Newsletter #220: February, 2026
© Chris Harris. All rights reserved
This Newsletter is celebrating 20 years of sharing photographs and stories of the Cariboo Chilcotin region in south-central British Columbia.
Welcome everyone!
This Newsletter is dedicated to that comforting Canadian season called ‘winter’. Article 1 is inspired by a current exhibition on display at the National Gallery of Canada and its accompanied publication titled; Winter Count: Embracing the Cold. Article 2, although photographed during the summer, pertains to glacial ice; a winter narrative that is quickly transitioning.
Contents:
- Inspired by the National Gallery of Canada
- Newly Curated Photographic Exhibition: Memories of Ice.
Inspired by the National Gallery of Canada
When I read about the National Gallery of Canada’s Embracing the Cold exhibition, I immediately purchased their corresponding publication Winter Count. Together with their publication Impressionism in Canada by A.K. Prakash, which also celebrated a national and international travelling exhibition; they both became immensely inspirational to my photographic expression.
Before these two publications, I knew mostly about the great art movements which emanated out of Paris. I was completely unaware of the Canadian Impressionist movement; its painters, their stories, and their influence on the Group of Seven and other Canadian painting traditions.
The Ice Harvest; Maurice Cullen The Train; Clarence Gagnon
As a young kid, I vividly remember ice being cut from the Richelieu River with a huge circular saw and being transported by horse-drawn sleighs to market. I also remember the hour-long winter walks to the train station to catch the passenger train to Montreal.
I grew up along the Richelieu River in rural Quebec, where winter was a love affair; playing hockey on our home-made rink in the back garden until our fingers and toes froze, digging out a network of tunnels in the deep snow in front of our house, and skiing out the front door toward the river where we would descent the steep bank and glide out over the frozen ice. Later, as a young teenager, I would take my first car (a red Renault) out onto the snow-free, frozen river and roar around doing donuts! These are some of my favourite childhood memories, and the winter scenes I grew up with in rural Eastern Canada. These paintings by Canadian Impressionists have brought these memories to life, and they have become a huge inspiration for me in my photography.
After reading Winter Count: Embracing the Cold, I decided to curate and share a small collection of my own winter photographs; visual memories made since the beginning of the digital era.
A British Columbia landscape inspired by Canadian Impressionist painters.
Another photographic expression inspired by the Impressionist Movement.
I love trains and train travel, but as a kid, I never knew there was a Canadian landscape such as this.
Winter storms carry vivid memories and deep meanings.
This beaver lodge in a truly Canadian winter setting caught my imagination.
A frozen waterfall.
During spring breakup, streams are alive with everchanging compositions.
A carefully composed photograph of angled fence posts.
Burnt sage stems and their shadows.
Led by the stallion, a dark band of wild horses traverse the Chilcotin’s Brittany Triangle; a landscape they have inhabited since before European contact.
Photographs, like paintings, can evoke strong emotions and vivid memories.
While paddling beside a massive iceberg, I photographed intimate scenes sculptured over thousands of years.
Pink algae provided life and additional colour contrast to a spring-time glacier composition.
The great escape; bighorn sheep.
Upon arriving in British Columbia in 1969, the first book I happened to read was titled Spatsizi (meaning land of the red goat) by Tommy Walker. It inspired me to become a mountain guide and later guide a wildlife photo adventure across the Spatsizi Wilderness.
While photographing a caribou hunt in the Itcha Mountains, I captured the mountain guide-outfitter in a moment of contemplation.
In the compositional elements of line, shape, texture, and contrast, a cow separates from the herd.
Aspen copse halo.
Winter Impression of the Sunset Theatre; Wells, BC.
Kite-skiing on Isaac Lake; the Bowron Lakes canoe circuit with Whitegold Adventures.
Shadow, light, and fenceline.
While snowshoeing through an old burn, I stopped to photograph this wildfire remnant. It spoke to me.
Christmas tradition.
Unfreezing.
A Newly Curated Photographic Exhibition
British Columbia’s Coast Mountain Foothills ~ Part II.
Jacobsen Lake: Memories of Ice
During the past 35 years I have had the good fortune of exploring, photographing, and published 13 books on the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast region of central British Columbia. As I continue to curate my entire image bank, I post Photographic Exhibitions on my website which pertain to the most spectacular parts within the region. They are a sharing of imagery, stories, and beauty; the intention of which is always to deepen our awareness to a land that has been gifted to us and that we should hold on to as sacred.
Exhibitions are like art gallery exhibits which provide viewers with a sense and spirit of a special place within the Canadian landscape. They are also designed to preserve a moment in time; a historical and educational resource designed to generate a visual identity along with a sense of understanding, appreciation, and value for local residents, fellow Canadians, and global visitors.
From a place which had never seen a canoe, this photographic exhibition reveals the last few icebergs to calve from the fast-receding Jacobsen Glacier.
View the Exhibition here.
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