Andrew Strain Photography

I finally bought my fishing license yesterday, so naturally, I spent all evening on the lake trying to catch some supper. I even managed to find the time to play with my new neutral density filter and make some longer exposures in between casts. There's plenty of daylight to do both up here (tomorrow is the longest day of the year, with nearly 18 hours of theoretical sun): the alpenglow shot was taken just after 11pm.

This is Como lake, a couple km's north of Atlin. My current address is at the base of Monarch Mountain, in the background - haven't hiked it since I've been here, but I've flown over a couple times on the way to/from work... close enough, right?




In the full post, you can see what happens to tasty rainbow trout when they die...


My sister caught the first fish of the day... I evened the score later.


Back at home, ready for gutting:


It'd been a while since I cleaned a fish, but I think I did alright.


Trout with a side of salmon? Yes please.


Picked clean:



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1) From the helicopter
2) Planet Earth / National Geographic (or some other nature documentary film/photo)
3) From the truck on the side of the highway nowhere near where I'm working
4) The zoo
5) Never

This Grizzly was having a late night snack with her cubs along the side of the Carcross Hwy near Tagish, Yukon. I stayed in the truck, don't worry.




Hopefully that's the only sow and cubs I'll see this year...

A couple more photos from the Carcross area in the full post:

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The Carcross Desert, apparently the smallest in the world. Can you see my shadow?


Taken from the desert - mountain name, anyone?


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I'm finally settling into the routine of fieldwork again after a week in Atlin, but the hot weather has sapped my energy really fast - there's still a lot of snow on northern aspects, so we've been sticking to south faces up high in the alpine, where the sun beats down on us all day long. I'm not complaining - just tired.

The town of Atlin, from the morning helicopter trip to work:


The view from my "office" - Surprise Lake:


More words and photos in the full post:


We went out to the Globe Theatre last night to check out a performance by the Edmonton based bluegrass group Down to the Wood, passing through town on their way to the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival this week in Haines Junction, YT. I'm not big into bluegrass so I can't give much of an informed review, but the guys were funny, played some killer music, and were well received by the crowd - I might have to start taking my dad's advice and listen to more bluegrass... Me and the family headed out to a little jam sesh after the show, where we stayed up til the wee hours of the morning jamming with a group of extremely talented musicians (I definitely don't include myself in that category), and even got a free lesson on upright bass from the band; much appreciated, thanks guys! I used to play quite a bit of bass, but haven't in years - the upright makes me want to get back into it asap. Just what I needed, another expensive hobby...

Atlin Mountain at sunrise from the Monarch Mtn trail. I was wondering how I would ever bring myself to wake up at 4am to get a sunrise shot... problem solved last night - go to bed at 530am...


A woodpecker hangs from a homemade feeder:


Decades of living off the land has led to quite the impressive collection of antlers above my grandparents woodshed:


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I've been postponing this for a while cause theres still a couple photos I wanted to edit, but I'm away from a calibrated monitor for the rest of the summer, so its now or never. Here's my six favorite photos from my trip through Argentina and Chile, along with a gallery link to 40 or so others. Hope you like em...

One of the spires of Cerro Catedral stands tall with Volcan Tronador in the distance:


A double rainbow followed along side our bus as we drove through the craggy peaks of northern Patagonia. Argentinian buses are all luxury.


See the rest in the full post:

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Big sky in the Argentine lake district:


I spy, the Bariloche waterfront:


Dinner for one, somewhere on the outskirts of Buenos Aires:


Descending Volcan Villarrica, Pucon, Chile:


And here's a slideshow of the whole gallery:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

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I've spent the two weeks since returning from Chile job hunting for mineral exploration work, and with seemingly every inquiry I made resulting in a reply of "sorry, we don't have financing for a field program this season", I was about to give up looking and start a summer job in the city when the call came in to send me north. I was on a plane for Whitehorse 3 days later - gotta love the go-go-go nature of this industry. I should be here til August, but there's really no telling for sure, and I'll likely be on the road on just a few short days notice, as usual.

I was pleasantly surprised on the flight up to make a flyby of my final destination, the small town of Atlin, BC. I lived here when I was a little kid, and the last time I visited was in 1998. I snapped a photo of the town, the lake, Atlin Mountain and Teresa Island from the plane:



Many photos to come over the next few months, as I roam the hills looking for gold (and photo-ops, of course). I still need to post some of my RAW edits from South America - maybe tomorrow.



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