In 1992 I graduated from Yamnuska Mountain School‘s three month
Mountain Skills Semester program. I was 24 and wanted to learn the
challenging mountain skills of climbing, back-country & telemark
skiing, glacier travel and whitewater canoeing.

I was more interested in learning the soft skills of teaching in physically and mentally challenging environments. While on the course I met Laurent Dick, one of the other students. He came from Switzerland as he had fallen in love with the mountains and northern climates of North America.

As often happens, we went our own ways and lost sight of each other. Then, last week in a pub in Chelsea, I visited with a friend  who was drawing verbal pictures with his stories of a recent dog sled trip in the Yukon. He loaned me a book of the Yukon Quest, a 1000-mile dog sled race from Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon. I beamed
when I saw the book’s photographer was Laurent Dick!

I found Laurent on the world wide web and 17 years after our shared Yamnuska experience we ended up talking for an hour this past weekend. It was interesting to discover we have followed similar, but different, photo paths.

Laurent now lives in Juneau, Alaska and pursues his passion for the
outdoors and photography with a good business. He is the author of three coffee table books  – the latest being “Antarctica” – as well as the co-author of two other books. He runs polar-photo.com and www.alaska365.com. Well worth a visit! Laurent’s photos are listed in this post, with permission.