Back in 2008, I started a tradition. What began as a photo of a simple cartwheel on a beach has become a tradition when I travel. I love the process of finding the right location, setting up the shot, and cartwheeling in front of strangers in random places. It feels free and delightfully childish and I hope I can continue doing them for a very long time. I

The March/April 2025 issue of Canadian Geographic features a story on Wildflowers and retracing the footsteps of Mary Schäffer Warren, accompanied by a stunning collection of photographs by the late and great Natalie Gillis.

It’s with a heavy heart I post this piece today, in remembrance of Nat Gillis — a friend, fellow creative soul and shining light who died Monday, June 17, 2024, when her aircraft crashed in Albany, NY. I had the fortune of writing a profile about Nat for Kootenay Mountain Culture for their Summer 2023 issue.

Lights to Guide Me Home is a travelogue that takes readers on a trip around the world while I chronicle my transition through some of life’s major milestones. As there aren’t images in the book itself, I wanted to share some of these memories and visuals with readers to enhance their experience as they read.

The memoir genre is rich with wonderful books about motherhood and the outdoors. Below you’ll find some of my personal favourites and some new recommendations. It’s by no means a comprehensive list but instead represents the myriad ways these two topics intersect. Whether it’s through climbing, hiking, or a simpler life on the trail, these journeys share a common thread of motherhood as it converges with Mother Earth.

When my book, Lights to Guide Me Home, morphed into a full-length memoir, I discovered myself in the throes of a process I didn’t expect — one in which I needed to consider the impact of telling my story. Telling my truth. Upon the book’s publication, I had the opportunity to write a piece for Literary Hub in which I explored the topic of memoir and the fine art of weighing our truth.

There’s this person I met about 17 years ago. It was my first summer working in the mountains at a historic lodge in Banff National Park. Now, by this point, this person had been lying in the Banff Cemetery for 66 years, but her story was so compelling that it has been the subject of much Rockies folklore. Her accomplishments as an explorer, writer, photographer and artist put her name in the history books alongside notable men of the same era.

Mary Schäffer was no ordinary woman.

The reality is that much of what we aspire to be as "outdoorsy parents" (or even just parents) is based on myths and ideals that we shouldn't get so caught up in. The funny thing with myths is that there is usually some element of truth to them. But mostly they take us down that dangerous hole of comparison. It has been a process for me to realize that there were things I was aspiring to that simply weren't real to begin with.

How do you write a memoir when you’ve never written one before? Where do you even start? From story selection and structure to finding beta readers and the editing process, here’s a window into my first-time memoir-writing process.

This is a heart-in-throat kind of announcement for me as an author because it feels like the best day ever and the height of vulnerability all at once. I humbly present to you the cover of LIGHTS TO GUIDE ME HOME (Sept. ‘22) ✨ — the results of the hard work of the team at Rocky Mountain Books (a particular nod to designer Lara Minja), who were wonderfully collaborative with me as the author. I don’t take that lightly!

Just over a decade ago, I set off on a project to give feedback to other writers for 52 weeks straight.

I recently stumbled across the blog content I wrote about that experience and decided to pull it from the archives for you. As outdated as some of it is (my personal career has come a long way in those ten years), it was a cool project and one I think we can all learn from!

Maybe you enjoyed travelling before you had kids or it’s something new you want to do with your family. Either way, travelling with your kids is a rich experience that will shape your family, challenge you, create many memories, and help you and your kids grow in new ways. Here are some of my best tips for travelling with kids, and enjoying the experience.

For anyone who has been there in its 100-year history, Abbot Pass Hut is a remarkable place. For anyone who hasn’t been, a quick glimpse of its location might make one double-take. Perched upon an inhospitable heap of stone piles between Mts. Lefroy and Victoria on the border of Banff and Yoho national parks, Abbot Pass Hut has been keeping mountaineers warm and safe since its construction in 1922.

But that heap of stones proved to be unstable.

“We were all standing there with our art supplies facing the glacier, just taking the wind,” Emily (Emily Beaudoin) says, “and it felt like the dying breath of a beast, just so powerful and so… vulnerable.”

It was a pleasure to put together this short feature about Rockies Repeat Film for the inaugural issue of Mountain Life Rocky Mountains.

I am excited to announce the release of my first children’s book, The Wonders That I Find! Published by Rocky Mountain Books (Spring 2021), this book draws on my own experiences venturing into nature with my two young kids, and what I’ve observed as they’ve taken in the natural world through their own eyes.

If every adventure I’ve been on is any indication, each one has a beginning, middle and end. Yet the adventure is never really over. It lives inside us in the memories we created, the challenges we overcame, the joys of the accomplishments and surprises, the callouses on our feet from rubbing in our hiking boots.

Paul Zizka and I get to collaborate from time to time, and this is one of our favourite pieces. We’d pitched a story about methane bubbles that appear in frozen lakes nearly nine months before Outdoor Photographer came knocking with a last-minute request… They wanted the idea for a cover story but there was a caveat. They needed it in a week’s time.

I’m excited to announce that I signed a book contract for a travel memoir to be published by Rocky Mountain Books in Fall 2022! “Travel memoir” is the best I can do to distill the book down to its essence, but it spans the past 15 years, and tracks my journey West and then off the beaten track. It spans oceans and continents, from peaks to valleys, as I learn to navigate an adventure-filled life, unlike anything I was raised with, and guide my young kids down the same bumpy path.

Most entrepreneurs have an insatiable desire to see their ideas and projects come to fruition. They have many balls in the air at once as they build out their ideas and create businesses from scratch. It is a volatile position to be in, but manageable. But, when an entrepreneur also wants to have a family, the juggling act can get overwhelming – at times even out of control. Here are my best tips for managing it.

Many writers dream of getting published in a magazine. It is a favourite amongst writers because of the interactive qualities of the final product and the supporting visuals and illustrations. It’s also seen as prestigious. So, how do you get your work and ideas published? Here are some of my best tips for increasing your chances of getting the gig.