Congratulations to Takeshi Hanatani, winner of the 2025 A Celebration of Swans art competition!
Every year, Environment Yukon’s Wildlife Viewing team, with support from Yukon Energy, produces a collectible poster featuring an art piece celebrating spring and the arrival of swans.
Posters are distributed across the Yukon to raise awareness about A Celebration of Swans, a festival held annually during the month of April at Swan Haven Interpretive Centre at M’Clintock Bay on Marsh Lake.
About Takeshi Hanatani
Takeshi Hanatani's photograph is featured on this collectible poster designed by Jen Edwards of Sprucetip Design.
Takeshi Hanatani has photographed North American wildlife for almost 30 years. In 2007, he emigrated from Japan to explore the Canadian Rockies. Since 2010, he’s called the Yukon home, where he works diligently to capture the dramatic beauty of local wildlife in their natural habitat. Takeshi aspires to use the medium of photography to create meaning and evoke emotion for the natural world.
About the photo
Every spring, I travel to Swan Haven and Tagish to photograph migrating swans. I was inspired to take this photograph because of the way the slanted sunlight emphasized the swan’s form as well as its footprints on the ice. Swans are one of my favourite subjects – they are beautiful, powerful and poetic.
-Takeshi Hanatani
Get a free poster
Free posters (limited supply) are available starting April 1. To get a copy, stop by the lobby at the Department of Environment building at 10 Burns Road in Whitehorse (open 8:30 am to 4:45 pm Monday to Friday).
You can also get a poster at the Swan Haven Interpretive Centre, open 5 to 8 pm weekdays and 12 to 7 pm weekends and holidays.
For questions about the festival poster, email [email protected] or phone: 867-667-8291 or toll free in the Yukon: 1-800-661-0408, ext. 8291.