Often, the departed leave traces behind. Sometimes, their imprints are small. Other times, they intertwine with our lives in inexorable ways.

In the summer 2023 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you five stories that explore how phantoms of the past haunt the present — in ways that terrify us, enlighten us, and change us forever.

Pursuing the lost histories of refugees caught in the whirlwind of World War II, writer Mike Bernhardt heads to the windswept coast of Ireland’s Mullet Peninsula. Once there, his multi-decade Quest broadens beyond the stories of family to those of strangers who risked their lives in The Tides of War.

Thousands of miles and several decades away, in an unlikely setting for A Devilish Pursuit, an after-school group wages their own battle. In photojournalist Rachel Wisniewski’s Portrait story and photo feature, that group is at the center of a pending legal conflict where tyrannies of the past permeate the present. With the separation of church and state at stake, the harrowing experience of one mother’s 17th-century ancestor is mirrored in the contemporary fight.

Then, in our Human & Nature feature, with original artwork by Annie Davidson, writer and neuroscientist Dr. Irene Salter takes us through the streets of Rome and into the brains of her research subjects. Playing with perspective, Salter’s Thought Experiment illuminates the torment of a stolen connection that allows her to rewire her own mind.

Travel journalist Robin Catalano’s perspective also shifts as she delves into the incredible wealth of the colonial spice trade in her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. In her Time Travel feature, Catalano discovers fragments of erased stories beneath the opulence of some of the nation’s first millionaires. Those stories, alongside original artwork by Emily Larsen, come to life in The Bitter Taste of Fortune.

And caught in A Tempest of Dread at the End of the World, writer Ellen Murray takes on Patagonia’s W Trek in our Chasing Demons feature. There, amongst the glaciers and roaring winds, she braves the panic of a memory that has stalked her for months, and sets out on a harrowing path of hope.

With gratitude for all the storytellers and readers whose lives are entwined with our own,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

Hidden Compass has come a long way in the last six years. In May 2017, we hadn’t published our first issue, and so we didn’t have a single reader yet. But as of May 2023, we have 100,000!

We’re taking a moment to celebrate.

Welcome to our first-ever Legacy Issue — a curated collection of 10 Hidden Compass stories from around the world, across our departments, and over the years. These pieces show the sheer diversity of voices and stories that lie at the intersection of literature, journalism, and exploration. Each one is a window into a unique world.

Join us to revisit some of your favorite stories — or, perhaps, discover them for the first time — and let our storytellers take you on journeys both personal and global:

Amanda Castleman brings us to the Okavango Delta for her Lowell Thomas Award-winning piece, Love in a Time of Abundance. In this moving Time Travel story, we spend a night beside lions — exploring the nature of personal and cultural grief, and the legacy of Botswana’s Bushmen.

For her striking photo feature and Portrait story, Kim F. Stone draws on more than a decade of experience cowboying in the shadow of Steens Mountain to bear witness to the lives of The Great Basin Buckaroos, who face not only a challenging landscape but a fading way of life.

Wade in the Water, a haunting, Solas Award-winning Chasing Demons story written by Alexandria Scott and illustrated by Latasha Dunston Greene, brings us out onto Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay — and back in time to pay homage to the spirituals and waterways that guided Scott’s ancestors toward freedom. This story was also anthologized in The Best Women’s Travel Writing.

For Gazawood Dreams, Paul Fischer ventures into Gaza to bring us literal and figurative cinematic journalism. In his Chasing Demons feature, Fischer introduces us to Palestinian twin brothers who dream of making movies in a city where the cinemas have been shuttered and left to ruin. Fischer’s story was named one of the five best features of 2022 by Longreads.

In the vast and desolate Arctic landscapes of Svalbard, Hidden Compass co-founder Sivani Babu brings us an enthralling photo feature and Human and Nature story. The piece, which was recognized by The Best American Travel Writing series and the North American Nature Photography Association, explores the mysterious life — and death — of the iconic Ice Bear.

