Nuanced. - 44. Stephen Hui: Hiker & Author of 105 Hikes In and Around BC

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Stephen Hui is a father, expert hiker, author, and photographer in British Columbia. Stephen Hui has been hiking, backpacking, and scrambling in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains for 30 years. Hui is the author of Best Hikes and Nature Walks With Kids In and Around Southwestern British Columbia, coming to bookstores in May 2022. His first two books, 105 Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia and Destination Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia, were #1 B.C. bestsellers.Hui lives in Vancouver, B.C. — in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. His outdoor writing and photography have appeared in the Georgia Straight, Toronto Sun, Le Journal de Montréal, and Where Vancouver. Visit 105hikes.com.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Stephen, it's a pleasure to sit down with you. You have done so much work and you've done so much hiking. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of work you've done to share your passion with other people. And that's really what this podcast is about. It's about people finding what they're passionate about, what they care about, and being willing to share that with other people. And it was amazing to see all the work you've done. You do such great work marketing and really getting people.

interested in the topic. And so I'm absolutely honored to be able to sit down with you today. Would you mind giving listeners just a brief introduction of yourself? Sure. First of all, thanks for having me, Aaron. It's wonderful to be on here. You've had some great guests. So my name is Stephen Hoy. I'm an author and hiker. And I've written three hiking books, 105 hikes, destination hikes. And my new one is called Best Hikes and Nature Walks with kids in and around southwestern British Columbia. It's a bit of a mouthful. And that one is coming out in May 2022. Yes, I'm very excited for that one.

Would you mind starting off with just telling people, how did you get started in hiking? Because I saw that you had gotten involved right away when you started your education at Simon Fraser, that you were already involved in the hiking club. So how did this come about for you? Yeah, I think school and outdoor education opportunities had a lot to do with it. Also, my parents put me into scouts and cubs. I have no idea why because we didn't do anything outdoors like that as a family other than road trips and stopping off at, say, crater lake. So I was in Scouts and that really taught me how to make a fire

and be responsible with that stuff and a lot of camping. My Scout troop was not a great one, so we didn't do a lot of hiking, just camping. But a lot of it. So that was my intro and got me really loving the outdoors. And then also in elementary school and in high school, There were teachers that were passionate about taking kids outdoors, and there were some, you know, different campouts and hikes that were offered. So there was a week-long hike in the Lower Lillowet River Valley that we did as part of a kind of gold rush history learning experience, and that really was one of the keys to, you know, igniting my passion for hiking. Wow.

Yeah. And then, of course, in university, you have the chance to, you know, kind of explore and do what you want to do. And there's outdoor clubs in university. So I got involved in the ones at SFU. And, yeah, I had friends who were interested in hiking, and we all just really got in hiking, and I kept up. What are your thoughts on Scouts and Cubs? Do you think that they do a great job,

or do you think that you would have revised it based on what you know now? I think that they could do a better job. There's sort of a related undertone to them, and they're, of course, scouts is very colonial. There's a lot more they could do to connect people with the land and this place. And also, there's, you know, obviously there's been issues with child abuse and pedophilia and that kind of thing. So there are concerns around that. So, like, Scott was a wonderful experience for me, but I'm not, it's definitely, like, there's a mix of feelings there about it right now.

Okay, so I'm also interested to know. what route you took moving forward, because you mentioned that your family wasn't that into fitness and doing these outdoor activities. Was that tough to be in a world where you're so interested in something and that's not shared within the family? Or were you grateful that they put you into these programs because maybe you wouldn't have been able to experience it otherwise?

Yeah, I'm grateful because I'm not sure, you know, my parents did not seem to be that into the outdoors. I think my dad actually was a bit, but we didn't do that much around the outdoors. but they put us in the scouts really didn't have a choice really and I'm glad for that because it was it was amazing met friends there and had wonderful experiences learned a lot and also they were willing to put me in some of these outdoor education opportunities that came up in the course of high school so yeah it it really worked it really worked out but it's funny though because once I was doing a CBC news interview and it said on like the bar

It's a Stephen Hoy hiking expert, and I'm like, that's, like, Chinese parents were a nightmare. Oh, no. Shouldn't it say, like, lawyer or a doctor? Right. Did you grow up in the city, and was there, like, a desire to get out of the city and go and experience these things? Where did you grow up, and what was your background in terms of the environment? So I grew up in Burnaby, and Burnaby and a little bit of Coquitlam, and, yeah, I mean, scouts really, it took us out more into the, into the valley in Manning Park. and so hiking yeah hiking has always kind of been about getting out of the city

whether it's like you know getting away from from high school and getting away from university or and then just the city it's it is about kind of getting a break from from the city yeah because i just i don't know if you saw but they've recently started prescribing going outdoors to people and then i think of like how often do you have to be in a city environment because i'm used to perhaps not going on the extreme hikes that you go on but i'm used to getting outdoors and going into rainforest-type environments and then just enjoying that walk. And then you think of people who live in the city and their parks are often sort of artificial in the sense that they're like paved ways of walking and environments like that. So what are

your thoughts on that? Yeah, lots of grass. Yeah, you have to make an effort, right? You have to want to go. It seems like it feels like a real choice. Like you have to go. If I'm not feeling too energetic one weekend and I don't go outside. You know, I end up going to like my local park, but it's grass, right? And, yeah, paved past. It's not as, not as great. So, yeah, I mean, you kind of have to make the effort to get outside. Yeah. And then, so you go off to Simon Fraser University. You choose geography. What kind of pulled you in that direction? Yeah, it was the environment. I was really into the environment in high school, you know, joined the environmental club, that kind of thing. We even made a crappy film as a large

project in grade 12. And so, yeah, I basically went to the university. It's this vague idea of being an environmentalist. And the, couldn't hack it in biology and then couldn't hack it on the geographical sciences side and ended up in more the human geography side, which is great because that actually ended up being a lot more interesting for me. It's more about society and space and yeah I mean universe geography and both sides the environmental side and the the human side are kind of really aligned with with the work I've done since and and with writing about hiking so it it all kind of led to the right place right so human geography could you elaborate a little bit on that for people who might not know yeah yeah so human geography specifically social geography

is what I was interested in it's more about studying social relations and how they are affected by space or how they affect space. So, you know, looking at a city and why things are built where they are, why there's an area where people are poorer, why racialized communities live in one area and others don't, why any reserves are so tiny and put where they are. All those issues are in social geography. Right. And so you joined the Hiking Club. Was this when you realized that hiking was an interest more than perhaps by or other activities, like what pulled you and said, hiking is the route for me? Yeah, it just, yeah, it just happened in high school.

