
The human condition is defined not by comfort, but by curiosity. Which is precisely how I found myself trudging through the frozen veins of the Northwest Territories, boots crunching on permafrost, breath crystallizing in a symphony of stubborn fog. I wasn’t after gold, or caribou, or even the Aurora Borealis...

In the beginning, there was hash. Simple, hand-rubbed, and potent enough to knock the sandals off a Nepalese holy man. But this is America, and if there’s one thing we do well, it’s turning simple pleasures into unholy monstrosities of chrome and silicon, fueled by the twin demons of capitalism...