To the Wild Country

From the cool heights of the Cypress Hills to the eerie badland formations of the Red Deer River, Alberta is a land of open space, big skies, and an abundance of wildlife. With prehistoric fossilized bones continually emerging from the ancient soil, and a great ranching tradition that still carries on, John and Janet Foster explore what is known to be the Great Canadian Southwest.

In Canada's wild Yukon Territory, 8,500 square miles of the most spectacular scenery on earth has been set aside as a National Park called Kluane. From its gentle lowland valleys to the icy peak of Mt. Logan, Kluane is a land of stark and beautiful contrasts. This great park, bordered along one side by the fabled Alaska Highway, is explored by wilderness photographers John and Janet Foster.

North America's Great Lakes are the largest bodies of fresh water on earth. This episode reveals a land unknown to many of the people who live along the shores of the Great Lakes. John and Janet Foster explore some of the hidden corners of these vast inland seas, photographing rare creatures and searching for caribou along Superior's northern rim.

In Ontario's Algonquin Park wilderness, the Fosters meet and befriend an interesting couple from Michigan, guiding them as they paddle and photograph wildlife around the park. In the course of their stay in Algonquin, the two couples meet a few local experts who teach them about canoe handling, how a loon responds to hearing its own call played back, and an expert on building birch bark canoes.

Just north of Montreal is a landscape carved and shattered by three great ice ages. More than 8,000 square miles of Baffin Island's Cumberland peninsula has been set aside here as the world's first truly arctic national park. John and Janet Foster explore its harsh beauty, taking their cameras to places very few have seen, and also spending some time in the nearby Inuit community of Pangnirtung.

Explore the Great Gulf of the St. Lawrence River, as John and Janet Foster photograph the wild creatures and hidden corners of this ancient and powerful river. It's one of the finest places in the world to watch whales, and includes at least seven species. Along the shore, the Gaspe peninsula rises through gentle rural hillsides, where a herd of relic caribou still survives.