PICTURE THIS

Ftradition has held that Canadian Geographic’s last issue of the year is dedicated to wildlife. It’s when we publish the winners of our annual Canadian Wildlife Photography of the Year competition (see the 2022 winners on page 56), and we always feature one or two deep dives into a particular animal or ecosystem. Usually these stories are an excuse to fill the magazine’s pages with even more spectacular wildlife photography — so why did we decide to illustrate Alanna Mitchell’s feature on Canada’s imperiled grasslands? The story, on page 40, is both an update on the latest efforts to conserve this sensitive ecosystem and a personal reflection on memory, time, identity and loss. It touches on many species — greater sage grouse, greater short-horned lizards, burrowing owls, black-tailed prairie dogs — that, while spectacular, exist in such low numbers in the wild that they are rarely seen, let alone photographed. Kerry Hodgson’s illustrations and “field notes,” styled after a naturalist’s sketchbook, convey a timelessness that photographs cannot. In a world where Google can deliver 2.3 million search results on any animal in a fraction of a second, to sit in the elements for hours and days on end with a pencil and a notebook, simply observing wildlife as biologists and other chroniclers of nature once did, seems like both lunacy and luxury. And yet, while the device in your pocket can show you a sage grouse, Mitchell’s words and Hodgson’s artwork ask us to take the time to really see the wildlife and landscapes we are at risk of losing forever.