The Upper Peninsula is a forested region in Michigan bordering 3 of the Great Lakes and extending outward from Wisconsin. It’s connected to Michigan’s Lower Peninsula by the roughly 5-miles-long Mackinac Bridge, which spans the Straits of Mackinac.
Sandwiched between the 2 peninsulas is Mackinac Island, a car-free vacation destination with the iconic 1887 Grand Hotel and the Victorian-era Fort Mackinac.
In 1847, Sir John Franklin and a crew of 128 men disappeared while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. A National Geographic team sought to find evidence of their fate—but the Arctic doesn’t give up its secrets easily.
BY MARK SYNNOTT
Jacob Keanik scanned his binoculars over the field of ice surrounding our sailboat. He was looking for the polar bear that had been stalking us for the past 24 hours, but all he could see was an undulating carpet of blue-green pack ice that stretched to the horizon. “Winter is coming,” he murmured. Jacob had never seen Game of Thrones and was unaware of the phrase’s reference to the show’s menacing hordes of ice zombies, but to us, the threat posed by this frozen horde was equally dire. Here in remote Pasley Bay, deep in the Canadian Arctic, winter would bring a relentless tide of boat-crushing ice. If we didn’t find a way out soon, it could trap us and destroy our vessel—and perhaps us too.
BY SOREN WALLJASPER,
In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin and his crew of 128 men set out in search of the Northwest Passage—a fabled sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific that would hasten trade between Europe and Asia. None of Franklin’s crew survived. The Norwegian ship Gjøa in 1903-06 made the first successful passage. In 2022, a National Geographic team attempted to retrace Franklin’s expedition to find fresh evidence of its undoing.
John Fielder has been capturing the beauty of Colorado for 40 years. From majestic sunrises over the Rockies to colorful Colorado wildflowers bordering alpine lakes, his photos portray Colorado in all its glory.
There are both healthy and harmful ways to get away from it all, psychologists point out
It’s becoming harder to find a slice of nature all to yourself. But there are plenty of secluded sweet spots around the country if you know where to look. From national monuments and lakeshores to forests and scenic waterways, here are some stunning, uncrowded wildlands that are definitely worth exploring.
From ‘Seven Worlds One Planet’.
Bogenfels, Namib Desert, Namibia
Wallasey, Wirral, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France
The midnight zone is the single largest habitat on the planet, accounting for 70% of all seawater, but because of its remote location, it is poorly understood. Little is known about the animals that inhabit these waters, and even less is known about microbial life in this zone.
Rock Pigeon. Photo: Liron Gertsman/Audubon Photography Awards
Category: Professional
Species: Rock Pigeon
Location: White Rock, British Columbia, Canada
Species: Atlantic Puffin
Location: Westman Islands, Iceland
Species: Chinstrap Penguin
Location: Cierva Cove, Antarctica
Wildlife Film Festival Rotterdam
Intellicurious 