“I like being surprised, being awed,” says photographer Magda Biernat, whose photo series “Adrift” is the product of a yearlong trip from Antarctica to Alaska that she and her husband, Ian Webster, accomplished in 2013. It’s a good thing Biernat welcomes surprises. “Adrift,” which places Antarctic Peninsula icebergs alongside monochrome Iñupiat hunting huts in America’s northernmost city, is the culmination of many unexpected happenings.

Biernat didn’t plan to focus on climate change when embarking on this south-to-north adventure that crossed 17 countries. “By traveling to the polar extremes the issue appeared before me,” she acknowledges. “During the journey I was drawn to subjects such as organic and inorganic structures under pressure from a warming planet.”

Later, when she was scanning