art – Paul Nicklen

Recasting the ‘The Big Bad Wolf’

Posted on November 18, 2024

“As we learn to listen to the land, we discover that we are not separate from it; we are part of it.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer

**“Coastal Guardian”**
British Columbia, 2018

Thirty years ago, I chartered a pilot to drop me off alone in the aptly named Barren Grounds, just 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. For three months, I hiked over 600 miles on foot and canoed over 2,000 miles through the Canadian wilderness. Mostly, I wanted to test my limits and prove to myself that I could survive on my own. My outward objective, however, was to photograph tundra wolves. After weeks of fruitless searching, I spotted what seemed to be a flat, greyish rock nestled among the lupines. Heart racing, I dropped to the ground and crawled on my belly for the better part of an hour, inching closer until I was just 20 yards away. Through the tangled willows, I finally glimpsed a pair of tawny eyes, perked ears, and the silver face of a lone wolf.

**“On the Rocks”**
British Columbia, 2011

Since that initial solo venture, I have encountered many more wolves and even had the honor of lounging feet away from a perfectly relaxed pack. Each interaction has been an intensive course in patience as I slowly earned their trust. Wolves are shy by nature, highly cautious, and rarely approach humans. Attacks on people are so scarce that only a handful have ever been recorded across North America within the last century. Nevertheless, the archetype of the “big bad wolf” persists in fiction, film, and timeless lore. Humans, after all, love to be scared.

While most of us know that wolves do not impersonate grannies to trick children or huff and puff houses to the ground, we still carry an inherent fear fueled in part by childhood stories and legends. Fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood seem harmless enough, but as biodiversity continues to plummet across the continent, the fictitious villain suddenly becomes a very real and convenient scapegoat.

**“Sea Wolf of the Great Bear”**
British Columbia, 2011

When animals like deer and other prey begin to decline in number, wolves are generally the first on the list of suspects. Somewhere between sharpening our pitchforks and pointing fingers, however, we seem to have forgotten that wolves have existed in North America for about 30,000 to 50,000 years—long before the first known arrival of humans.

Overall, the devastation wrought by roads, deforestation, mining, and drilling has inflicted far greater harm on wildlife than wolves ever have. Yet somehow, we still believe the solution to restoring nature lies in trying to control and kill it. Government-sanctioned wolf culls are still regularly implemented as a method of wildlife “management,” while corporate entities continue to push for oil dredging and copper mining. The Canadian government is leading a taxpayer-funded extermination of 4,000 wolves in British Columbia alone. Until we learn to hold our own species accountable for the true damage done to our landscapes, the same mistakes will be made again and again.

My hope in sharing the beauty of animals like wolves is to inspire a deeper understanding and appreciation of their story. Villainizing the predators that have maintained balance within their ecosystems for millennia will only plunge us deeper into a cycle of destruction. Every animal, no matter how feared or misunderstood, contributes to the beauty of our world. Shifting our focus to addressing the broader systemic threats that truly endanger our planet is the first step to facing the truth and healing our broken relationship with nature.

Whales and the True Gift of Nature

Posted on October 17, 2024December 8, 2024

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” – Rachel Carson

When my parents chose to move our small family from Saskatchewan to the remote Arctic and undertake the biggest adventure of our lives, we had to let go of certain comforts. Both my mother and father came from farming families and inherited the unyielding work ethic that serves as the backbone of Canada’s heartland. Still, we found joy in the simple pleasures afforded by society—easy access to family, mild summer evenings, and the predictable cycles of the seasons. Uprooting to the Arctic meant trading the familiar for the unknown, but I quickly found that the benefits of living closer to nature far exceeded what we left behind.

Since those early years, the best gifts in my life have always come from nature. After becoming a photographer, I used my camera to get closer to our wild kin. Wolves, penguins, lynx, sharks, and even the more elusive animals like spirit bears all became subjects of my lens. In my eyes, there is no greater privilege than living each day on a planet overflowing with more species and beauty than we could ever fully grasp.

Of all the encounters I have shared with wildlife around the world, my experiences with whales, the true giants of Earth, have been some of the greatest gifts.

Like the Arctic wildlife I grew up with, such as wolves and polar bears, creatures like orcas and sperm whales inspire a mix of fear and awe in people. Despite their size and status as some of the ocean’s greatest hunters, there is no definitive record of orcas or sperm whales ever killing anyone. In fact, my own experiences have revealed their gentle nature and deep intelligence—a side that often goes unnoticed beneath the myths and misconceptions.

