Why Canada matters on World Wetlands Day
Wetlands in the Marion Creek Benchlands, British Columbia (Photo by Tim Ennis/NCC)
While other nations have picked wetland wildlife, such as Finland’s whooper swan or Pakistan’s Indus crocodile, to represent their country, Canada is the only country in the world that has selected a wetland engineer as its national...
We live on a green planet: An interview with Brian Keating (Part Two)
Brian Keating, Antarctica (Photo courtesy of Brian Keating)
This is part two of a two-part interview with Brian Keating, who has dedicated his life to promoting a conservation ethic and raising awareness about the natural world. He has travelled the world in search of great nature stories, and used his...
We live on a green planet: An interview with Brian Keating (Part One)
Brian Keating, Antarctica (Photo courtesy of Brian Keating)
This is part one of a two-part interview with Brian Keating, who has dedicated his life to promoting a conservation ethic and raising awareness about the natural world. He has travelled the world in search of great nature stories, and used his...
Celebrating Canadian species: Bald eagle
Bald eagle (Photo by Keith Mombour)
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a bald eagle. It wasn’t even the first time I’d seen a bald eagle that winter, but it was by far the most emotional. I had recently relocated from Montreal to Victoria, and the constant...
Celebrating Canadian species: Grizzly bear
Grizzly bear (Photo by Peter Sulzle)
When I put my boots on in the morning, I never really expect or seek to see a grizzly bear. Despite the fact that my Rocky Mountains backyard is home to many brown bears, any encounter always feels like a surprise. Meeting a bear in the wild...
Restoring the dunes of James Island, BC
Volunteers at the Broom Bash event on James Island, BC (Photo by Ann MacDonald)
“Covenant,” from the French word "convenir," means to come together. And this fall, 11 of us did just that as Conservation Volunteers with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC). We spent a sunbaked autumn day yanking gorse and Scotch...
Something's Fishy: The freshwater slasher
Westslope cutthroat trout (Photo by Wikimedia Commons)
When you think about Halloween, spooky species such as spiders with venomous fangs and blood-sucking bats usually come to mind. Of course, Hollywood is often to blame for these misrepresentations of species, with accounts of bats turning into...
A walk in the woods: Land of giants among dinosaurs
Walking through a BC forest dripping with witch's hair lichen (Photo by NCC)
I have been fortunate enough to live in some of the most beautiful parts of British Columbia, from the Rockies to the west coast. My life began in the Kootenays in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, among slopes blanketed in montane and Columbia...
Communications from the coast: Three days of travel as a student videographer
Getting a close up of the old-growth forest at the Gullchucks Estuary conservation area (Photo by NCC)
From May to August of this year, I worked in Victoria as the Nature Conservancy of Canada's (NCC’s) communications intern in British Columbia. I’m a writing student at the University of Victoria, and film is one of my areas of...
What makes burrowing owl volunteers hoot?
Burrowing Owls gaze at volunteers at Burrowing Owl Conservation Society Breeding Facility near Oliver, BC (Photo by Dianne Bersea)
It’s a cold, early March day when my friend and regular Burrowing Owl Conservation Society volunteer, Doreen Olson, asks me, “Why don’t you join me next time I’m feeding the burrowing owls?”The following Tuesday...
