Larger than life forces are at work all around us, and they could change everything in a single moment — or a lifetime, or trillions of lifetimes.

In the winter 2024 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you five stories of Turning Tides. Some tides turn quickly, some slowly — but all have the power to alter our terrain.

Beyond the marquee of a grand vaudeville theater in Astoria, Oregon, “The Vaudevillian Ghosts of Liberty” beckon. Entertainers of old grace the stage, revealing a world of ghosts and glamor, insult and entertainment, bigotry and inclusivity. In this Chasing Demons feature, journalist Melissa Hart ventures into the shifting waters of show business and wrestles with the legacies of those who came before her.

Glimpses of the past also feature in journalist Robin Catalano’s Quest story, illustrated by Henry Sharpe. The piece follows a leading paleontologist off a New Brunswick cliff and into ancient worlds. But the very forces that reveal these hundreds of millions of years of history may also erase them forever — prompting fossil hunters to engage in a high-stakes “Race Against Tide.”

Amid Sea Rangers, scientists, and underwater spectacles, journalist Jayme Moye introduces us to a 600,000-year-old ecosystem. Our Human and Nature feature showcases the Reef Cooperative, a pioneering collaboration that seeks to correct our relationship with Earth’s largest living structure, “The Magnificent Mother of Sea Country.”

In the Aryan Valley of India’s Indus river, ancient villages hold onto their past, and a different battle for preservation is unfolding. The Brokpa culture has deep roots that reach across continents. But as photojournalist Sugato Mukherjee finds in his Time Travel feature, “How Pure Was the Valley,” all is not what it seems.

Along the beach seine fishing communities of Sri Lanka, change is in the air — and the water, the economy, the culture, and the religious landscape. From the shores of Negombo Lagoon to the surprisingly unconventional nature of tradition itself, photojournalist Kang-Chun Cheng’s photo feature is a Portrait of “A Sea Change in Sri Lanka.”

For the readers and storytellers who are turning tides around the world,

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

It began with a book, encountered in the 1950s by a teenager in a small village in Togo. That book’s descriptions of a frozen, distant land ignited an eight-year journey from the equator to the Arctic, where Tété-Michel Kpomassie became the first African to explore Greenland.

About half a century later, Nigerian-born storyteller Lola Akinmade Åkerström came across Tété’s own book, “An African in Greenland,” and saw herself in his story. She yearned to journey to Greenland to follow in his footsteps.

Then came the 2023 Pathfinder Prize, which Åkerström called “the opportunity of a lifetime.” She gathered her teammates — fellow Nigerian-born writer and photographer Noo Saro-Wiwa and Swedish videographer Erik Jaråker — and in April 2023 they set out on a cultural expedition in Greenland to answer the question: Who gets to tell the story of a place?

Welcome to In Tété’s Footsteps: The 2023 Pathfinder Issue of Hidden Compass — an issue dedicated entirely to stories from that expedition.

Venturing into new artistic territory, we begin with a movie trailer. The team’s short documentary, shot by videographer Erik Jaråker, premieres in December — but in our Quest department, you can find a sneak peek at “In Tété’s Footsteps.”

Then we turn to storyteller Noo Saro-Wiwa, who brings the team’s Quest to life in an image-rich feature narrative of Greenland’s landscapes, Tété’s travels, and her own inspiration to answer Tété’s Call. 

She then meditates on the effects of climate change by weaving together observations on modernization, hunter-gatherer culture, and even resource extraction in her home country of Nigeria for our Human & Nature story, When We Cannot Walk Across the Sea.

Meanwhile, amidst cross-genre soundstages, expedition leader Lola Akinmade Åkerström urges us to listen to The Sound of History in our Time Travel feature, showcasing a momentous collaboration of Inuit voices.

Then, through one woman’s evocative performance, Åkerström introduces us to a 4,000-year-old Greenlandic tradition that was almost lost. As we witness the beautiful and the unsettling in this Chasing Demons story, The Uneasy Allure of Uaajeerneq is revealed.

The team came home with an abundance of striking images — more than we could include in the photo-rich stories above. So, in our Portrait department, we present Character Encounters, a gallery of 20 captivating photos that continue to bring the expedition to life.

Tété is now 82 years old. His book inspired a generation of explorers. Now, who will they inspire with their own stories?

Yours in curious exploration,

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

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