An ivory carver connects Nantucket to its whaling past.

An aristocratic pastime involves training, admiring—and almost becoming—a bird of prey.

A distinctive whistling language still echoes in the hills of La Gomera.

Hand-picked seaweed is the pride of New Brunswick’s Grand Manan Island.

In Dubai, skilled shipbuilders supersize a traditional wooden boat.

Nova Scotia’s old-school swordfish hunters don’t use lines or nets.

In Taipei, indoor fishermen dangle for their dinner.

One man watches over an uninhabited New Brunswick island.

No other creatures, let alone cephalopods, mate quite like this.

Discarded shells are shelters for this underwater species in Anilao. Beer cans, too.

Tradition-minded Vermont farmers swear by the scythe.

A predatory invertebrate strikes from inside its ocean burrow.

In a remote village in Teruel, an elderly couple are the only remaining residents.

A ride on Vienna's defining roadway.

Kurdish singers shout the story of their embattled nation.

A bird woos mates with a "bow, walk, pause and waggle." Collaboration: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Come mating time, the King-of-Saxony male makes a ruckus. Collaboration: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

A male bird-of-paradise performs a dramatic courtship dance. Collaboration: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

A singer/poet’s compilation helps preserve the Gypsy language.

A Lampang workshop specializes in the dha, a traditional Southeast Asian sword.

Spectacular processions in Granada bring Catholic feeling to fever pitch.

The daily catch, viewed across decades. An ancient mariner reflects.

The giant, noisy summer colony of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula.

A Cape Town specialty: boiled sheep’s head.

A single-chair lift Vermont lets purists ski the old-fashioned way.

Preserving the flavor of Old Vienna.

On the Andaman coast, a disappearing approach to married life.

In the Basque Country, handball takes on a heroic aspect.

Havana’s youth learn to punch above their weight.

A Wyoming town revives a cowboy competition, without the frills.

The ancient city of Bagan bristles with thousand-year-old buildings.

In Borneo, an ingenious handcrafted hunting tool still gets the job done.

Cartagena, the Western Hemisphere’s best-preserved colonial city.

An ancient waterway near Guilin has inspired more poetry than any other.

How an unlikely seagoing species emerged in Montego Bay.

In winter, a Wyoming town welcomes to the world’s largest gathering of elk.

Chefchaouen, an old town with a gloriously monotone medina.

Saut d’Eau, world’s busiest bathing spot for vodou pilgrims.

In a city of ups and downs, an ingenious way to get around.

Making a makoro the traditional way, using axe and wood.

A mighty body of water that became a desert.

A lake in Palau contains a startling surplus of golden medusae.

The musette, theme song of a bygone Paris.

Traditional painted Easter eggs, in the historic town of Ciocăneşti.

An encounter with the Serengeti's most endangered species.