I just loved hiking. And in grade 12, made some from friends that were really interested in doing that. So we got out quite a few times on our own and did hikes. And I've never been a great cyclist. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't like, I still don't really like going uphills on a bike. And so, yeah, hiking is just been the natural progression. And also, it's like it doesn't require as much. You don't have to, there's a low barrier to entry.

And I think that's also me. That's why, you know, I'm a hiker or not a kayaker or, you know, skier and that kind of thing. Right. And so when you're going out and you're starting to learn about this, what is standing out to you? Is it the feeling of accomplishment when you get to the top in your, like, oh, or is it that view? Is it the kind of the rainforest around you? What's standing out to you that you're kind of going, yeah, I could do this and what's the next place that I want to see? Yeah, it's kind of all those, right? It's definitely there's a feeling of satisfaction when

you finish the hike, when you get to the place you want to go, because often there's a destination in mind. But if you hike as long as I do, then, or it's been hiking as long as I do, then you realize you don't always get there anyways. But going someplace you haven't been, seeing the places as you have been again in different seasons, and they're always different. It changes. You know, now I've gotten more and more interested in the plants and animals and fungi and that kind of stuff looking at those.

So, I mean, on hikes that people will think are boring, I always have something to look at. I just never get bored out there, right? And also, it's just a stress relief thing. It's anxiety-reducing. It's a, yeah, it's a break. Yeah, I think that that's so important for people to realize because I think we get lost in looking for the top of the mountain

or forgetting that there is like every step you take in the forest, there's something to see, there's something to learn, there's a realization like my partner and I, we go for hikes, we go for walks and we'll stop and we'll start looking at the fungi. And there's like you could take 50 photos of that one image and then you walk a little bit farther and you start to see this tree and it's huge or you start to see a tree growing out of another tree

and you start to realize like this is such a complex ecosystem. If you just walk through, you miss all of it. Yeah, there's so many layers. to it and then there's also like the historical aspects you'll find uh you know rusty logging relics and and whatnot around and there's there's just there's just so many layers to to enjoy hiking and a lot of a lot of people i meet are are really focused on the fitness part um and getting somewhere and going fast and not you know stopping to smell the flowers basically and uh but yeah i really enjoy all of it and then i've become less hardcore about the you know getting there and going fast as i've done

as I've done more and gotten older. Right. So you started out, it sounds like, really getting passionate in university and kind of beginning of high school. How many hikes are you doing at this point in time? And how do you go about choosing your hikes during this period? Yeah, at that point, it's really only several to a dozen times a year probably. I remember it wasn't that much compared to now.

But those were like special occasions. Those were really important. And if I didn't get that dozen hikes in a year, I'd probably be pretty disappointed. At that point, it was really looking at gut. guide books and, you know, picking prominent peaks and interesting, interesting, you know, lakes and that kind of thing around the region. Yeah, and also just whatever we could get to. Yeah. And so did you choose all throughout BC at that time, or were you being selective in more local areas and how did you go about selecting? I've always kind of been a specialist in this or focused on

southwestern BC. Definitely have done some in other parts of the province, like in the Rockies. but yeah always been very focused on kind of the area around Vancouver from the lower island to Sunshine Coast to see the sky Fraser Valley and Manning Park area and a little bit in Washington in the north part okay and so how long were these hikes when you were starting out were you going because you've done some pretty long ones were those pretty short in terms of their like a day trip

or how did you choose well back in back in those days we were probably doing, yeah, those were fairly long, actually. We were probably going from anywhere from four to 12 hours. Yeah, we were, when you're young and you have that kind of energy, it didn't seem so hard now. Some of those hikes that seemed easy are seeming harder now. Wow. And so that's a long time to be out in nature.

So when you start to hit that kind of, it takes you two hours to get to your destination and two hours back, it sounds like those would be more like, less people. There would be way less people on those types of trips. Is that something that you guys preferred, kind of getting away from those main trails? Yeah, I definitely do like to get out in places where there's less people. So that means doing some of the less popular trails. It means going farther, going and going in bad weather too. But there's, it's, it's fun to go far enough into the backcountry where, you know, whenever you see people, you're actually really happy to see them because you haven't been seeing anybody.

It's, yeah, it's neat. But yeah, definitely it's nice to seek out places with it. I don't like going when there's a huge crowd. Yeah, and then within the hiking culture, I imagine seeing somebody else out there, there's almost like a greater level of respect than when you see somebody at the grocery store or at the convenience store because you're like, wow, you guys were also willing to go all this way. Yeah, it's a funny thing.

You could be walking in the city and you're all like kind of averturize at each other. Like, it's sad, but that's what we do, right? And if you're out there a few hours, yeah, you're going to stay high, stop and find out what they're up to you and whatnot. Especially when it's been, like this past September, I did a, I think, a four-day hike on my own solo. And in the middle of it, like on the third day, I saw people for the first time. And it was just so wonderful to see this group of three heading the other way and finding out what their plans were and whatnot. What is that like for you? Because as I mentioned, I think of spirit quests for indigenous people. I think of the Heltic tribe has isolation spaces for restorative justice that they put people on these islands and they're stuck there to reflect on the crimes they committed to think about what they did. You go out there. That's very similar to me to like a spirit quest where you're alone with your mind. And people talk about mindfulness. We talk about really connecting with ourselves. But there's no other option when you're out there by yourself. Can you tell us what those four-day hikes are like for you?

