Spring slowly breaks winters frozen hold on Medicine Lake. While the Maligne River pours into the lake from the south, the lake is actually a geological anomaly as there is no visible exit to the lake. In spring the river cuts a path through the ice across the lake towards the North Western ends abruptly at this pool where it is thought to drain through the soluble limestone rock below. It does not surface again for 16km where Maligne Canyon improbably cuts its way out of the ground. The sinking river system is thought to be one of the largest inaccessible cave systems anywhere in the world. Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
The wind and the cold, the omnipresent sense of insignificance, it all somehow creates a feeling of peace. Humans are strange creatures in the way that places of inhospitable isolation often provide a true sense of calm. It says a lot about the evolutionary search for beauty over practicality, and the in-built desire to seek new pastures well before the old ones have lost productivity. Despite this we seem to repeatedly lock ourselves in cages of our own making while we push our heads against the glass wishing we were on the other side. Midday winter sun falling on the endless Canadian Rockies with Mt Edith Cavell 3,368 m (11,050 ft) rising prominently. Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.
The long northern winter is slowly coming to an end. Snowshoeing on the Athabasca Glacier. Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
