Frozen birch leaf

That’s “cold” with a cap­i­tal “C”. An arc­tic air front descend­ed on the prairies, send­ing the tem­per­a­ture to extreme lows and send­ing all rea­son­able peo­ple safe­ly indoors—the land­scape pho­tog­ra­phers how­ev­er, grab their cam­eras and head out. I find that when it gets below -30° C you can actu­al­ly see how cold it is. The light is excep­tion­al­ly clear, the frost on the grass­es and shrubs accu­mu­lates and holds on tight, and the air seems to lit­er­al­ly freeze—there is often an ice fog lying low to the ground, pro­vid­ing pho­tog­ra­phers a pale frosty blue/white back­ground. If you’re well dressed, care­ful, and have a spare bat­tery for your cam­era in your warm pock­et (for when the first one freezes), it’s a beau­ti­ful time to be out cap­tur­ing the land­scape in a state that not many peo­ple get to expe­ri­ence.