Yeah, that was really special. So that was the Owl Ten Quil River Traverse up near Pemberton. I mean, some people will run that in a day, but I did do over three nights. And yeah, being alone all that time, it's neat to be, you know, you have to be comfortable with yourself. It's neat. And also, I find a hike at a different pace because I'm hiking at my pace. And so I'm hiking slower, actually, probably, and taking less. but taking less breaks and just going kind of from, you know, morning to evening and

you're doing a lot of thinking, but then also sometimes you're not really doing much thinking, just thinking about the next step and where you're going to eat and what. Yeah, it's really something. It's also neat to know that you just, I don't get bored out there. Like there's, I don't get bored. It's, it's really neat. And also just the joy you can feel on your own without having to. share it it's because I mean I do love the social aspect of hiking you know seeing

great view with other people and experiencing the challenges with other people is a big part of it but also seeing that you know once in a while that I I do love that on my own it's like I really do love hiking so yeah it's also there's one hike that I did the Sunshine Coast Trail which is the longest one I've been it's 178 kilometers and we did that in did that in 10 days with another guy and that was the longest one so in that one I really found like the longer it gets first of all the more intimidating it is at the beginning because you're thinking about all the kilometers you got to take off but the longer it gets um you your thinking gets simpler because you run out of

things to think about in no way you're just and then after all you're just thinking about whether you're hungry or not whether you're going to stop and eat and how long you're going to go to the camp but before that happens did a lot of thinking and i ended up doing like a lot of changes after that that big guy came home and like immediately quit my job that week. Really? Yeah, I'm not planned too. I just, I had made other life decisions and then I came home and things that changed at my work and I just quit, right?

What job were you working? I was at the Georgia Strait. I was the technology and web editor at this newspaper. And I'd been there for eight years and they were changing kind of editorial direction. And I was a news person and they're changing more into the arts and culture side, which really wasn't my um no my forte right so it didn't make sense really for me to continue continue there um with that ship so i i just decided i finally do what journalists do and retire to public relations and so i made the jump and it worked out i ended up working at an environmental

organization where's where i wanted to be in the first place like a dozen years before so it it's interesting how that that happened like and was that over the course of the hike that you're kind of thinking about, is this what I want to do? Yeah, yeah, I was like, I felt, I felt, I already felt kind of, you know, I felt done. I felt, yeah, I didn't have much more energy to give. And journalism was also just becoming too stressful for me. Wow. That is such an amazing story because we talk about mindfulness, and that's often the first

complaint people make is like, well, like, I've got stuff on my mind, and then I forget to be mindful, but you're saying that, like, over the course of 178 kilometers, you've run out a things to distract yourself or to think about and you start to come to resolutions it sounds like yeah yeah it's it or that's what it that's what it's done for me um when you you've had all that time on your own because i was hiking with with another guy and and also with another friend for for part of it she came in the middle but a lot of it still you end up being on your own right especially since my main hiking partner was a lot faster than i was and we were choosing to to hike a lot of it separately and then meet up at certain points um so yeah it's

you do you do a ton of thinking like you think overthink things over and over again and then and then yeah after the middle like i couldn't really think anymore i'm just thinking about the basics and uh yeah it's it allowed thoughts and and feelings and to come out that um i wasn't really acknowledging before and and then to actually have to make then make choices yeah because you think of people and like we always get caught up with the next thing the next meaning we got to go here we got to go there And so you don't really stop to go, is this what I want to be doing? And is this how I want to be spending my time? And who am I valuing and who am I not valuing?

And what could I be doing better in my life? And am I going down the path that I want? Or am I just kind of filling the days with things I feel like I'm supposed to be doing? Yeah. I really like week-long hikes for that. I take a total break on week-long hikes. I turn off my phone, you know, throw it in the bottom of the backpack. and just really disconnect and try not to think about work and other things.

So I really, really disconnect on those trips. And I find it's really important to do that a couple times a year. Yeah, it sounds counterintuitive though, because you think of average people when they want to take a break from work. They're like, I want to go lay on a beach in Mexico. I want to go hang out in Cuba and I just want to do nothing. And I think that what you miss is that opportunity, to like recalibrate and that's the idea I think that underlies like new years is figuring out

who are you who are you over the last year and where do you want to go from here like what would you actually and like people make kind of silly resolutions to me where they say I'm going to go on this diet I'm going to start exercising more and it's kind of like a dull surface level plans to fix what they want to fix but your approach seems to be like maybe you do want to go on a vacation to Mexico but it sounds like the thing that actually gives you therapy that helps you process things is going on a hike, which to people is like, what, on my vacation, I'm supposed to go exercise, like I'm supposed to move my body. I just want to lay around and do nothing. And it sounds like you're making an excellent argument as to what the benefits of going out in the

world are. Yeah. Well, first of all, I don't really do it for exercise. I think that's the thing. I don't really do it for fitness. That's a good side effect. But yeah, you can have the beach too, right? Because actually, my favorite trails to really disconnect are these coastal, West Coast kind trails right um like i did the uh the the the nuka trail uh last summer and that's you know it's it's beaches and headlands um you know this the real wild west coast of vancouver island uh lots of bears wolves um and that so there's beaches there's lots of swimming um you know tides and and everything so you can have the beach and a hike too that's super interesting so you're like are all your hikes up a mountain or are they some of them just long winding trails throughout vast amounts

of forest like what is yeah it's all it's all of it like yeah i don't i don't do uh any one kind um definitely mountains have always been like a large focus but i'll do ones that are just uh just going through the wood just trying to find a pocket of old ghost trees um one that follow rivers um i like i like ones on on the islands, Gulf Islands, house town, and coastal hike. So, yeah, everything. And also, I do a lot of just nature walk stuff that isn't really hiking. It's more flat.

It's, you know, a lot of wetlands. So, yeah, all kinds. Do you listen to music, or is that counterintuitive to what you're going out there to do? Yeah, for me, for me it is. I just want to hear the sounds of nature. So I don't want to hear, I don't want to listen to a podcast. I don't want to listen to music. I'll, you know, yeah,

the phone is not making any noise or there's not any outside noise, yeah. Do you think that other people might struggle with being alone with their thoughts to the degree that you have to be able to cope? Was that ever a struggle for you during these longer ones where you're like, this is like I am isolated with my own thoughts? Was that ever a struggle? No, I mean, it can be uncomfortable to be doing all that thinking, but I'd always preferred to be able to just have my senses really immersed in the environment so no I never really wanted to have to put music on I put headphones on yeah it's yeah interesting and so how do you go about planning these early hikes that you started on because to I guess people

like myself I go out we hope for the best we kind of stay close to the to the entrance because we don't want to get too lost but it sounds like for some of these you have to plan how you you're going to get to the island, how much food you're going to have, you're going to pack like shelter, you're going to pack things to make sure that you're okay if anything goes wrong. So what's the process to plan for one of these hikes? Yeah, I mean, the thing is after you've done a few of them, it gets a lot more comfortable. Like, I probably don't spend as much time planning it out as I would before. You just kind of know if it's five days I'm going to carry this much food.

