By Mark Clintberg
I write this alone, from a cabin composed primarily of windows in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, in an artist’s colony at the Banff Centre. It is winter solstice. It is 5:00 p.m. and impenetrably dark in these woods. I have seen hungry looking coyotes. When I walk to and from my studio I shake my keychain aimlessly, and whistle to frighten off animals — and ghosts. To my understanding, I am the sole resident using this area of the campus at this time. And so, upon noticing moonlit human footprints in the snow encircling my studio, capturing the mark of someone peering in my window — is that a greasy nose-print on the glass? — I cannot ignore the uncanny feeling that I’m being watched. From a completely rational perspective, these prints must be the mark of a phantom. Certainly not a friendly marmot, or the cleaning staff?
