| A caribou, silhouetted by the setting sun, shakes off water in a spray of golden droplets. Lightning sizzles over the Edmonton skyline during a spring thunderstorm. A woman pauses to sip hot chocolate outside a snowy corner store in downtown Montreal — a perfect snapshot of urban life. These are just some of the outstanding images selected from among nearly 7,000 entries to Canadian Geographic’s Canadian Photos of the Year competition as the best of 2021. Canadian Photos of the Year is a fresh take on our annual photo competition, which ran for 36 years. For the first time, we were pleased to award one individual a grand prize of $5,000, naming them Canadian Photographer of the Year. Read on to see the photos that most impressed our judges: Jenny Wong, Christian Fleury, Scott Forsyth, and George Kourounis. | 