I'm going to carry this much gear. And also, gear-wise, your gear does not really increase that much. after packing for like three days it just you just you just wear the same stuff over and over again and have to wash it kind of along the way it's really just your food so it's yeah it's become kind of a second nature now i pack way too last minute but in the beginning yeah i was making lists and learning um from books like mountaineering the freedom of the hills and um just uh you know sources of yeah safety materials and and whatnot um yeah just uh and learning some guidebooks.

Guidebooks tend to tell you, give you an idea of what you should pack. And yeah, so I definitely, in terms of planning, though, I was reading a lot of guidebooks back then. I still read a lot of guidebooks now. And I love paper maps, so I'm always looking at paper maps, and I usually carry paper maps

that they're available for the area I'm going. So paper maps are not something you see. People carrying a lot of these days, but I still think they're the best. Can you tell us more about that? Why do you prefer paper maps? and then perhaps after we can go through what the gear you choose and how do you go about choosing your gear?

Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I was late to GPS, definitely. I use it now. I use it a lot now. But I think it's good that I spend a lot of time using just maps because I can do that. And it's nice to be able to be able to read a map and a lot of people have trouble using a map and compass.

And before GPS, you had a lot more, like you made a lot more decisions along the way referencing the map and the landscape. And now people are just looking at where they are on the track and adjusting that way. So it's a lot. You're also spending a lot more time on your electronics too. So, yeah, I just love maps. That's why I did geography, I guess. Yeah, it sounds like there's more of that human connection to the journey. and when you get too far into the Google Maps or into a GPS system,

you're almost just checking the box. You're almost just like you're the GPS. You're operating and you're, oh, I have 50 kilometers, 40 kilometers, and you're kind of just the vehicle in Google Maps. People will get to, you'll get to a point, you know, where you are, and people will still be looking at their GPS. Oh, just to see where, you know, and it's, it becomes kind of a crutch. Like a phone.

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, I do use GPS, though, especially actually the books have made me use GPS more because I need to map the hikes or record tracks to help map the hikes. So, but yeah. So you started by looking at 103 hikes in southwestern BC, which was written by two other authors. Did they inspire you? And can you tell us a little bit about how you two met or connected? Yeah, it's pretty interesting. So I grew up, yeah, I was 103 hikes in and around south,

or hundred three hikes in southwestern in BC by Mary and David McAree. The fourth edition of that was my favorite book in high school. And it wasn't even mine. My brother bought it and I stole it from, I stole half this coffee to set back off. I had to buy another one. but it's uh yeah that was my favorite guidebook and that so that guidebook has influenced me in a lot of ways like i would read that thing cover to cover um and i love the writing uh i love the environmental ethic kind of it it it passed on and uh it uh it yeah i never had the honor

of meeting them um but i've i've met uh through through through these books i've met people who did hike with them and it's uh which is wonderful and it's uh it's really gratifying to to hear that they like where the book's going um or how i how i'm writing the follow-up book and and um and so uh even heard from a niece of theirs as well that that wants to like uh you know look at do some of the hikes in a hundred and five hikes books so that's really cool so yeah i never met them um i've met people who've written with them and hiked with them and it was basically the opportunity came because through my journalism I always wrote about hiking here and there whether it's about actual hiking or about also read a lot about a lot of issues involving like bc parks and that kind of thing

on the more news um side and but i always wrote about hiking so graystone books which is the publishing company uh invited me to to talk about writing this book and it just kind of came together. It was really lucky because I was planning to write a guidebook. I wanted to write a guidebook since high school. And in fact, it's amazing that it ended up being the follow-up to my favorite guidebook, which is something I like dream back then, but thought was impossible. I thought it might even be impossible for me to ever get, be able to write a hiking guidebook. But then for it to happen that way that I actually got to write the follow-out to my very book. It's just like, I don't know how that happened.

So can you tell us more about what you liked about the 103 hikes in southwestern BC? What did you see in it and what made you feel motivated perhaps to continue? Yeah. Yeah, just their writing, it's obvious they love, they love nature. They, yeah, great guide books to me, they take a real interest in the floor. or in font of the region, they take an interest in the culture and history of the area, and they kind of talk about the environmental conservation struggles around the area. So I like how, like, writing a guidebook for me is, the great thing about it is you, it's an excuse to learn so much about the different layers of the trails.

And, yeah, so guidebook authors, whether it's the Macquarie's or Manning and the other guy in Washington, legendary Gavoc authors, Spring and Manning. They're a similar style to the Macaries. They're the other kind of standard of guidebook that I look to. And yeah, I just enjoying their writing, enjoying the pictures. They used to have these old sketch maps in those books too. Like the maps are sketches and people hate them, but I love them because they're so simple.

They actually, they do make you, they're quite a good picture of the trail. So, and there's so much about those books that I like. And then, so what made you basically go, now it's time for me to start my own guidebook? They reached out to you and said, hey, we'd like to see this, but it sounds like it was already in your mind. Yeah, so the funny thing is I started taking notes in high school from a hike's quite detailed notes, just because I felt driven to. but it wasn't until after that big Sunshine Coast Trail that I did that I really decided I need to write a guidebook and so I made it outline a plan and everything and then and then I shelved it I said you know hike is my favorite thing do I really need to turn it into a job

and then just amazingly a year later I get this email from the publisher of create Stonebook saying you want to come in and talk about writing hiking down book and I knew they were they must have been talking about this book and I went in and we kind of meshed what they were looking at at a guidebook and what I wanted to do right and it worked out perfectly right because I think that that's the struggle so many people face is I have this passion whether it's creating artwork or it's creating music and then it becomes and I've talked to Andrew Christopher who's a musician about like it starts out as like your passion and then it starts to become a job and then it becomes more responsibility. How did you go about making that

decision? And it sounds like you learned through these books. So can you tell us about that? Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. The books actually forced me to learn how to use GPS because I was really a paper map stop before. But having to take notes on the hikes. One thing that sucks is I have to use my phone a lot more because I think it's on my phone. But, yeah, learning how to do it. I just didn't. Luckily, I've got a big collection of guidebooks. I've read a lot of guidebooks.

