People & Culture

Announcing the winners of the 2024 Canadian Photos of the Year competition

Canadian Geographic honours 14 photographers who captured some of the best shots of 2024

  • Jan 29, 2025
  • 819 words
  • 4 minutes
the milkway arcs in a blue and orange sky above a gently-lit abandoned building
The Milky Way rises above the abandoned Utopia School, an old one-room schoolhouse that opened in 1904. This photo is part of the portfolio of Shane Turgeon, the grand prize winner of our annual photo competition. (Photo: Shane Turgeon)
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Lightning strikes a canola field from a bruised sky. An octopus mother tenderly guards her eggs. Mountain bikes tumble through the summer air. The winners of Canadian Geographic’s Canadian Photos of the Year competition — judged by Christian Fleury, Jenny Wong, Scott Forsyth, Ryan Tidman and the magazine’s editorial and design teams — bring to vivid life the meaning of the word “photography,” which means “drawing with light.” Here are the photos that put stars in the eyes of this year’s judging panel.

Canadian Photographer of the Year 2024

Shane Turgeon
lightning shoots down from a blue and red sky into a canola field
Sunset adds a warm glow to this developing supercell near Bentley, Alta. (Photo: Shane Turgeon)
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a comet streaks through a blue and apricot sky above an abandoned building
Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS returned to the skies on October 12th, one day after Turgeon’s old pup and adventure buddy Kwinn returned to the cosmos. (Photo: Shane Turgeon)
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a cinnamon-phase black bear looks at the camera in greenish foliage
When Turgeon's eyes met the eyes of this cinnamon phase black bear in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alta., it was a profound moment. “You understand that we are all deeply interconnected,” reflects Turgeon. “That we are all a part of nature. That we all require a clean environment and have a need for a safe existence.” (Photo: Shane Turgeon)
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Our Canadian Photographer of the Year is Shane Turgeon, 47, of Edmonton and Pincher Creek, Alta., who has been chasing the light he found in photography since a nervous breakdown in 2012. “It scared the hell out of me, and in the process of that, I discovered photography,” says Turgeon. As he walked with his dogs, he started noticing dewdrops on grass, frost on leaves. “All those healing effects of nature really started to take hold.”

Growing up “at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, Saskatchewan,” Turgeon had always found solace in the night sky. “It has this profound ability to put everything in perspective, because cosmically we are absolutely insignificant.” He started practising astrophotography with those little pinpricks of light, then diversified to pursue all aspects of nature photography. When his dog, Kwinn, got sick in summer 2024, Turgeon looked for inspiration closer to home: backyard bugs, auroras dancing over waterfalls. The day after Kwinn passed, the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet appeared in the sky. As he chased the comet, he chased away his grief.

“Photography is this place of light,” says Turgeon. “We’re constantly chasing the light, figuratively and literally, because, in life or photography, we want that light in our life.”

an orthodox church is the foreground to a blue and orange night sky as the milky way soars above the building.
Turgeon found this old Ukrainian Orthodox church to be a compelling foreground for the summer Milky Way. “One is the oldest form of worship we have as humans and the source of all things in the universe. The other, a comparatively new form of human worship with doctrines and beliefs surreptitiously influenced by the movements of the night sky.“ (Photo: Shane Turgeon)
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Outdoor Adventure

Winner: Sara Kempner

These mountain bikers hit their jumps at the same time as they race side-by-side on parallel tracks during the “Speed & Style” competition at the 2024 finale of the Crankworx World Tour, held in Whistler, B.C.

two bikes fly through the air against a mountain backdrop Expand Image
Runner-up: Matthew Littlewood

Dome Glacier, on the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park, Alta., is constantly shifting, creating new features each year. This icy archway had only been a small opening the previous year and is unlikely to remain intact this year as the glacier shifts.

torchlight from an ice climber illuminates an ice arch under a night sky Expand Image
Honourable mention: Gerald Situ

Highliner Mat Bolduc enjoys the first sunrise on a naturally-rigged highline named “Naked Fainting Goat.” The highline was naturally secured (without bolts) on Goat Ridge in Squamish, B.C., and was “more raw and visceral than any highline we had been on before,” says Situ.

a figure balances on a slackline above a mountain valley as the sun rises casting a pastel glow Expand Image
Honourable mention: Oscar Hui

As the morning sun bathes this valley in the Drumheller Badlands, Alta., a lone couple hikes a trail through a landscape shaped by time.

a yellow path winds through a deep valley. there is one couple hiking on the trail. above it is a steep cliff with buildings on top. Expand Image

Urban and Natural Landscapes

Winner: Peter Baumgarten

The late afternoon sun paints the sky a moody apricot between the looming silhouettes of two condo towers in Etobicoke, Toronto. From Butterfly Park, the photographer used a super-telephoto lens to focus on the contrast between light and shadow.

two condo towers rise like a film strip against a line of orange sky Expand Image
Runner-up: Sonny Parker

A storm brews over the Kluane Ranges in Kluane National Park and Reserve, Yukon, as the sun illuminates the Kaskawulsh River valley in gold.

the sun turns snow capped mountains gold against a dark slate sky Expand Image
Honourable mention: Brandon Broderick

Trees cast their long cold shadows onto the expanse of a frozen lake near Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

a stand of trees cast long shadows on a frozen lake. The shadows almost look like the silhouettes of trees on a mountain Expand Image

Weather, Seasons and Skies

Winner: Craig Boehm

A tornado-warned storm swirls like a cinnamon bun over the prairies of Avonlea, Sask. The sculpted cloud above the abandoned building is the rain-free updraft area, while a microburst dumps rain and hail on the right-hand side.

a storm swirls over a building in a canola field Expand Image
Runner-up: Curtis Watson

The Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet streaks over the Bay of Fundy at Burntcoat Head Park, N.S., during low tide in October 2024. The last peoples to see this comet, which has an 80,000-year orbit, with the naked eye would have been the Neanderthals.

a comet arcs in a blue and apricot sky above a small island as seen from the intertidal zone Expand Image
Honorable mention: Peter O’Hara

The northern lights dance over Vermillion Lakes in Banff National Park, Alta., as Mount Rundle stands majestic, illuminated in an eerie green glow.

the aurora shines down in shafts of light onto a mountain jutting out of a lake which reflects the green pink colours. Expand Image

Flora, Fauna and Fungi

Winner: Stuart White

Two red fox kits, tumbling around in the dirt of Bonavista, N.L., pause their play to glance at the photographer in the soft morning light. Fox kits are born in the spring and after nine weeks are old enough to hunt with their parents.

A fox kit lays its head over another red fox kit as the two play in the dirt Expand Image
Runner-up: Eli Wolpin

It took 40 minutes and three tanks of air for the photographer to reach this giant Pacific octopus, which laid her eggs in early June in Whytecliff Marine Protected Area, B.C. After laying their eggs, octopus mothers stay in their dens, protecting their young. Eventually, they stop eating, and are often dead by the time the eggs hatch.

an octopus eye is visible through reddish tentacles, with egg sacs visible above the octopus' eye Expand Image
Honorable mention: Rain Saulnier

These Atlantic puffins take a break from hunting for fish to have a sunset social near Elliston, N.L.

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