Wildlife Photography Workshops in Canada

Canada is home to a myriad of wildlife. From the common to the more exotic, many are seen during our workshops. Over the coming years you will see many wildlife workshops that are added to our normal Canadian workshop itineraries.

We have been scouting locations, following migratory patterns and researching many areas across Canada to bring you photography workshops in some of the most beautiful locations, for some of the most sought after wildlife photographers like you want to photograph.

To see photos of the different species you could encounter on a workshop in Canada, and see the workshops we lead for wildlife in Canada, please click on the link below.

 http://northof49photography.com/wildlife-photography-workshops-in-canada

The colours of Yukon

“Kevin (K2) promised me an awesome trip up to Canada’s north... but i had no idea i would be that amazed by the beauty of the landscapes and northern lights. Thanks to Kevin and his teaching, i came home with images i was proud of.” — David L.

This trip is designed to give you the opportunity to photograph all the diversity that the Yukon has to offer. We will cover the area around Whitehorse, Kluane National Park and the Dempster Highway. You will be shooting mountain landscapes, macro images of fall foliage, travel type photography of historical streetscapes, the wildlife, northern lights and other long exposure night photography.

Dates of Yukon Trip: Eight days from August 22nd to August 30th, 2016 with Kevin Allen Pepper

Price: $4195CAD ($3050USD) including applicable taxes, with $500CAD single supplement

Deposit to Secure your spot:  $1000CAD, balance due on May 15, 2015

Group Size: Maximum 7 spots, minimum 4 spots (currently only 3 spots left)

Group Leader:  Kevin Allen Pepper - our tour leader that has been leading groups to the Yukon for the past five years.

Included:  Airport pick-up and drop-off, shared accommodation, meals as outlined in the itinerary, Snacks, soft drinks, water during the day, Daily transportation via an 8 passenger Suburban or equivalent. Hot drinks and snacks during aurora viewing nights.

Not Included:  Alcoholic beverages, International flights, Items of personal nature, Items not listed as included

Day One - A day to Welcome You to the Yukon

Today you will arrive in Whitehorse from Home. You should schedule your arrivals so that you arrive in Whitehorse before 4:30pm. You will get picked up at the airport and shuttled to the hotel in Whitehorse.

You can unpack and have some free time before dinner. Today would be your day to explore Whitehorse, buy your souvenirs for the children and grandchildren because once we gather for dinner our excursion begins...

We will meet for a group dinner and go over the itinerary, get to know one another and discuss the various photography situations we will find ourselves in this week.

After dinner, if the skies are clear, we will head out into the countryside for one of many nights of aurora photography. There are a number of spots around Whitehorse that we have identified with interesting foreground elements that will enhance your aurora images.

Accommodation in Whitehorse - Dinner is included

Day Two - The Southern Loop

Today is a day to drive to Dawson City. Dawson City... the epitome of a Gold Rush town in Northern Canada. We will get picked up and begin one of two journeys along the Dempster Highway. The landscapes here are breathtaking and the fall colours will be covering the landscapes like a multi colored blanket. Your highlight on this leg of the trip is Tombstone Territorial Area.

And let’s not forget about the wildlife. The porcupine herd of Caribou will be in the area in late August on their annual migration. It is our intent to introduce you to one of Canada's largest animal migration, in one of the most photogenic fall landscapes Canada offers.

If the aurora is dancing... come out and enjoy the sight near the Arctic Circle... something you will never forget.

Accommodation in Dawson City. Included is breakfast, snacks during the day and dinner.

Day Three - Headed to the Klondike

 Here you will see vast expanses of fall colours and distant mountain ranges that offer everything from panorama's to macro photography, and yes, even the odd fox, wolf, caribou and an abundance of bird species that will be feeding before their southern migration.

If the aurora is dancing... come out and enjoy the sights from just south of the Arctic Circle... something you will never forget.

Accommodation in Dawson City. Included is breakfast, snacks during the day and dinner.

