Mount Takao

Photo essay by Lucy Saunders.

The climb up Mount Takao offered a beautiful escape from the 36 degree heat of Tokyo (when people say summer in Japan can be humid, they're not lying) and the surrounding trees (illuminated as they were by dappled sunlight) provided welcome patches of shade. That said, even at this height the heat was blistering - which no doubt played a part in making the mountainside appear entirely isolated. It felt peaceful, almost timeless. There was a quietness that felt worlds away from the bustling city I had left only hours before.

I saw in the distance, swooping in the trees, a swish of white, like some mountain spirit celebrating the sun. Bug catchers were dancing around the tree trunks with their nets, sliding down the steep mountain slopes or clinging to branches as if it were second nature. I watched them for hours, enthralled by their agility, and they paused to show me their collections - beetles, butterflies, cicadas and moths presented in carefully selected boxes, handled with the upmost care.

There was something particularly beautiful about being in such a treasured, spiritual place and watching locals move through the setting as if it were entirely their own. Everyone I spoke to seemed to know one tree species from another, the name of each insect, where they sleep and exactly how to hold and care for them. They were also careful to ensure that they gave something back to the land each time it was kind enough to bestow a treasure upon them. Shrines and temples were found along my walk up Mount Takao and at each you could stop to pray - following the advice of smiling locals - taking part in an ancient Shinto practice that felt as old as these mountains. 

Shintoism is Japan's indigenous religion - one that, rather than following a set ruler or doctrine, focuses on the concepts of purity and respect. There is a deep admiration for nature and its power, with the natural world being the domain of kami, deities that can take almost any form and add a sense of order to our somewhat chaotic world. They may be in a tree, stream or the mist itself.

These spirits watch over the humans of the city below, as they always have. And although it may seem to be a strange concept at first, when you sit and embrace these surroundings you can't help but sense that nature is somehow watching out for you. Being in a natural location this powerful had a very interesting effect. You come to appreciate your place in the world anew. Indeed, even when I descended Mount Takao and returned to the man-made brilliance of Tokyo I couldn't help but notice little pockets of natural beauty and, pausing to acknowledge their power, found that Japan felt more and more like home. 

You can see more of Lucy's work on her website: www.lucy-janephotography.com or over on Instagram @lucyjanesaunders.

In Iceland - the Water and the Sky

Photographs by Tom Bunning In winter our thoughts turn to candlelit rooms and warming fires.  But Tom Bunning's photography reminds us that the cold comes in many guises and draws our gaze to Icelandic landscapes - the waterfalls, the birds wheeling under eggshell blue skies and the endless snowbound vistas.  Be warned though, if you venture out into the cold, you may not come back again...

New World Flavour

For our Canada magazine, writer Shaun Pett and photographer Leila Ashtari explored the wines of Ontario. Due to the nature of print we couldn't publish all of their wonderful finds and images. So, for those seeking some new world flavour, below are some of the gems that deserve plenty of attention ...

Though Canadian wine is still a young tradition in the land of beer - with the first European vinifera grapes planted in the 1950s and serious wineries started only in the 70s - pioneering winemakers are experimenting with unique but challenging environments and building a new tradition of wine. Two of Canada’s major wine regions lie along the shores of Lake Ontario and are within a short drive of Toronto, making them the perfect destinations for a weekend escape. The Niagara Peninsula and Prince Edward County, a patchwork of vineyards and farm land and colonial towns, are now home to 150 wineries and counting, along with the attendant restaurants, artisans and boutique hotels.

New World Flavour

SUCKING ON STONES

Geology marked the Niagara Peninsula for grapes. The glacial Lake Iroquois, a precursor to Lake Ontario, deposited the fertile soil and red clay, while an ancient sea laid down the limestone sediment for the Niagara Escarpment, which traps the warm air currents from the lake. At the cliff-side lookout of Beamer Memorial Conservation Area you can see the skyline squiggle of Toronto across the lake and to the east runs the Escarpment’s spine.

Growing up in Niagara I never drank wine. Only after living two years in France did I come to appreciate it. This is a common pattern for Canadians: we look past what is near to what is far. Francois Morissette was born in Quebec and worked ten years in Burgundy before arriving in Niagara with the single purpose of letting the land dictate the grapes and the grapes dictate the wine. The first time I visited Pearl Morissette there was no sign at the entrance (and probably never will be). This is on purpose. Morissette is unlike most winemakers in Niagara. He takes an uncompromising approach toward non-interventionist, natural winemaking. Airborne indigenous yeasts start fermentations, and out of the nearly 200 ingredients you are legally allowed to add to wine, he only uses sulphur, and only if he has to. For him winemaking is more art than recipe and no two wines are ever the same. The old wood foudres from Alsace, the concrete eggs and steel tanks, the earthenware qvevri from Georgia, these are simply the pots he uses to cook in.

