A Canadian winter warrior
Snowy owl (Photo by Gregg McLachlan)
A few winters back, during the continued irruption of snowy owls into southern Ontario, I was lucky enough to come across a “snowy hot spot” just 25 minutes from my home in Guelph, Ontario. My husband and I have passed many Sundays...
Well conserved: Six Canadian national parks worth visiting
Riding Mountain National Park, MB (Photo by Mike Bender)
Canada is an incredibly picturesque country, with vast swaths of wilderness and epic national parks. Canada's parks are some of the best places to experience and connect with nature. From coast to coast, there are parks with turquoise glacial...
Heard it from a Scout: Arctic action — a call for conservation
An aerial view of the Arctic landscape (Photo by NCC)
Each unique landscape in this world — whether it’s a forest, prairie, desert or the Arctic — plays a pivotal role in nature. The Arctic, in particular, supports a variety of flora and fauna while also helping to regulate global...
Something’s Fishy: Polar opposites
Polar bear mother and cub, Jones Sound, Nunavut (Photo by NCC)
Polar bears are the largest bear species and land carnivore in the world. They are found in the Arctic, where they scour sea ice and coasts for their next meal. Two-thirds of the global population of polar bears is found in Canada. The...
Nature's medicine
Medicine wheel (Image by NCC. Icons designed by Freepik from Flaticon)
As a Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) woman, my connection to my culture and my community is as important to me as the water I drink and the air I breathe. I find my Indigenous roots in nature, where my identity is as deep in the land as the roots in the...
Ten good news nature conservation stories from 2018: Our collective actions can have a big impact
Lands within the Jim Prentice Wildlife Corridor (Photo by Brent Calver)
Around the world, we are at a crossroads in our relationship with the planet. For the first time in human history our environmental impacts are happening at a scale that is affecting all life on Earth. Our collective experience in solving big,...
Santa's large helpers
Caribou on Darkwoods, British Columbia (Photo by Christian Schadendorf)
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! "On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blixem!" Santa’s reindeer are kind of a big deal. They have important jobs, as they’re pretty much celebrities in the North Pole. Read on to find...
Love for the unseen
Polar bear (Photo by Andrew Derocher)
Never in my life have I had the pleasure of seeing a polar bear. Nor have my experiences ever brought me into a position of sharing space with this hyper-carnivorous predator who has dominated the food chain in its habitat so fully that it has...
Life on the tundra
Arctic poppy in the snow (Photo by Teva Harrison)
Icebergs. Polar bears. Frozen expanses of windy rock & snow. Scurvy-riddled explorers. Dogsleds... What do you picture when you think of the Arctic? A few summers ago, I had the opportunity to travel north by ship into the Northwest Passage...
A bird (book) in the hand: Birds of Nunavut and UBC Press’s legacy of ornithological publishing
Left to right: Alexa Love (catalogues and advertising manager and cover designer for Birds of Nunavut), Melissa Pitts (director) and Holly Keller (assistant director, production and editorial services)
In my early days working at University of British Columbia (UBC) Press, I was tasked with maintaining the shelves used to house old and new UBC Press books. As I was shelving books one afternoon, I noticed large volumes of books, seemingly out of...
