Juan Covarrubias, a local fixer in Peru, has made it his mission to help local communities grow through education and employment. Juan grew up in the Andes, in his words: “I grew up in the wild in a very remote area, the sister side of Machu Picchu, Choquequirao.” Juan is Quechua, people indigenous to South America, the descendants of the Inca. Juan shed a little light on his journey, his disappointments, and what he called the “local experience.”

First of all, don't get me wrong, Iceland is stunningly beautiful-- replete with verdant cliffs, waterfalls, glaciers, thermal hot springs, aurora sightings, puffins, and ice lagoons-- the place has road trip adventure written all over it. And it's true, driving Iceland's ring road is a phenomenal trip, and not many places on Earth can compete with the beauty of Thorsmork (þórsmörk) or creeping glaciers in Vatnajökull National Park. But there's a catch, with all the attention Iceland has received in recent years, it's crowded and is turning into a must see destination on the global tourist trail. Nearby Greenland, in contrast, is an entirely different story.

Kamchatka conjures up images of pristine boreal forests, snow capped volcanoes and abundant wildlife. Outside of the region's only city-- the fly-in capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky-- the population is sparse and spread across a wild expanse of territory. 

The following photography was compiled by photographer Matt Reichel during his trips across several Arctic regions. Matt has served as an embedded filmmaker with the Canadian Armed Forces in Nunavut, the Yukon and Northwest Territories and has spent time chasing reindeer in Siberia and documenting ice melt in Greenland. These images detail life in several communities in the Arctic across multiple countries during a variety of seasons and conditions.