In 2022 KLRS hosted Megan Leung, an artist and a Masters student at the University of Calgary in the Geography Department. Megan spent two months at KLRS, learned about the research in the region and created a painting to represent the intersections between disciplines and research topics studied here.
Kluane’s Symphony illustrates how the expansive landscape of Lhù’ààn Mânʼ (Kluane Lake) and all the meaningful work that researchers, youth groups, and community members I had the honour of spending time on the land with inspired me. This piece begins with the extensive roots systems of the diverse flora and fauna of the subarctic boreal forest, including the vibrant fireweed of the Yukon, migrating to the shores of the deep turquoise glacial waters, rich with arctic graylings, rainbow trout, and mountain whitefish. These waters are connected to the land by the fluxes of surface and subsurface water flow, as well as large game that hunt them, many of which travel to much higher elevations, where Thechàl Dhâl (Sheep Mountain) overlooks these braided waters fed by the sweeping Kaskawulsh Glacier via the Ä’äy Chù (Slims River). At night, the aurora borealis dances through the dark skies, while all other complex organisms that originated from eukaryotic cells, are at rest.
Megan Leung
Artist in Residence at the Kluane Lake Research Station, 2022
