Explore Alberta’s diverse landscape with these awe-inspiring photographs from the pages of your favourite magazine.

“Water Wind and Fire” in the December 2023/January 2024 of Canadian Cowboy Country magazine is a collection of images chosen by some of the best storm chasers in Western Canada, and winner of Gold in the Photograph: Series or Essay category at the 2023/24 Alberta Magazine Awards for “an exceptional and beautifully curated series of powerful land—and nature-based photographs.” In an image by Calgary-based photographer and storm chaser Beth Allan, we see “a brilliant canola field, an abandoned barn and a dark storm” near Trochu, Alberta.

Photograph by Beth Allen

GrainsWest, a farming quarterly dedicated to the interests of this province’s grain farmers, features a photograph of three grain elevators in the September 2024 piece “Nanton’s Prairie Cathedrals.” These three iconic prairie structures (photograph by L. Stuart) were saved from demolition by the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre Society which, thanks to strong community engagement, raised funds for their purchase. They’re now slated for restoration and conversion into a museum complex.

Photograph by L. Stuart, Courtesy of The Nanton ​Grain Elevators

This “Surfing the Mountain” photograph by Paul Manning-Hunter, featured in Mountain Life – Rocky Mountains magazine, won Silver for Photograph: Landscape, Still Life and Architecture at the 2022/23 Alberta Magazine Awards. The image, taken in early winter, is of the photographer’s brother David surfing a wave called “The Mountain” on the Kananaskis River. Manning-Hunter describes the challenge of capturing the stars, which needed a long exposure time, coupled with the action of the surfer: “I set up my camera on a tripod in the river, opened the shutter and climbed up an icy rock with a strobe light in order to freeze him in motion.”

Photograph by Paul Manning-Hunter

There are 14 conservation lands stewarded by the Edmonton & Area Land Trust (EALT) – a partnership between Edmonton Community Foundation and five other organizations – with the mission to “conserve nature and engage people in land stewardship.” This aerial photograph is from the Legacy in Action magazine’s September 2021 piece “Nurturing Nature.”

Photograph by Steve Glen

Photographer Bruno Long has captured professional skier Rob Heule on his descent from Pharoah Peak’s north face. Writer Kevin Hjertaas described the moment in the Forecast Ski piece “Ski Big 3 Traverse”: “Long turns his camera to a sparkling slope cloaked in classic Rockies spring snow: consolidated and trustworthy, with 10 to 20 centimetres of dehydrated surface facets. Heule drops in and turns it all into velvety glide, casual speed and beautiful spray down to our camp for the night.”

Photograph by Bruno Long