Day Four - Tombstone Fall Colors

We will once again continue down the Dempster or Alaska highway for a chance to photograph the remote painted landscapes one more time.

In between our golden hour photo shoots you will have a chance to explore the preserved Klondike buildings and see how the original settlers lived hundreds of years ago. If you are adventurous... it’s a sour toe cocktail for you... and yet another claim to fame that you will tell your friends and family that you did while in the Yukon.

Accommodation in Dawson City. Included is breakfast, snacks during the day and dinner.

Day Five - Return to Whitehorse

Today we return to Whitehorse and pass through some of the best landscapes to photograph the fall colours in the Yukon. Its an early morning departure after breakfast in order to arrive back in Whitehorse before dinner.

After dinner, if the skies are clear, its another night in the rural areas north of Whitehorse to photograph the aurora under minimal light pollution.

Accommodation in Whitehorse. Included is breakfast, snacks during the day and dinner.

Day Six - - Saving the best for last, well, in my opinion anyways... its a drive west to Kluane National Park.

But before we get to Kluane, we will visit the Whitehorse wildlife Preserve. You will have just spent 5 days photographing areas that many of the animals in the preserve live in. If we were not lucky enough to see these animals in the wild, we want to give you the opportunity to photograph them in a smaller wildness area. You will have the opportunity to photograph, Lynx, Arctic fox, caribou, elk, Bison, Thinhorn Sheep, Mountain Goats and Mule deer.

Then it’s on to Kluane. If you've ever imagined standing amidst a sweeping landscape of mountain valleys carved by glaciers and sprinkled with alpine wildflowers and vibrant fall colours, you will get to live your dream in Kluane National Park and Reserve of Canada. An icon of North America and the center piece of the Kluane region in Yukon, Kluane National Park and Reserve is one of our natural treasures and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Accommodation in Haines Junction area, Breakfast and Dinner Included

Say Seven - Kluane National Park - A world Heritage sight

Encompassing breathtaking views of lush valleys, mountain ranges, Kluane National Park and Reserve of Canada is part of the largest internationally protected wilderness area in the world. Four interconnecting wilderness parks in British Columbia, Alaska and the Yukon are designated a World Heritage Site.

We will take different hikes into the back country of Kluane before we gather and have a campfire dinner in the park as the sun prepares to set. After dinner, it’s a golden hour photo shoot at one of the two of the most beautiful lakes in the Yukon, Kluane Lake or Kathleen Lake.

Long into darkness we will remain in the area. You will be presented with golden hour and blue hour photography opportunities that end with a star show with zero light pollution, and maybe, a once in a lifetime chance to photograph an aurora show in this area. But if the aurora doesn't present itself, the night skies still offer the opportunity to learn how to easily create star trail photos or other night time long exposure photos.

Accommodation in Whitehorse, Breakfast and Dinner Included

Say Eight - Departure Day

Departure day. We will transfer you to the airport for your flights home. There are early morning flight options and late afternoon flight options for those that want to stay and do some shopping and sightseeing downtown Whitehorse before they depart. There are airport shuttle buses and we will have our vehicle to ensure that you get to the airport in time to get your flight... unless you want to stay. ;-)

If you see landscapes painted with crimson and amber by day and green and magenta skies at night in your future, click on the link to see a dozen photos of previous workshops in this area. http://northof49photography.com/fall-colours-in-the-yukon

Travel to Iceberg Alley for some fantastic photo opportunities

Did you know that one of the best places in the world to photograph icebergs is in iceberg alley off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada? We do, and that’s why we have been running photography tours and workshops to photograph these incredible structures for years.

On our tours you can live the life of a lighthouse keeper overlooking “Iceberg Alley”.

Hear the Killer Whales’ call echoing off massive icebergs in your private cove and awaken to the sounds of the Humpbacks calling you across vast stretches of the North Atlantic. Explore the rugged landscape made famous in “The Shipping News”, the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Judi Dench, Kevin Spacey movie.