Svetlana Atcheva, the winery’s passionate ambassador, with her Eastern-European accent and Nabokovian way with description, described a wine’s structure as “ladders” climbing in the back of the mouth and called a 2014 Chardonnay that we tried from the tank “a snowflake under the microscope,” creamy and soft, but structured. Morissette’s wines and methods can seduce some and annoy others, but every wine region needs its provocateur, someone to push boundaries and undermine complacency. His wines—the Riesling, gamay and Cabernet Franc I still remember—set a benchmark for Niagara’s potential.

New World Flavour

New World Flavour

TRACING ANCIENT FOOTSTEPS

Follow Regional Road 81, which winds it way through the peninsula, and you’ll be tracing the former Lake Iroquois shoreline and a past Native trail. Heading east along 81, you near the Niagara River and the American border. Here the Escarpment eases into flat fields and you can find tiny Five Rows Winery tucked away in St. David’s. Winemaker Wes Lowrey, the fifth-generation of his family to farm this land, focusses on making the wine in the vineyard, spending two months thinning the 150 rows of vines by hand, three per day. His very small batches are excellent wine. Neighbouring Ravine Winery is worth stopping at for a bite of field-to-table fare.

New World Flavour

ON ISLAND TIME

Because of the Murray Canal, Prince Edward County is technically an island. Located almost halfway between Toronto and Montréal, it feels far apart from the urban grind, with the slow rhythms of country living and small town intimacies. The County is the newest wine appellation in Ontario with vines only planted at the turn of the millennium. The varying topography creates a mesoclimate at each vineyard, allowing you to visit 20 different wineries and taste 20 different Chardonnays. But making wine here requires one to be a little stubborn and a little mad. Since the winters get so cold, and temperatures of -25°C can kill vines, they must ‘hill up’ the vines in autumn, burying them under earth and hoping they’ve survived when dug up by hand in spring.

At the new micro brewery, British chef Neil Dawson turns out fresh and simple dishes of the moment - he’s also known to roast a pig from time to time. We sat on the patio overlooking the vines with a pint of the saison. A salad of crisp snap peas, watermelon radishes, crumbled feta and poppy seeds was a snapshot of that early summer day.

It’s easy to hop from one winery to the next, as most are clumped in the west of the island due to the moderating lake breeze. Down Closson Road don’t miss The Grange, Closson Chase, and The Old Third. At Norman Hardie’s, who is the gregarious face of the County and the gateway for many to the region, we ate what is still the best Neopolitan pizza around, enjoying it on the patio with a glass of stony Calcaire while others slurped oysters and the slow Sunday afternoon melted away.

New World Flavour

New World Flavour

WRITING NEW LORE

At Trail Estate the tasting room was still being built so Mackenzie Brisbois hosted us in the cluttered production shed. Her first year as head winemaker, she was excited to show off her skin contact experiments. Using this thousand-year-old technique of letting the juice sit with the skins for up to three weeks (like with red wine, but unconventional with white), she crafted four three single lot Rieslings and a Sauvignon Blanc that were complex and textured. The last one, of which she only made less than 100 bottles, had a surprisingly nutty nose - none of the grass one is used to - and a good funk that bloomed into melon flavours. Working in this hands-off manner, letting the wine become the wine it wants to be, requires patience. One day it’s good, another bad. “Doing nothing is the hardest thing.”

New World Flavour

PATHS LESSER TRAVELLED

Leaving the tourist trail in the west, you’ll find a hidden spots, like the gravel beach at Little Bluff Conservation Area or Sandbanks Provincial Park, where the 8 kilometres of mesmerizing sand dunes is the largest system of its kind in the world. Fifth Town artisan cheese, housed in a LEED-certified, green building, hosts wine and cheese tastings.

There’s something of the monk in Glenn Symons. He works mostly alone at Lighthall Vineyards, secluded on a nowhere road, perfecting his wine and cheese. A home vintner for 25 years, he bought the vineyard in 2008, attracted by the soil’s potential and its unwritten story. He has rigorous standards and won’t sell a wine that disappoints him. Cases of an unsatisfactory rosé have been in storage, waiting to be distilled to fortify a late harvest Vidal he produces. We chatted in his small production kitchen while he scooped fresh sheep milk curds into moulds. I asked him if there was a wine or cheese that he wanted to make that he hadn’t yet attempted. No, he said. He knows what he wants. Like others in the County, he has a self-confidence that comes from having found his place in the world. The job then, vintage after vintage, is listening to this place and singing it to others. That’s what wine can do.

New World Flavour

New World Flavour

New World Flavour

Antarctica

some ice-covered corners of the world know how to get under your skin. Expansive and wild, Antarctica is a place where nothing exists but the moment. The rest of the world falls away and the urge to play Attenborough is un-suppressible. You’re guaranteed close encounters of the whale kind, a silence that’s only broken by calving glaciers and constant summer sunlight. Bliss really. Some Antarctic days are pure magic. Clear and calm, you’ll wake to an endless sky and mirror-like sea. Yet overcast days are not without their eerie charm. Low clouds and brooding skies have a remarkable ability to turn icebergs the most fluorescent shade of turquoise imaginable and prove that nowhere does desolation quite like Antarctica.

