When photographer Jean-Simon Bégin came across not one but six lynx in a snowstorm, the event was “like a dream.”
“I believe I am one of the only humans in the world to have experienced this closeness with six wild lynx,” Bégin told The Epoch Times.
The 32-year-old professional painter and wildlife photographer searched for several days in his quest to encounter the special species of wildcat. The location was a remote part of northern Canada, far from Quebec City where Bégin lives.
Despite large populations prowling the country’s north, Bégin—a keen photographer since the age of 12—didn’t succeed in capturing one with his camera until his mid-20s. Spotting a lynx became his “biggest obsession” he says.
Several years ago, during his first trip to the place that Bégin declines to name in order to “protect the place and the animals,” he managed to spend 10 minutes or so with a lone lynx.
“It is an animal that contrasts a lot with the surrounding nature,” he said. “He sat and looked at me for a long time before starting to lick himself.”
It was a moving experience, but Bégin craved more.
Not dissuaded by the creature’s elusive nature, earlier this year he returned—and got more than he could possibly have wished for. But first, he had to use every last drop of sweat and perseverance to realize his dream.
“The lynx is an animal that is always on the move and has a huge territory,” Bégin said. “So you have to be lucky.”
The greatest difficulty this type of expedition involves is not an external danger but an internal struggle.
“After an eight-hour day looking for an animal that you can’t find, it’s normal that morale sinks to its lowest. It’s an important mental battle that must be fought in order not to lose sight of the main objective,” he said.
Seeing nothing for days in a row, Bégin pushed aside the doubts cropping up in his head and pressed on. On the golden day of the encounter, a heavy snowstorm had been raging since the previous night, and as the snow fell around him, Bégin returned to a spot where he’d seen the tracks of a lynx family the day before:
“For six hours, I walked along the snowy roads of the forest. Arriving at the place where I had seen the tracks in the morning, I was amazed to see that the group had walked on my footprints.”
At the intersection of a snow road and a snowmobile trail, something out of the corner of his eye caught Bégin’s attention: what looked like a black spot in the middle of the trail. It didn’t take long for him to realize it was a solitary lynx sitting on the ground, and Bégin immediately lay down with his camera, waiting.
The animal was approximately 100 meters (330 feet) away.
“Suddenly, a small lynx came out of the wood and joined him, then three others. Finally, another adult arrived to sit with them,” Bégin said. “I had a total of six lynx in front of me. It was something so exceptional that I could hardly believe it.”
The group could clearly see the photographer but showed no signs of moving. Next, the unimaginable happened.
The little clan started to walk towards Bégin—following the mother lynx, they followed one another, all in a row. After advancing 10 meters (30 feet) or so, the group would pause and sit down, then start moving again.
“[This went on] until the six lynx were all around me, sitting in the snow, scanning the forest for a hare. They didn’t care about me,” Bégin said.
It was a breathtaking moment for the sole adventurer, alone in the Canadian wilderness—and the world agreed. As soon as Bégin published his images of the encounter, they went viral.
“I think the whole world saw my images for a month on Instagram and Facebook,” he said. “All the wildlife photographers in the world saw them.
“This event was so rare that it caught the attention of many people.”
Not only did this trip to search for lynx bring him artistic acclaim and one of the most memorable moments of his life, but it also deepened his survival expertise.
“All those hours in the wild taught me more about life than many books about it,” he says, sharing his essential kit list, which includes an emergency GPS and enough food to last a week.
With these and his learned ability to foresee potential problems, Bégin isn’t afraid of getting lost or experiencing dangerous situations.
The young talent won Best Canadian Photographer of the Year in 2021 and has so far accumulated more than 70 “good” pictures of lynx. Even though Bégin has now seen many of the animals, it’s still a source of fascination:
“It is always a moment that makes me completely crazy,” he said.
When Bégin was young, he would experiment with his parent’s cameras and dreamed of being an explorer like he saw on TV and in the pages of National Geographic. One day, recognizing his son’s interest, Bégin’s father came home with one of the first commercialized digital cameras to land on the market.
The 12-year-old boy took a picture of a duck in flight that was so impressive, his parents printed it.
“Today,” he says, “I’m equipped with the best cameras in the world. The technology has evolved so much since I started. It is much easier to make beautiful pictures now.
“The limits of wildlife photography are still being pushed back, and these innovations are allowing us to capture even rarer or more amazing images.”