Feel the salt spray sting your face as you journey amidst the dolphins and whales. As you land in the cove, imagine you are returning home to the sod huts, thousands of years old, which lay undisturbed here. Forge a link with ancient humans as you stand in the remains of their huts overlooking the cove and picture the tiny beach coming to like as it was eons ago. Your home for a portion of our trip lies atop the cliffs at the northern tip of this deserted island.

The contrast of the rugged beauty of the island and the cozy luxury of our Lighthouse Inn will bring back your childhood feelings of laying by the fire as a storm raged outside. Imperceptibly your priorities in life will shift as you become part of the primal connection between humans and the remote reaches of the sea.

You are now in the best spot on earth to visit with whales and icebergs. At dawn, be certain to introduce yourself to your only neighbors – the whales migrating past your doorstep. An abandoned fishing village near the lighthouse is a great walking destination today. Learn of the tragic but romantic mass murder and suicide that inevitably lead to its demise. Our audio app of the island offers interpretation as you wander.

View the “vast cathedrals of ice”. On sunny days they appear lit from inside and on dull days other senses take over as they seem to grow in size. Their chilling effect spreads to your mind and you feel a timeless empathy for sailors who have dreaded these giants for millennia.

Icebergs are edges of glaciers that have broken off and slipped into the ocean. Glaciers form on land by snow building up over thousands of years. Each layer of snow compresses those below until, 60 to 70 metres down, glacial ice forms. Glaciers then "flow" or "creep" towards the ocean under their own weight, and eventually slip in. The glaciers of western Greenland flow at speeds of up to seven kilometres a year, among the fastest moving in the world. After slipping into the ocean, the bergs float in frosty arctic bays melting slowly, if at all, until passing through the Davis Strait and into the Labrador Current which carries them south into Iceberg Alley. Once they head south, they rarely last more than one year.

Every year about 40,000 medium- to large-sized icebergs break off, or calve, from Greenland glaciers. Only about 400-800 make it as far south as St. John's, but these numbers can vary greatly from year to year. The chances of seeing icebergs in a particular area depend on the number of bergs, wind direction, oceans current and temperatures, and the amount of sea ice, or pack ice.

We monitor the icebergs every year and work with locals to predict when and where they will wail past our locations… and time our tours appropriately.

And just think, almost 90% of an iceberg is under water, hence the phrase “tip of the iceberg.” Its maximum width under water is 20% to 30% larger than you can see at the surface. The average depth, or draught of an iceberg, is slightly less than its apparent length above water.

How big can these icebergs get? Well, in the Northern Hemisphere, the largest iceberg on record was encountered in 1882 near Baffin Island. It was 13 km long, 6 km wide, and was about 20 m above water. It weighed over 9 billion tonnes – enough for everyone in the world to drink a litre of water a day for more than 4 years. Icebergs from Antarctica can be many times larger. In 1987 an iceberg, with an area of 6,350 sq. km, calved from the Ross Ice Shelf. It weighed about 1.4 trillion tonnes and could have provided everyone in the world with 240 tonnes of pure drinking water.

Icebergs can vary greatly in size, ranging from very large – greater than 10 million tonnes and hundreds of metres long – to large, medium, and small bergs. The smallest are termed “bergy bits,” which are the size of a small house, and “growlers,” which are the size of a grand piano. These smaller pieces are hazardous to ships because radar may not pick them up as they bob up and down among the waves. The average weight for a Grand Banks-area iceberg is 100,000-200,000 tonnes – about the size of a cubic 15-storey building.

Why don’t you come see for yourself, we run tours to Newfoundland every year… but not just for the icebergs… we see humpback whales, a variety of seabirds, and some of the most photogenic landscapes Canada has to offer.

To see our 2016 tour, please visit this link. http://northof49photography.com/new-page-1 

To See our 2017 tour, please visit this link. http://northof49photography.com/2017-tour-of-newfoundland