Sperm whales, in particular, have garnered a reputation fueled in part by works of fiction, stories, and legends. Of all my encounters with whales, however, swimming with a pod off the coast of Dominica proved to be one of the most wholesome and eye-opening experiences of my life. Free-diving with a snorkel, I was able to get fairly close to a group dozing vertically in the water column. Sperm whales spend most of their time deep below the surface until they finally come up to breathe and rest, suspended with their heads pointed skyward.

The shoot was going well, with the matriarch and her group fully aware and comfortable with my presence. However, as I drifted up to catch my breath, I suddenly caught the attention of the youngest member in the group—a little calf affectionately dubbed “Ariel” by locals.

Evidently bored from napping with her mom, Ariel made a beeline straight for me, and I suddenly found myself staring down a 20-foot baby whale charging at full speed. I braced myself as she opened her thankfully toothless mouth, and the next thing I knew, she was happily gumming my camera housing like an overgrown toddler. Years of experience around large, unpredictable wildlife allowed me to calmly backtrack until I could take a breath. Far from the sea monster that haunted Captain Ahab and his crew, Ariel was a bubbly, curious, and surprisingly gentle little whale.

“Ariel”
Ariel, the baby sperm whale, emits a playful stream of bubbles as she barrels past me.

Looking back on my life, I realize that those early years of following in the footsteps of bears and foxes gave me the chance to connect even more deeply with Earth’s wildest creatures—like Ariel and her pod. The more time we spend immersed in nature, the more the world opens up to us with new experiences. Beyond any luxury or comfort that the fast pace of modern society can provide, nature offers us true connection.

And that, I believe, is the greatest gift of all.

The Sand Dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses

Posted on September 12, 2024

“… and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
- Vincent van Gogh

“River of Dreams”
Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil, 2024

Most of my images focus on either close portraits of wildlife or compositions that tie them to the heart of their wild habitats. However, every so often I come across a landscape so vast and moving that it is nearly impossible to pass up the chance to explore it with my camera. Such was the case for the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, a 600-square-mile mosaic of interlacing river systems, crystal lagoons, and endless stretches of undulating sand dunes gleaming under a relentless sun. What was meant to be a curious pit stop on my way to Patagonia turned into a soul-fueling artistic sojourn into one of the world’s most unique ecosystems.

Situated in the northeast corner of Brazil, the national park and recently-declared World Heritage Site is characterized by white sand dunes interspersed seasonally with rain-filled lagoons. Over 40 miles of beach dotted with fishing villages define the park’s eastern border, which slopes into the open expanse of the Atlantic. Winding, tannin-coloured river systems snake through the white dunes toward the sea and scattered pools of turquoise and jade embellish the textured canvas. To the west, the patchwork of desert and wetland give way to cerrado (grasslands) and forest before receding into agricultural lands.

Overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the park’s beauty, I decided the only way to fully appreciate its grandeur was from a bird’s eye view.

Up until recently, shooting aerials required climbing into a cramped Ultralight or Cessna with the door removed. However, with the age of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the creative opportunities have expanded beyond the horizon. Keeping the drone low enough to pick up on the faintest details while still filling the frame with the full expanse of the mural below, I allowed my lens to roam freely over the terrain.

Every shift in the wind swept the everchanging canvas in a new direction, toppling delicate sandy peaks and stirring the glassy, blue-green waters. Veins of red, deep brown, and rust refracted across the landscape, dyed from tannins leaching into the waters from decaying vegetation. Weaving like a giant snake through the coastal lowlands was the long body of the Black River, its inky waters carving through the dunes to join the Parnaíba River in the northeast. It was almost too beautiful to look at directly. Each change in angle or altitude revealed another natural masterpiece latticing the crust of the Earth from horizon to horizon, leaving me dizzy from the effort of trying to frame it.

For thousands of years, humans have sought to replicate what they see in nature through every imaginable medium. Evidence of this can be found at sites such as the famous Chauvet Cave in France, which features animal paintings from the Aurignacian period, roughly 30,000 years ago. Artists across time and space, from the Upper Paleolithic to the Renaissance, have devoted their lives to studying nature’s handiwork, struggling to capture every detail in its proper place. Even with the advanced technology of my digital camera, I still feel that I can never quite do her beauty justice. How can an image capture the full depth of something as vast as our planet and as minuscule as the structure of a cell’s nucleus?

Nature’s artistry permeates all life on Earth in a way we can never truly translate into a print — but it has been the greatest privilege of my life to try.

With gratitude and hope for the future,

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