31 DAYS IN THE WILD

I set out on January 1, 2021, with a simple goal: to find a cougar to photograph without using hounds, predator calls or bait. In other words, I wanted to find one using old-school snow tracking. Just me, my fitness and my skills, pitted against one of the most elusive large carnivores on the continent.

The tracking project was also part of a larger goal to draw awareness to these spectacular big cats and the integral role they play in our ecosystems for a cougar conservation campaign with the EXPOSED Wildlife Conservancy, a nonprofit I co-founded in 2020.

My plan was to track cougars by driving, hiking, snowshoeing and fat biking from before dawn until after dusk every single day for a full month near my hometown of Canmore, Alberta, Canada, on the edge of Banff National Park in the heart of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

The Banff area is home to a full suite of predators, including cougars, lynx, bobcats, wolverines, black bears, grizzly bears and wolves. And while I had successfully snow-tracked wolves by vehicle and