And being a journalist, I also was able to interview a lot of hiking guidebook authors for stories before I even knew I wanted to write a guidebook. So I basically would interview any author of any hiking guidebooks that would come out. So I learned a lot from all that. But yeah, just having to figure out how to do it. Yeah, people laugh at me when I tell them I take my notes and Apple notes as I'm hiking on the trail. Like, it's ridiculous. Like, I don't have a special way of doing it or anything.

It's pretty crude. Right. So is that ever a struggle for you at all? Do you try and go for hikes where you're saying this is not going to be for a guidebook? This is for me to get back to my roots and to just enjoy myself. Yeah, if there are hikes that I know are out of the scope of the guidebooks that I want to write, yeah, I don't take notes. I might not even take my camera. right just because I want to break a break from it so yeah there's there's a lot of and a lot of times

when I'm redoing hikes that I know I don't need you know I might only need to take a couple observations because no much has changed then yeah I'm not I'm trying to turn off awesome so how did you go about writing the first book what was the process how long did it take and what was involved yeah the first book was was quite quite compressed so it was about a two-year process. So, you know, the first book, yeah, writing a book about 105 things is not something I recommend. It's a lot. Quite intimidating. I had to change the way I thought about it, too, because I was thinking about it as, you know, I have 105 things to do and I need to check them off. But that's, like, too big to think about. So I had to think about it more the other way.

Like, okay, I've written 10. That's good. And then just, you know, once I got over 50 or 60, that I felt so yeah I just I set out a list of hikes I wanted my idea was to like draw a circle around Vancouver basically and and pick a real variety of hikes in that area

easy and hard long and short so a real mix and then and then I set out to hike those and you know things don't always turn out exactly as you plan so so for any given weekend you're kind of thinking oh I got these five hikes I could do

and depending on the weather depending on horse fires or whatever, which way you're able to get travel to, that ends up, you know, influencing what you pick. And so that ends up influencing the hikes that you end up researching. And then you find out about other hikes. And so, yeah, it's, you kind of, I kind of pick a set of hikes and or have a general idea. A lot of times, the list is actually really just in my head. And then you just kind of go through it and you end up with what would you end up with, basically.

and um and you know kind of cut it down to the the number you need and so yeah it's it's kind of an organic right so it isn't that like they gave you a list of 105 hikes and you need to go out and explore these to get the information no no no they're just assuming that i know what hikes to to put in there and um they have some a little bit my editor there is uh amazing she's like uh she's edits she's edited a whole bunch of hiking guide books and she knows all the hikes um so there there will be some discussions and I have this hike or that hike, but generally, yeah, making the list and then and setting out to do a certain amount and that ends up being what's in the book. Right, because you've gone through like, you've developed kind of like

a craft about it. It isn't that they're just kind of the exact same each time. It sounds like over the course of these years, you've developed your photography skills and it sounds like a little bit of your writing skills and it sounds like you're trying to bring each book and make it better. So what was that first book? What was in there? Did you take all the photos? What was kind of the process? Yeah. In the first book, I think I pretty much took all the photos except for the cover photo, one inside photo and the author photo. So yeah, generally I take most of the photos in the books, except for there might be a few hikes where I got rained out on or something where the pictures didn't come out. Then I'll get a friend or someone else to

to contribute because there's tons of amazing photographers out there but yeah it's uh yeah so it's yeah i mean it's mostly i just you know it's pretty solitary process to otherwise right and so do you choose the camera what was your kind of process for did they give you a camera and say here you go get out there so they they don't when you're writing a book the book is you're yeah the photos are kind of not part of that right they're it's it's they're kind of paying you for the writing um so the photos are really your responsibility and uh so yeah i just i use a dsler an icon and uh went out and just took yeah took photos and uh offered them a selection of photos um so yeah you're you're basically choosing and so i'll you know i'll offer them a small selection of photos that i think

are worthy or good illustrations of a hike and then they'll pick out of those so i narrow it down i like that there's two people choosing um so i narrow it i narrow it down you know for hundred five hikes it's only going to be one photo for hike yeah so off of them two or three pictures and then uh allow their creative director to like pick the best one that they think out of those so i like that um with the publishing process that there's that kind of the choices made by two people the editor and the writer, or the writer, the writer and the creator director, there's two kind of two layers of thinking that goes and everything. Right.

And so how do you go about choosing what to say about a hike? Like you're out there, you're seeing beautiful, perhaps, mushrooms, old growth forest trees, beautiful water. For each book, it kind of has like almost like a different audience. One's about hiking. One's more about like destinations that you'll see on your hike. And then the latest one is more about family experiences. So for that hiking one, how did you go about choosing what was going to be in that?

Yeah, it's a variety. I like it. Like if it's just a set of directions and description, that's boring for me. It's probably boring for the reader too, well, some people are just in the directions. So it has been interesting for me, too. So part of the write-ups is usually I want to share something interesting about each area that isn't just about how beautiful it is. and the practicalities of it.

So usually there's something to do about nature or culture, history, or the geology. So there's kind of the observations I make on the trail. Like something will really stand out in my notes and I might like put it in capital letters in my notes or something. But then it also is the research I do when I'm writing to find out more details and to confirm what I've seen, like, in terms of biology and geology and also to look up to history that might just you know change how I write about the hike and what I want to focus on so yeah it kind of it just kind of happens when I'm writing but it's I like to focus on something like in each hikers like usually some kind of focus that I really want to kind of elaborate on right and how did you go about

structuring the book was there a logic to the order that you want to in or anything like that? Yeah, I'd kind of tend to go geographically. So I go north, east, west, south of Vancouver. So I kind of do this, yeah, do it in kind of the order the hikes are from Vancouver based on access. So it's basically based on roads and maps. And it's, yeah, it's very logical that way.

