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January/February 2004 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: The singing forest In-depth: Boreal birds The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte Mosaic

Prizewinning daughter
If Ken Brailsford feels any lingering sense of disappointment at having been one-upped by his 15-year-old daughter Jennifer in our 19th annual photo contest, he’s being pretty adult about it. In fact, he’s proud and delighted to see her so excited about winning first prize in the youth category for her beautifully lit photo taken on a beach in Prince Edward Island.

“It’s all good,” she laughs, when asked whether she’s been giving Dad a hard time about not winning in his category, as some 15-year-old daughters might be tempted to do.

Ken Brailsford, whose entry was a moody shot of sunrise at a lake in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, has been a more-or-less serious photography hobbyist for years. He says that while he may have inspired Jennifer, she’s developed a passion of her own for the craft.

Three thousand five hundred and thirty-seven photos were submitted to the contest this year, which was judged by Canadian Geographic’s art director Stephen Hanks, photo editor Margaret Williamson and photographer David Trattles. That’s an 11 percent increase over last year, says contest coordinator Erin Rogers. Hanks attributes the jump in the number of entries to the increasing popularity of digital photography.

“With a digital camera and a printer, you can shoot, view the results, reshoot and print your best images.”

Not everybody, however, is eager to make that leap to filmless photography. Ken Brailsford submitted a digital photo, but Jennifer, working with one of his old cameras, delivered a print made using old-fashioned film.

“It’s more permanent,” she says of working with film. “It’s more of a risk. You have to be more careful.” Author and broadcaster Allen Abel returns to our pages in this issue to launch our new “Exploration” department. Over the years, Abel has written stories for us about Ontario towns left off the province’s road maps, the Muslim community in Inuvik, N.W.T., and the tribulations of living on Toronto’s busiest street. “Exploration” is simply an invitation to follow a writer on a journey somewhere in Canada. Abel, an intrepid but frugal traveller, takes readers on what must be the cheapest trip in the country. His submitted expenses amounted to $33.25, a sum which rivals an expense account once sent in by contributing editor Dane Lanken, who assured us that the $35-a-night hotel he found in Winnipeg was, well, accommodating if not entirely comfortable. “Exploration” is not intended to be about dime-pinching excursions, but it’s not a bad place to start. As any traveller knows, it’s a lot tougher to go from the extravagance of the Banff Springs Hotel to the thriftiness of Shorty’s Motel and Gas Bar than the reverse.

— Rick Boychuk

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