Winter Landscapes Around the World: 15 Snowy Places from Banff to Japan

Snow changes a place more than any other weather. A footbridge in New York, a thatched village in Japan, a turquoise lake in the Canadian Rockies and a blueberry-coloured house in Finland all look new under a fresh fall. These fifteen winter photographs, each by a named photographer, travel from Iceland and the Baltic to the Alps, North America and Japan.

Snowy places in North America

1. Long Bridge, Skaneateles, New York

Matt Champlin’s photograph above puts a figure in a red coat on a snow-covered wooden bridge, the only strong colour in a white wood. Long Bridge lies at the northern edge of the town of Skaneateles in central New York, south-west of Syracuse. The town takes its name from Skaneateles Lake, from an Onondaga word meaning “long lake”.

2. Squamish, British Columbia, Canada

Squamish sits at the head of Howe Sound on the Sea to Sky Highway, less than an hour from both Vancouver and Whistler. It is best known for the Stawamus Chief, a granite massif with more than 300 climbing routes and views over the Sound and the Coast Mountains.

3. Peyto Lake, Banff National Park, Canada

Peyto Lake lies at about 1,860 metres in Alberta’s Banff National Park, beside the Icefields Parkway. Its famous turquoise comes from glacial rock flour carried in by Peyto Creek from the Peyto Glacier, part of the Wapta Icefield. The classic viewpoint is Bow Summit, the parkway’s highest point. The lake is named after Bill Peyto, an early Banff trail guide and trapper. Read more in our Peyto Lake guide.

Iceland, Finland, Estonia and Karelia

4. Reykjavík, Iceland

Oskar Pall Elfarsson photographed Iceland’s capital, the world’s northernmost capital city, under snow. For another Icelandic town transformed by a storm, see Akureyri’s colourful streets.

5. Kuusaankoski, Laukaa, Finland

Joni Rahunen photographed open, moving water at the Kuusaankoski rapids in Laukaa, where the current keeps the river from freezing while hoarfrost and snow load the trees on the banks.

6. The Moominhouse, Naantali, Finland

The blueberry-coloured Moominhouse stands in Moominworld on Kailo island, beside the old town of Naantali in south-west Finland. The theme park opened in 1993 and is a summer attraction, open daily from mid-June to mid-August, which makes a picture of it in falling snow a rare sight.

7. Estonia

Jan Leparnaa titled his Estonian scene simply “Winter Wonderland”, a fair summary of a Baltic winter.

8. Karelian Isthmus, Russia

The Karelian Isthmus is the 45 to 110 km wide strip of land between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, north of Saint Petersburg. Shaped by glaciers, it has no mountains, but plenty of pine and spruce forest, lakes, bogs and granite outcrops. Most of it was Finnish Karelia until Finland ceded it to the Soviet Union in 1940 and again in 1944.

Central and Western Europe in snow

9. A woodland stream in Austria

Roland Maria Reininger caught low sunlight slanting through the trees above a snowy stream, a warm gap in an otherwise cold, blue scene.

10. Bavaria, Germany

Kilian Schoenberger shared this Bavarian winter scene on his photography page. Bavaria, Germany’s largest state, reaches south into the Alps along the Austrian border.

11. Paris, France

Irene F. photographed Paris under snow. The city’s mild winters mean snowfalls are usually light and short-lived, so a white Paris is always a moment to catch quickly.

12. Liverpool, United Kingdom

Owen Buckley’s photograph shows Liverpool at dusk after snowfall. The port city lies on the estuary of the River Mersey in north-west England.

13. Campigna, Foreste Casentinesi, Italy

Roberto Melotti’s sunrise path leads through the snowy woods of Campigna, on the Apennine ridge between Tuscany and Romagna. Campigna is part of the Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona and Campigna National Park, created in 1993 and known for its white firs. The park’s ancient beech forests joined UNESCO’s list of Primeval Beech Forests of Europe in 2017, and Monte Falterona within it is the source of the Arno.

Snow in Japan

14. Shirakawa-go, Gifu, Japan

Nomiyama Kei’s photograph shows the gassho-zukuri farmhouses of Shirakawa-go, whose steep thatched roofs are built to shed heavy snow. The villages of Ogimachi, Ainokura and Suganuma along the Sho River in Gifu and Toyama prefectures form the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama. Families once raised silkworms in the large attic spaces under those roofs.

15. Nagano, Japan

Takanobu Nushi photographed a freezing night in Nagano Prefecture, the landlocked mountain region of central Honshu that includes highlands of the Japanese Alps. It hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics and is home to Zenkō-ji, one of Japan’s most important temples.

Related reading

• Peyto Lake guide
• Akureyri’s colourful streets