Interesting. And so how did you feel about how that book was received? One of the questions I had was like, when you go on certain hikes, there's like a culture that you want to kind of keep it private, keep a secret. That's like a mindset that some people have of like, well, we don't want this trail to be overrun by people. We want to be able to enjoy this peaceful place. He'll keep his one here in Chilwaukee to the top of Chilwaukee Mountain.

And it's like it's a secret little gem. And when people talk about it, they go, shh, like, don't tell anyone. And so what was your experience kind of writing this book and putting it out there? Yeah. Yeah, that's a running thing, a running current in the, outdoors community. It's very colonial, though, because it's always, it's usually white people saying that. You know, we don't want people of color to discover it. It's not like, it's not like it's there, though. It's ridiculous. I think if there's, first of all, now, I think there's less

of a, there's less of a issue, I think, with me writing about these things, too, because there really is information online published about all these places in general. They may not have, like, great detail about it. They may have errors. But there's information about all these places. It's not like I'm blowing up a place by putting in the book. The book is not a viral sensation, right? The book is not going to have the effect that an Instagram post or something has on a place. You see it now, like people will post pictures from snowshoeing to some obscure peak up to Chililog Valley. In the next weekend, there's 30 people on top of it. That doesn't happen because of the book. So I don't feel, I feel like I try to be responsible, include kind of the

regulations and environmental sensitivities of the hikes that I'm writing about. I feel like I'm able to write them in context. So I feel like the books are, just like guidebooks were for me are kind of an informative entry into the area, whereas, you know, the online material in my knowledge varies. Right. And so it sounds like you treat it like a conversation with like a respected individual where there's something missing about an Instagram post typically where it doesn't have the detail. It doesn't have the environmental commitment. And so when you're sharing a hike, it sounds like you're recognizing that there's a whole story with this one hike. And I'm going to try and tell it to you in an efficient way. But there's a lot to learn about this one spot. Yeah. And like I said, I kind of have to pick one aspect of it, whether it's the ecology or something. but yeah like i like to hopefully tell people something they didn't know about an area and uh yeah and also let them know if there are things that are sensitive about it

whether it's culturally or environmentally um so yeah i for me guidebooks have always been you know pointed those things out and to varying degrees and so yeah i i don't there's always controversy about people blowing up areas and and you know their favorite spots but the really funny thing is that so people have complained to me about that you know why did you put that hike in it's my favorite place but then the hilarious thing is that when I don't put hikes in people are complaining that hey you forgot that hike it's it needs to be it should have been in your book so there's no winning there's no winning and it's funny because well you know about the hike you should be happy as on the book yeah that's so interesting and people I guess are

fickle that way because we want people to exercise more. At least I want people to get out more. I had Brian Minter who's really into the environment and taking care of it and nature and flora. And one of the comments he made was about how being out in nature for about an hour actually boosts your immune system and it improves your health and your well-being. And these are all just various benefits to getting out there and then learning and educating yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's just beneficial on so many levels of. But yeah, the mental emotional aspect is huge. And in terms of, in terms of the reception of the first book, too, I was really, I wasn't sure how it would go, right? Because you're following up on a really beloved series of books.

And, you know, they don't know who I am. But yeah, no, it was really well received. received and yeah people are amazingly were so said a lot of nice things about it and and seemed to really enjoy the book and you know and also just how different it was from the other books and yeah it's been the writing the first book and the response was was just it was really wonderful that's really good to hear because it's it's tough to put yourself out there and imagine like if it took you two years once it's out there it's like what's going to happen is this going to go well is this going to go tough was that tough over those two years were there any points where you were like am i going to be able to get this done i'm sure they had deadlines for you and

you're like i have to go out and explore these places like yeah uh funny i'm kind of deadline driven so deadlines really uh are what light of fire under me so um i almost i procrastinate and i can't get anything done if i don't have a deadline but i will get the deadline um So, yeah, it was really scary for me coming into the final summer because I hadn't written hardly anything. And I ended up having to take a month off unpaid leave to finish the writing, basically. Because I do my best writing when I just sit there

and don't do anything else. I need to sit there for a month. And so this has ended up how I've done the three books is ended up taking a month off and just, like, cramming it all the writing and like not doing anything, just working in my pajamas. Are you able to do the hikes in advance and be able to, like, do you schedule that in? How do you go about doing that?

Yeah, I'm hiking all year, basically, right? So generally, generally every other weekend or so, or, but more on an average of, like, on a weekly basis, I guess. But, yeah, so you're just, I'm doing it all year. I have a list of hikes that I want to do, and you just kind of work on them, work toward it. And by the time it's time to write, hopefully have most of that done, just have a few that I really need to really want to get in. But it's mostly about the writing in that point. Do you find that this is an under-researched or well-researched area? Do you feel like you're going out there and kind of pioneering certain hikes over others where you're like, this one's pretty well-established?

Like I think of like elk is like one that's pretty well-established for people. Shiam is another one well-established. but are you doing certain hikes where you're like, this is like under-documented or underdeveloped understanding, or do you feel like they're all pretty consistent? Yeah, there's definitely a wide variety. There's, yeah, sure. There are, I mean, there are hikes that are really popular

that have tons of written about them. And then there are hikes that are very obscure. They might have been in a guidebook before, but they're really obscure. And then people are, people, because not everyone buys guide books, they haven't read about them before. So that's really neat. Yeah, I love it when people like the books and they say that we didn't know about these hikes.

And it's nice that they're learning about them this way rather than on Instagram. Right. And what has your journey been like in terms of you've brought in ethical considerations? You've brought in different photographs. You've brought in indigenous culture and language and place names. What has that journey been like for you to kind of start out and you're going out there for the perhaps mental calmness and enjoy yourself? And then you're starting to learn. What has that learning curve been like about the environment, the mushrooms, the trees? What has that journey been like? Yeah.

So I've always, I've been interested in kind of the outdoor ethic side of things since I was quite young, probably because of just scouts and whatnot, like, kind of started it. And I remember reading a old Leave No Trace book, like, quite a long time ago before it became well known. Now it's pretty much everywhere. So we've always been interested in kind of that minimum impact practices and also the history side too. I mean, that was also nurtured early by that high school hike. That hike taught us a little bit about the gold rush history, but also took us to meet some elders in Smokham. Yeah. And so it, it, you know, instilled that interest in the different facets of history.