Hidden Compass co-founder Sabine K. Bergmann’s Awakening the Canopy illuminates a Quest by linguists to tap into the wisdom of endangered voices around the world, from Cameroon to Peru to Thailand. The Solas Award-winning feature, and its original artwork by Candace Rose Rardon, brings the tree of human languages to life, and explores what it means to document what has been lost — and then try to resurrect it.

The threads that connect Lance Garland to the past are literary. In his Time Travel feature, the former Navy sailor discovers an unlikely guide through the wilderness. As Garland follows a path left by writer Jack Kerouac, he traces his own twisting journey Out of Desolation.

In a stunning photo feature, Edmée van Rijn immerses us in not one extreme environment, but two: the sand-swept conflict zones she photographs in the Middle East, and the Arctic landscapes she explores from the back of a dogsled. The unexpected pairing breaks open van Rijn’s personal experiences for a visceral Human and Nature story, Into the Whirlwind.

Searching for the enigmatic Ganges shark — which vanished for more than a century — Colin Daileda plunges us into the waters of the Bengal delta for his Time Travel feature, Lost in the Shallows. But Daileda doesn’t just lead us into the delta’s murky waterways: He shows us the evolution of the landscape and of exploration itself.

In her Quest feature, which was illustrated by blind artist Keith Salmon, Maud Rowell seeks a hidden hero. Inspired by blind, 19th-century explorer James Holman, Rowell brings us Into the Shimmering Void — and along her own journey of sight loss and global exploration.

Thank you to all the extraordinary storytellers who have worked with us over the years, and to each of our 100,000 readers for helping us reach this milestone! Here’s to many more years of exploring together.

With gratitude,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

Once a story is in the world, it becomes a living, breathing thing, coming into sharp relief, receding into nebulous obscurity. But what kind of power do we have to change that story? And can we ever really know which version is true?

In our winter 2023 issue, five journalists and storytellers reckon with these questions as they devote themselves to “Rewriting the Narrative,” bringing their curiosity to bear as they shift the focus, widen the lens, and breathe new and different life into stories past, present and future.

We start in the waters off Santa Barbara, California, where a group of strangers share a dire bond. After years on the frontlines of a global pandemic, these health care workers are facing record levels of burnout. But a Colorado-based nonprofit seeks to help. In this issue’s Chasing Demons story, journalist Allison Torres Burtka personalizes a secondary epidemic as she introduces us to an ICU nurse who’s discovering that perhaps the key to healing the healers lies Beyond the Waves.

Then, deep in a land of canyons and cacti, seemingly eerie figures grace the rock walls in shades of red and black. But what do they mean? And what do we know about the people who left their mark on the desert? In our Time Travel story, writer Craig K. Collins embarks on a perilous journey to Baja California’s Great Mural Region — to learn not just the story of the murals but also the mystery of The Time of the Painters.

And when journalist and filmmaker Anna Polonyi traveled with her wife to visit the historic home of an unorthodox 19th-century French painter, she thought they were going to pay tribute to an LGBTQ+ icon. Instead, she found herself on a Quest for the truth and discovered that Proving the Love of Rosa Bonheur may not be as simple as it sounds.

Proof is also at the heart of this issue’s Portrait story. In a place of legend, the extraordinary can seem ordinary and get lost in the lore. In the Graveyard of the Atlantic, on a remote island off the coast of North Carolina, a succession of women spent more than 100 years delivering life, treating injuries, and caring for islanders facing death. In our photo feature, writer and photographer Megan Dohm wonders if there is enough detail left to recover the stories of The Lost Midwives of Ocracoke — and learns some legacies aren’t carved in stone.

Finally, in a Human and Nature story supported by the Pulitzer Center, Colin Daileda returns to our pages to tell a story that will take decades to unfold. As sea levels rise and intensifying storms batter and flood the coastal village of Chellanam, India, local activists work to protect their home today. But what future are they building? In this imaginative story, we explore The Many Futures of Chellanam, and what they mean for humanity’s relationship with the sea.

As always, we extend our deepest gratitude to our readers, who share our vision of powerful storytelling, and to our contributors, who bring us stories from the frontiers of modern exploration.

Until the next voyage,

Sivani Babu and Sabine K. Bergmann, Hidden Compass Co-founders