Uniquely stunning and a fickle friend (just ask Scott or Shackleton), this is a land where mountains move, history is defined by the brave and bizarre and you become besotted with the animals who call the world’s last true wilderness home. And the price of admission? Well, that’s surviving the Drake.

Sail Away

Antarctica is reached by travelling to the end of the world, otherwise known as Ushuaia at the tip of Argentina, and sailing for two days through the Drake Passage; the planet’s most turbulent body of water. While the dreaded mal de mer isn’t the ideal way to start or end a holiday it’s all part of the experience… I suppose. There are ways of dealing with this crossing. Firstly, avoid whistling, it’ll only call up the wind. Secondly, don’t bring a banana on board, unless you wish to rattle a superstitious crew. Thirdly, don’t shoot an albatross. And most importantly, pick a good ship.

I sailed on the Polar Pioneer. Homely rather than luxurious, this ice-strengthened vessel is Australian run but crewed by 22 Russians who remain onboard for a year. Once you learn that it began its life with a brief stint as a Cold War spy ship and the crew occasionally smokes their fish in the engine room, falling in love with this trusty vessel is inevitable.

Animal Encounters

Exceeding every expectation, Antarctica’s fearless wildlife has character aplenty. Stone-stealing Gentoo penguins (they’ve worked out that ‘borrowing’ stones from neighbouring nests is the easiest way to build their own) and wide-eyed Adelies make up for their lack of grace with loving determination. Creating ‘penguin highways’ in the snow that link their impossibly out of the way rookeries to the sea, these little guys waddle with purpose. All they want to do is belly flop into the water, despite an in-built fear of Leopard seals, to find food for their hungry, fluff covered chicks.

While penguin parental dedication is adorable, all sense of human normalcy is lost when a whale appears. Finding a humpback mother and calf sleeping on the surface of the water (rather appropriately termed logging) and watching as they wake, dive and re-emerge, barnacles and all, an arms length from your tiny zodiac is not an experience you quickly forget.

Although human visitors must stay at least five meters from all wildlife, no such rule applies to the wildlife itself. So, while you sit on a rocky beach, a safe five meters from a sun seeking Weddell seal, the only animal less graceful on land than a penguin, it won’t be long before a skua is nibbling your gumboot.

Temporary Visitors

Apart from the National Geographic Explorer, the only signs of human life are vibrantly painted research huts. Mixing nostalgia and wonder, historic sites like the British Port Lockroy must be seen to be believed. Set up during WWII to listen to German Navy radio signals, the station now studies the effects of tourism on penguins. The only problem is that penguins don’t quite understand the idea of a scientific control area, even if it’s roped off, or that they themselves might be the control. All four Port Lockroy residents rely on visiting ships for fresh supplies and showers and run a small museum and post office – when not counting penguin chicks. Anything mailed from here takes at least two months to reach its final destination; ferried to the Falkland Islands, flown to England and then braving the UK postal system.

Argentina’s Brown Station is equally fascinating. It’s unmanned due to a lack of funding and the fact that a previous resident chose to burn down a large part of it rather than spend another year alone on the ice. Bright orange and perfectly preserved, fire damage aside, it sits at the bottom of a huge, snow covered mountain. From the top you can take in the most photogenic panorama around - ice floes and rolling white icebergs – and brave the ultimate bum slide down (i.e. tobogganing without the aid of a toboggan).

Oh So Small

Antarctica is stunningly otherworldly. Even the safe havens along the Peninsula have names borrowed from fairy tales - Neptune’s Bellows, Deception Island, Paradise Bay, Elephant Point. Two weeks here and you’re left feeling delightfully insignificant. After all, in the presence of such great beauty it’s impossible to feel anything but small.

Entering Mikkelsen Harbour, with its amphitheater of ice cliffs, or sailing through the seven-mile-long Lemaire Chanel, affectionately called ‘Kodak Alley’ in the days when film cameras reigned supreme, you understand how powerful ice and reflective surfaces can be. For harsh beauty there’s Pleneau Island - an iceberg graveyard. With nowhere to travel and harassed by the elements, these bergs take on phenomenal shapes and hues, proving that nature is the ultimate sculptor. When greeted with such sights and stunned to the point of silence, it’s lovely to remember that all we have to do in this world is appreciate it.

But be warned. Feeling humbled like this makes you act a little irrationally. You’ll agree to the oddest things. Like camping on the Antarctic mainland, tentless and armed with nothing but a sleeping bag and dubious looking foam pad. Under a sky that never darkens you quickly learn that there’s no way to get completely comfortable on ice and the sound of distant avalanches and exhaling whales leads to odd dreams.

Filled with awe and a love of all things wild, you leave this continent lighter than when you arrived and yearning for adventure. You’ll talk to the animals, sleep when it’s sunny and consider applying for a four-month stint at Port Lockroy. Clearly Antarctica makes blissfully cold fools of us all.

Visit: Aurora Expeditions and their stoic Polar Pioneer sail to Antarctica throughout summer. I promise the Drake Passage is worth it! http://www.auroraexpeditions.com.au/

This article first appeared in Yen Magazine.