So, yeah, I just, it's amazing. Like, I've definitely always been interested in the geography, geology, and history side. But my interest in the kind of plants and animals was more surface. But I've become way more interested in those by doing the books, too, just by needing to identify plants. animals and wanting to. So I've learned a lot. So yeah, it's definitely, it's expanded what I'm interested in and it's, there's always new things that I'm. Interesting. And so what was the main hikes or main experiences that you got out of that first book? What stood out to you when

you were submitting it? Did you see like a bear or did you do a hike that was like unexpectedly difficult? What kind of stood out when you were finishing that book of like, wow, that's like a huge takeaway? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just, Yeah, just learning, the hard part is being clear about the directions, I think, too. Like, yeah, learning how to be better, better, more clearly about it. I mean, I definitely learned a lot from doing the first book. I feel like I'm really proud of the second book, Destination Hikes, because I think I took everything I learned from 105 hikes and put it in there.

So 105 hikes is my first book, so it kind of has those first book things in it that author is do. Like, there's a, you know, they want to put a lot of yourself into the book. So, like, you know, people's first novel always is like often semi-autobiographical, even though it's not supposed to be, right? So there's a lot of thoughts, I think, that I wanted to get across and that are in there. And so sometimes the hike write-ups are maybe a little too focused on a certain issue or something where it probably should just, you know, get into what the hike's about first and then get, you know, the other way. I think I learned, um, a lot. My editor helped to because she's a good editor, which means she's a brutal editor.

And, you know, makes changes that are sometimes hard to be like, oh, I want to write it this way. But then it's like, oh, she's totally right. So, yeah, I learned so much. Interesting. And so with that book releases, I know that there's like a lot of hiking groups and clubs. Is that when you started being a part of those or getting vocal in those or getting a well-recognized name within that space?

It was really helpful to be part of a club because I've been a member of the Wanderong Outdoor Recreation Society in Vancouver and what was neat is actually did a lot of the hikes as part of the club and was taking notes. That was one of the main trip organizers. And so I was, you know, meeting this community and learning from them as well about hikes and what they know and that kind of thing. But also, you know, getting help to go out to all these places. but then also had a community that was willing, ready to support the book, too, when it came out. Like, it was, they were fantastic. The club has been fantastic. I'm also a member of, like, the B.C. Mountaineering Club and Nature Vancouver and some other clubs.

And, yeah, a part of throwing the book has been getting in touch with them and, you know, giving presentations to them. I mean, a lot of guidebooks also have a real club history to them. Like the predecessor book, 1003 Hikes, was a lot of, always a project of the BC Mountaineering Club. And so, yeah, it's important to kind of get that support from the clubs and also support what they're doing. Because you gave proceeds to them as part of the book, right? Yeah, as part of Greystone Books continuing on with 105 hikes, they made an agreement

with BC Mount Nearing Club to give a certain amount of proceeds. And then in exchange, you know, the club is, you know, kind of endorses the, you know, it kind of endorses the book and whatnot. I was really glad for that connection because I think it's important to have those connections between the books. And, yeah, it was, it was, yeah, it's good. So they used that money for, like, conservation

and trail purposes. Right. And so after that book releases, where did you go from there? Were you like, this is step one? We're just getting started? Or were you kind of like, and I'm done? I'm going to walk away from the book world now.

how did the next book kind of come about? It kind of, yeah, there are two roads. I was thinking, one, the great thing about these hiking guide books is that if they do well, you can write more, you can write multiple editions because they need to be updated. So I knew that the publisher had already talked about doing a second edition of 100 of hikes in a few years. So I knew that was going on. And then, but then immediately I didn't really have anything.

but I was having dinner with another author friend of mine named Travis Lupik and he writes books about harm reduction so he wrote Fighting for Space and he's got a new book light up the night out now about harm reduction efforts in the States and he was talking about how he was getting his next book proposal ready because we've had books out around the same time I was like next book proposal what are you talking about

and you got to strike while I ain't taught your book side You got to, you know, I was like, oh, I went home and emailed to my, emailed the publisher and, and then they, they came back with the destination. I think I had proposed like a different kind of book, but they came back on like, destination hikes, that's what you should write. And I was like, that sounds pretty good. And then it grew on me and we ended up talking through the idea and ended up, yeah, ended up writing this book, which was meant to kind of, kind of. to highlight these special places and swimming holes mountain peaks waterfalls and more and i was pretty able pretty much able to interpret that how i wanted to and what i liked about this book is i got to write more in depth there's there's more photos um so i was really able to because

i had less of a format established on it um because the previous book needed to follow kind of a hundred and three hikes um rubric yeah yeah yeah I was able to do it more how I wanted, and yeah, I really like how it turned out. So philosophically, how would you say that they differ? Because it sounds like the hiking one is more about the experience of these hikes, but destination hike sounds like it's more about where you're going and you're going to see this waterfall. So how did that kind of change philosophically?

Philosophically, there isn't that much different between them because I'm not really all about the destination totally. So the destination is kind of like the draw. Like I'm pointing out that there might be a old gross tree like halfway through the hike or there's a waterfall at the end or a huge view. But really I'm trying to, like I'm making sure to focus a bit on those. But philosophically, I'm still trying to just talk about the nature and culture of the area and get a little more in depth than that.

And it's definitely has the same, I think it's the same philosophy, just, you know, more expressed in the second book. And how did you go about, was it the same kind of organic process to choose the locations? Yeah. Or was there something about certain places where you're like, well, this waterfall is like phenomenal. And so people have got to go check this out. Definitely that part, the destinations part did influence some of the choices. I was like, yeah, there's some waterfalls I really want to get in. I want to get in some great peaks.

I want to get in some swimming holes. And so, and I also put, like, you know, I wanted to get in areas of historical interest, areas of geological interest. I was able to kind of tailor it how I wanted wildflower meadows. So that definitely affected the choices. But really, I was basically doing, it's an excuse to write about 55 more great hikes that,

and I didn't want to duplicate anything in the other book, so they're all different. No way. Hikes. So, yeah, it's... Yeah, it was kind of used to write one more fix. Oh, my gosh. And so how long did you have for that hike?

