Gordon Wiltsie, Best Photo Mountain Culture, 2004 Banff Mountain Photography Competition

"Every spring and fall, perhaps since the days of Genghis Khan, hardy nomadic herders have shepherded huge flocks of sheep, goats, cattle, yaks, camels and horses back and forth over Mongolia’s rugged Horidol Saridog mountains. Because travel is easiest over frozen ground, families almost always migrate through snow, encountering constant peril from storms and sub-zero temperatures. Some years, many people die. Despite these dangers, even octogenarians and newborn babies migrate. In this image, which captures the journey’s human essence for me, parents have just loaded two-year-old Emkhee into a sheepskin-lined box, where his four-year-old sister, Jagai, and five-year-old brother, Dalai, are entertaining him. Shortly thereafter, his parents loaded him aboard a yak, where he occasionally rode unattended amidst jostling oxen while his parents chased down wayward animals. Jagai and Dalai each rode horses, displaying remarkable prowess for their ages."

Gordon Wiltsie is a writer, photographer and guide whose work has taken him to some of the globe’s remotest locations, including previously unexplored wilderness regions of Antarctica, the Arctic, Central Asia and South America. For more than 30 years, his pictures have been published around the world, including numerous feature articles for National Geographic. Although Gordon is best known for his coverage of leading-edge mountaineering, dog-sledding, skiing and archaeological expeditions, his true passion has always been capturing intimate images of the people he encounters en route. He cares deeply about vanishing ways of life and has become conversant in several languages, including Nepali, Spanish, French, Hindustani and Mongolian. A book of Gordon’s expedition photography is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2005.