Subjects And Memories In The Yukon

In a world with artificial creativity, the existential question for anyone is whether their work has value. The artist is by nature a questioner and a critic. They are in constant battle, criticizing their work, frequently in conflict with themselves and the status quo. This antiphony act produces work that robots cannot replicate. The aesthetic nature of art can be mimicked by machines, yes, but it’s the person's sake to produce, ultimately deeming their work with value. An audience can see the vision put into these photos. Whether composition, cropping, lighting, framing, or focus, this group of travelers composed these photos for the appearance of design (follow if you like seeing our vision: @coldcyrus, @yeegun, and @cestlevi___).

This is a digital atlas of five guys, spending time in The Yukon, immutably captured in this postcard. Photos map to memory, but memories fade, adjust, and conform to what people think they remember. Every photo has a subject, like five guys on a road trip: Morteza, Levi, Cyrus, Heegun, and Rushil. The subject and memory of photos don’t always share the same story. So it goes.

We’re put on this earth to do wildly creative things. Photographers survey the world through their camera lens for others to gaze with their naked eyes. This atlas serves as a reminder that the map isn’t the territory. Like how a photo’s subject isn’t its memory. The word “subject” echoes–subtle–carrying in its letters images of sexy shirtless men hugging on a frozen lake, a fantastic fox curled up in snow, or hills that look like white horses: 

Which brings us to memories of this Yukon fever dream:

• Pandemic lockdowns were on its dying breath in a time when ArriveCan was still a thing

• Masks were worn in a city with the least amount of air pollution in the world (according to Guinness World Records)

• Vaccine passports had to be shown at restaurants in Whitehorse

• One place that didn’t ask for proof of booster shots (ironically) was a Chinese restaurant called Nugget

There were doubts before going in. As we entered New Nugget, the waitress escorts us to the banquet room. The five of us occupied this fancy space alone. Our room was private at the back of the "licensed dining room." We were wise guys in a Martin Scorsese film. The year is 2022. People in their mid-twenties spent time indoors because of viruses outside. In hindsight, road tripping to the smallest and westernmost Canadian territory was a valuable way for the boys to touch grass as the world hibernates. 

Adventures are vacations with disasters. The photos speak to memories of what a road trip from Edmonton to Whitehorse to Alaska looks like. Listen up: The plan is to keep moving. Never slow down. The Jeep is driving straight ahead through the snow like the Titanic…you feel uncomfortable. There’s a sense of alertness that comes from driving a fast car between the empty borders of Yukon and Alaska. This is where you realize there’s safety in speed. Nothing can touch you as long as you keep moving fast. Never mind the cops, you're in no man’s land. Morteza is the Jeep’s pilot. You're dangerous speed demons driving a four-ton car, drifting any moment, randomly rushing out of control. There is nothing more terrifying than sliding suddenly on ice, steering left and right, avoiding to drive into ditches of snow on deserted land. There is a total understanding of how the captain of the Titanic must have felt, when he first saw the iceberg.

Beasts don't trust anything made in fear. The big five were all jammed in one Jeep. They shifted to drive a 36-hour stretch of Canadian land. The boys willingly drove into the cold Yukon air. Speeding through darkness and cruising on curvy roads. Heegun was the first to experience what a Jeep skiing off a highway felt like. The icy roads didn't stop Levi from texting while driving (through snowstorms). It was because he got a break up text on the road, which he needed to immediately reply. It wasn't all bad. The boys were the only ones dumb enough to drive beside trucks on the Whitehorse highway, with black ice. They had each other as they stopped between dark mountains, in the middle of the frozen road, underneath a blanket of stars.

If the initial expansion rate of the universe at the time of the Big Bang had been slightly higher, no stars would have formed and only hydrogen would exist. If the rate had been slightly lower, the universe would recollapse soon after the Big Bang. Similar results have been obtained for other constants in physics, such as Levi’s penis. For most, if not all of these phenomena, if they had been slightly different, there’d be no possibility for life to exist.

Upon their arrival in the morning, the gang of boys met a gang of bison by the golden Yukon mountains. 

Whether you’re a photographer or writer, people who create something out of nothing don’t talk much about what they do or why. You may mention technical trades: filters, bit rates, strobe lights if you’re photographers, or words and structure if you’re writers. The only real concern for the artist is to create out of the disorder of life, into an order of being. We venture off to cultivate a taste for creativity, then cater them to the people eager enough to consume it. The Yukon photo menu serves as proof of cooking from five Canadian travelers.

Laid out on the kitchen table was all purpose flour, tongs for the tomahawk steak, graham crackers, Bacardi, olive oil, and milk. Morteza made mojitos. Heegun baked pizza pies. Levi barbecued steak. Shots of rum poured into Rushil's mouth. Nights like these aren't easy to cultivate. Cyrus had to submit graduation projects. Heegun had 11pm zoom meetings with an abusive boss. Levi was going through his first break up. Rushil received girl advice because he had none (explaining the shots of rum). They sat by the campfire, drunk on mojitos, roasting marshmallows, eachother, yapping away under the magical skies of The Yukon.

In certain latitudes, there comes a span of time, not long before the season of Spring, when the twilight begins to turn long and blue. The boys walked to the middle of a frozen lake, standing on ice, swimming in this colour blue. The period of blue night doesn't occur much in Toronto, where the boys reside, but it happens in Whitehorse, where they conquered. Over the course of an hour, this blue light deepens, intensifying as the night darkens. Blue hues faded into the Supreme and NorthFace jacket worn by Cyrus. He's a supreme conqueror facing North, claiming the lake as his land.

Heegun and Rushil got cuffed in front of sugar mama Mary and let the holy spirit cook. They prayed to get the main character Christ’s attention to bless their union. In big G we trust. Or as Morteza would say, Alhamdulillah.

Any married couple will tell you that conflict is inevitable once you've spent enough time together. Marriages that last are the ones that get stronger after moments of tension. Struggles that each person faces together eventually creates a relationship that becomes antifragile. To break under certain pressure is to be fragile. Anti-fragility is like a hydra, sprouting new heads, and growing stronger after every head gets sliced.

This is what traveling does for you and the people you're with: It creates pressure, the kind where conflict is inevitable, but also gives you chance to strengthen your bonds. Like molecules, these boys have become clusters of atoms bound together, always moving. Heated arguments and countless physical fights will be had, but the probability is greater when atoms collide and heat transfers from hotter bodies, eventually getting cooler. And so on.

The flywheel of a car is a heavy disc that acts like a mini-battery pushing the car forward. It requires significant force to start spinning, but once it starts at high speed and builds momentum, the flywheel continues to turn by itself, and the car moves onward smoothly. By the time this trip ended, the Jeep's flywheel was completely worn out. Who could blame it? The Jeep got stuck in snow––no less than 9 times––throughout the trip. Travelling becomes its own flywheel for adventure. Remember kids, when your car gets stuck in snow, don't be afraid to knock on doors of remote homes. You may meet a First Nations man that lets you borrow his shovels and take his weed.

This digital atlas would not have been possible without the photographers below. Continue seeing our vision since you've made it this far: (@coldcyrus, @yeegun, @cestlevi___). Subscribe to the newsletter above to receive the next atlas(in Colombia).