"
"Good to see you! Well, welcome to Kassan."
"Hey, thank you! Kassan is a replica village and living museum for the Gan people, but for Roy, it also tells a more personal story."
"This was my art school—that's where I learned to draw on the spot, right here! Just loved it. Fifty years ago, this was the explosion of Northwest Coast art. Collectors of art from all over the world came to Kassan to find the artwork."

There's just a little. What I love about Roy is that he's so incredibly rooted in that place. He knows the histories of each pole and the stories that are embedded in them, and those are the stories that inform his work.

"We were born to do this—that's the truth."

Heading Southeast, we arrive at British Columbia's newest Provincial Park, the Ancient Forest Chenu Woodette. It's the feeling of walking into a cathedral—giant ancient red cedars. Some of those trees have been there for over a thousand years.

"We look at these trees as our ancestors. It is the only inland oral temperate rainforest on the planet." A campaign by activists and the Clly Ten First Nation, who have called this land home for centuries, is one of the key reasons this forest is still standing.

A few hours Southeast through the famous Canadian Rocky Mountains, and we're in Alberta at Lake Abraham.

"I don't really think of the cold as something to be afraid of. I think of the cold as something to be prepared for. You get to see a place when it's quiet, when the snow blankets everything, and it's so minimalist."

Wo, it's a good thing I wear a lot of down pants! Just having a good old time skiing with these cool finished sleds on this frozen lake. Because it's covered in snow, I had to get creative to showcase the incredible methane bubbles frozen into it. That's part of the fun and challenge of being a photographer. Sometimes it takes playing with darkness and light to really capture the magic in the Twilight hour.

Mate Crossing is the first major mate cultural destination in Alberta, which is the only Canadian province with the recognized land base for the mate. The mate people are people who were born from the European fathers and the First Nations mothers when they came together during the fur trade. Through the generations, they formed their own distinct language, culture, and even cuisine.

"Tell me about mate te cuisine. What is all this stuff that's here?"
"It's using French techniques with indigenous local ingredients. We have three sisters, which is corn, beans, and squash; fish, and stew. We have some mate banik with hcap jelly—comfort food that was always cooked around the fire."
"You want to try?"
"Nice! Ooh, yeah!"

Food is such a great way to learn about culture and connect to the land on which it was grown.

"There are 80 acres and 25 head. You think you can find them?"
"Oh, hey there!"

Fellas, the beautiful animals—the buffalo—are really important to First Nations.

"What does that mean to my teeth?"
"They one time were our livelihood. When they destroyed lots of the buffalo, the mighty herds are gone now, and that took away from us so much. The mate are very tenacious. The mate are back. Buffalo's back."

The reintroduction of threatened species of buffalo at Mate Crossing is just one of the many ways that the mate are reclaiming their heritage, land, and stories.

"It's by Twilight we can celebrate those ancestral stories written in the stars above this. Four shooting stars in this—it's fabulous! I love this stuff in the Twilight hour when suddenly everything turns blue. There's a kind of magic that fills the air, especially in Alberta and British Columbia."