Follow me on a two hour drive around Andøya Island, northern Norway last week. It is the island where I grew up.

I've been working on a new book project over the past couple of months. I've looked at hundreds of images, all from my ski touring adventures. So with all that snow and beauty on my mind, I created a series of 5x7 greeting cards highlighting some of my favourite photographs.

You know how you find a photographer, and then click through their ENTIRE Instagram, liking each one? Or heading to their website to discover more? When we find such a creative artist that speaks to us, it’s both a lucky occurrence (finding them in the millions of people online) and a life-enhancing moment. From now on, our lives will be enriched by their talent, view, artistry, and sharing of their worldview.

From the mountain last night. My city, Sortland. Taken from mountain «urtind», just a couple of hours walk on the snow from my house. Wonderful, isn`t it? 

‘Pointless’ might be something you would expect when I tell you what it’s like to visit a beach town in winter. When a town makes its living during the summer months of tourists visiting its sandy beaches and Lake Huron shores, it’s easy to pretend that the town doesn’t exist in the winter months.

Even the words European Christmas markets bring a smile to my face, and a head full of travel plans. I get dreamy, thinking of wandering the paths between rows of booths twinkling with lights, a mug of steaming hot yumminess in my hands, surrounded by the fresh scent of pine and roasted chestnuts, and the crisp night air nipping at my cheeks. 

Every fall, approximately 10,000 tourists from around the world descend on “The Polar Bear Capital of the World,” Churchill, Manitoba. This community of about 800 people on Hudson Bay in Northern Canada is home to the annual migration of more than 1,000 hungry polar bears that pass through town as they wait for the Bay ice to return. The new Smithsonian Channel docu-series POLAR BEAR TOWN documents a season in Churchill, following this extraordinary migration of human and four-legged animals as they collide in unexpected and sometimes dangerous ways.

Most people, outside the west coast, seem to think beaches are only for summer. If it’s not sunny and 80 what’s the point of the beach? No one wants to go to the beach in anticipation of freezing their butt off.