Arctic Front looks at the Canadian Arctic through the Canadian Rangers, a part-time military force made up largely of Indigenous members living in remote northern communities. Photographed in and around Taloyoak and King William Island, Nunavut, the series follows a patrol moving across a landscape that is both home and military terrain, and increasingly subject to geopolitical attention. I first encountered the Rangers as a teenager during my army training in Gjoa Haven. Years later, I returned as a photographer, interested in how their relationship to the land could be understood within a changing military and political landscape.

The Rangers occupy a distinct position within Canada’s military structure. They teach survival skills to southern units, support patrols and surveillance, and often act as first responders in places where outside assistance may be far away. Their role has grown more significant as sea ice loss, climate change, and renewed international interest in Arctic shipping routes and resources have intensified the strategic importance of the North. Their authority comes from direct experience of moving through and surviving on the land.

The Arctic is not treated here as empty expanse or geopolitical symbol. It appears instead as a lived environment shaped by military presence and Indigenous expertise, and by the environmental changes now transforming the North. The series remains grounded in the physical reality of patrol life while showing how Canada’s claims to the North depend on forms of land knowledge and survival that long predate the military structures now tasked with defending it.

Published in The Walrus, Beside Magazine
Exhibited at the Canadian War Museum and Circuit Gallery
Included in the permanent collection of the Canadian War Museum