As Tim and I make our way farther north, we travel the 142-mile Icefields Parkway. The scenic route is known for gaggles of googly-eyed cyclists in the summer, so we are pleased to discover that we have the frozen lakes, snow-smothered peaks, and icy waterfalls, studded with tiny cramponed climbers, to ourselves. Here was the heart of Alberta in winter: A frozen landscape of such magnitude and beauty we could only honor it with our own meditative silence—and camera clicks.

At the northern end of the Icefields Parkway lies Jasper, where Tim and I discover another landscape on a three-hour evening ice walk through Maligne Canyon. We gear up in down jackets and multiple layers of long underwear, strap studded rubber soles onto our boots for traction, and don headlamps over our hats. Piling out of a van into the starry black at the wilderness trailhead, I wonder what the hell we’re doing heading into the frigid woods in the dark.

But soon after ascending a snowy path, we trace the treed rim of the canyon, where the beauty of the night becomes apparent. I listen to the rhythms of my breath and the crunch of our footsteps in the frosty quiet. I watch the halo of my light expose circles of snow-draped forest, which then disappear into obscurity. We descend into the canyon, where the frozen river makes a thoroughfare between the 60-foot rock walls, adorned with icy gargoyles. As we made our way, we ogle fossils embedded in the limestone river rocks, curtains of ice, and natural ice sculptures. In the silence, the soaring walls of rock and ice feel like a cathedral built in honor of this wild land’s wintry beauty. As I walk out of the canyon, along the snowy river banks, I realize I have been thoroughly converted.