The Season of Twilight

The further north you go, the longer twilight lasts. That time of day after the sun sets but before darkness falls, opens travelers to new ways of seeing the world around them, says National Geographic Photographer Kiliii Yüyan.

“A lot of winter in the north is twilight, so you have to embrace that time when things are not totally clear,” he says. “Even just navigating and walking around is different. You have to really be aware of your surroundings.”

Yüyan’s work takes him into communities around the world, particularly at its edges. And he often finds that his own ancestry (Nanai/Hèzhé (East Asian Indigenous) and Chinese) offers him a unique ability to connect quickly with smaller communities and Indigenous groups. But on this trip, he says, he found new ways to be still among the mix of deep forests, wide plains, ancient wisdoms, and indigo-colored skies of Alberta and British Columbia. In Canada’s western provinces he found an unexpected heightening of his senses. One that inspired a focus he hadn’t experienced before.

“Your senses are so stretched because it's not dark enough to turn on a headlamp. But as your sight becomes less important, less useful, you really stretch out with your hearing, your sense of smell…” he says. The experience brought Yüyan a deeper understanding of why Indigenous People regard twilight as the time of day when the spirits are at play. “It’s that moment in time when we say, the veil between the spirit world and the human world is thin.”

And for Yüyan, in Alberta and British Columbia the sensorial vibrations of that waning light connected him to the small communities who find comfort in simple activities and traditions that exude connection and joy. And he, in turn, found himself recalibrating to embrace this comfort.

He heard it in the hand drum of Kym Gouchie, a respected Elder-in-training of the Lheidli T’enneh Nation, who shared songs in offering to the 1,000-feet tall trees of Chun T'oh Whudujut Park. Also known as the Ancient Forest, the park in British Columbia protects a part of the only inland temperate rainforest in the world.

“You can't help but walk amongst those 1,000- or 1,500-year-old trees without feeling this real sense of walking into nature's cathedral,” he says. “It’s just a totally spiritual experience.”

But he also felt it in the cabin kitchen, just outside Edmonton, where the chef Brad Lazarenko served him a vegetable stew, bannock and butter, and bison sausages as part of an Indigenous-inspired menu. And again, at Métis Crossing, where the small herd of white bison and Indigenous herbalists and guides connect guests with the land.

He found welcoming communities across the provinces. “These are my people,” he recalled thinking of bee-raising homesteader Trevor Doerkson  and his family in Smithers. He found the Doerkson family’s commitment to living a life of their own making, outside the mainstream, inspiring. And he found himself caught up in simple pleasures in both provinces: Relishing the kind of fun that groups of cross-country skiers reveled in, on his tour of rural British Columbia. And finding a joy of his own while riding a Finnish hand sled across Abraham Lake’s frozen methane bubbles. He recalled both the thrill of the push from new friends and the happiness found on an uncontrollable, spinning sled.

All of the lessons that emerged from his encounters with people from varied backgrounds and ways of life, helped forge a deeper understanding of the country and its open spirit.

“I’ve learned that many of things we think of as iconic Canadian heritage–blanket capotes, trappers’ cabins, even country food–come from Métis roots,” says Yüyan.

And throughout his travels, stories seemed to lean on each other to aid his learning. Past, present, and future intertwined for a deeper understanding. From the historic totem pole villages where modern artists train, to the hours-long conversations about the intersection of quantum physics and the twilight sky with Telus World of Science Indigenous Science expert Natasha Donahue. It all felt mystical and aligned.

“Twilight is definitely a time when walking around in nature feels much more spiritual,” says Yüyan. “I think that the land is a binding thing.”

Yüyan says he hopes more people get out to see these parts of the country where there is room for our spirit’s equal desires to be still and run free. Where stories are carved into hard woods and shared through generational songs. Where after the sky is bright, but before it runs dark, an animal world often ignored, claims space, and offers opportunities to learn–if you’re open to it.

“Even the least outdoorsy person walking around in the snow will see tracks and be intrigued by them. They might not know what species it is, but they'll stop and be like, ‘Oh, that's neat! Something walked by here,’… and there is magic to that.”