​Not fully knowing what mountaineering was, I signed myself up for a NOLS mountaineering course in 2019 where we spent 28 days traversing the remote Waddington Range of coastal BC on foot. I was instantly hooked. From then on, the draw of wild places became a major compass in life. When I couldn’t physically be in the mountains due to university commitments, I began to teach myself how to paint them. At first, it was a bit of an escape, daydreaming of days climbing while studying on the Albertan prairies. Over-time, I began to realize just how impactful art can be in shaping our connection to a place. This idea solidified for me in early 2020 during a class about human relationships to landscapes where I was able to piece together my love of art, nature, and connecting people to the nature. As part of the class in an open-ended assignment, I created this painting as part of a small series exploring the human-glacier relationship. This one specifically was an exploration of my personal relationship to glaciers while immersed in the vast, glaciated terrain of the Waddington Range. The view of Mt. Finality and the Franklin Glacier Complex from our perch above the Dias Glacier skier’s camp is a place I re-visit often in my mind and I wanted to try to capture the sensation of being there: the light snapping of the tent in the cool breeze coming off the glacier, contrasted by the warm sun, the way the light hits the surrounding peaks throughout the day, and how much perception gets thrown off while travelling across the expansive glaciers below.