Or sorry, for that book? You said two years for the first one. Yeah, I had two years. So it ends up being a three-year process, but it's really two years of hiking you have for the books, yeah. And what was neat about that book is that most of the hikes were actually new to me because I had to put all my knowledge into the first book, right? So I had to do a lot more hikes that I hadn't done before for the second book.

So that was really neat. I love how writing about the books makes you get out in trying places. And it sounds like learn and educate yourself. And I think that that's where I think we're so lucky to have individuals like yourself. Like I think of the disconnect that I see taking place for so many between the environment and like their work or living in the city. And we're seeing a larger disconnect over time. And that worries me, and when we have people like yourself who are willing to lay out so many different aspects, the ethics, the indigenous background, the history, the geography, the beauty

and kind of the functions of these ecosystems, I think that that sets, we're just lucky to have individuals like yourself to share this information with people so that they can feel inspired again because, I don't know, growing up, I didn't feel like I had this deep relationship with the environment. And then when you start learning about how people used to walk this a thousand, years ago or a hundred years ago and you start to realize that this has been used by other people and it's been relied on and these ecosystems have supported humans for long before you were born and they'll be here long after you're gone you have a deeper relationship yeah if that's that's the thing i guess really the more i learn the more incredible it is um you know i mean canada's

only been around since like what 1867 right um but these areas were hiking in um a lot of them are sacred, right? I mean, they've been used for millennia. And I think, yeah, the more you learn, the more you realize just how many of these lakes and mountains are actually like sacred to people. And yeah, it's, it's even more important to be responsible and to make people aware of those connections. Yeah. And I think of like for indigenous people, we had the Ulican trails, and then those slowly turned into the fur trading trails. But there are these longstanding relationships with these communities, with these areas that connected people, that people were willing to walk for long distances, thousands of kilometers

to connect. And when you do it, it's like, I can't imagine how much work that is, but you think of indigenous people like 500 years ago, a thousand years ago. They were doing this to trade and as systems of negotiation between different communities. And I don't think that we keep that in our minds of, like, people were able to use these trails in these areas for long periods. They found ways to remember it. Like I interviewed Sunny McKelsey, and he talks about the place names and why Chiam or Chiam is called that because it stands for wild strawberries. And so it's supposed to be, I think he said, La Chiam, and it's supposed to be always wild strawberries.

And so you see that there's this deep understanding. And when he describes some of the place names and why they're called this, he goes through and he explains like, this is the why we have a story about it. And it's how we, before we had maps, this is how we remembered where to go. And we have these stories of why there are scratch marks here and why there are like trees set up in this way and why this mountain looks like this. And we have all these stories to remember it because we didn't have anything written down. We relied on stories about the geography. and I think that it's so beautiful when individuals like yourself

are willing to share this. Yeah, it's amazing to hear like Sunny McCalsy or others talk about that because, yeah, it's like the stories are inscribed on the land and they say so much about the people in place

that these colonial names don't really say much about the place, usually, especially the ones that are named after people, dead people in Europe. So it's, yeah, it's it's incredible um yeah i've yes sannie mcclesey like hearing his uh had a chance to be in a webinar with him and to hear and talk about uh some of the the places out here was uh incredible yeah

so what is your journey like to let's get into destination hikes now what is your journey to get that information that aspect of it do you have to go read books do you try and connect with individuals who live in the area what is that process it's it's more um yeah it's more reading I mean, I'm just writing a hiking book. I don't want to impose upon people. But, yeah, so I'm basically taking publicly available material and also try not to tell stories that are mine. So I'm not going deep into telling these stories.

But, yeah, mostly focused on sharing indigenous place names and also like indigenous land use, designations. So it's reading First Nations land use plans, looking at their environmental assessment submissions, reading some anthropological and archaeological materials, language dictionaries, maps, and yeah, it's kind of, it's, there's a lot of delving in the material, definitely in the beginning with mostly reading environmental assessment submissions. It's amazing how much material is in those things, but it's certainly hard to look through. There's a lot. But it's amazing that since like 105 hikes, I would say a lot of the basis for the cultural information is from these legal submissions.

And it's amazing that when working on destination hikes and now working on Best Hikes and Nature Walks with Kids, it's amazing how much more is published out there. There's more First Nations and organizations have interactive maps. there's more there's more there's more there's more there's more you know academic papers and there's more interpretive panels so there's there's so much more activity going on in that area which is amazing to see right I'm really interested in your thoughts

do you feel like that that's a good thing that we don't include the indigenous stories because to me that's an arm of reconciliation is to be able to for you to include those stories in your books to give that indigenous undertone to give a better understanding of like because my frustration is I hear indigenous culture indigenous culture and it's it always feels like people don't know what they're saying when they say that and to me having sonny mcclesion or carrie lynn victor who explains we named it this place name this is the backstory of why it gives you a greater

respect for the culture that there was actually a reason we called it that we didn't have complicated names because i know people judge the complexity of saying the names like squamish um Like spelling that out, it's difficult for people. And so I can get that. But once you understand why we called it that, I think Carrie Lynn Victor did a really good job of saying it's right nearby one of the hikes. And it's our Chiluac Community Trails. She helped name. And she basically said that the reason that we named it that is because it means mossy place.

And this area is always mossy. Yeah, Lequam, I think. Lequam, yes. And they chose that over Hack Brown Park, which goes back to exactly your point. about having kind of colonized names for things. This guy was once here. Go ahead. Yeah, no.

Yeah, so, yeah, that's in, there's a hike in the new book, Best Tikes of Nature Walks that starts at La Cologne Park and goes up the Talvatel Trail, which is described as Wild Danger, I believe, in Halkimelam Island. And so, yeah, it's, yeah, the trails there have Halkimelamilam Names. So I like how there's that connection. But in terms of the stories, I think I do feel like in terms of getting into the stories, I would probably, it wouldn't make sense for those stories to come from me. Probably, probably better if in the future maybe work with people like Carolyn Victor and Sonny McCelsey to tell those stories in their own words.

Like I think whenever you see someone non-Indigenous transcribe a story, it's often a little strange and a little off. And also they might be combining two versions of the stories because there might be multiple stories. It's a mess usually, whenever I cringe usually when I see it in another book. Right. So you would have like certain stipulations. You'd want to make sure it's done in a certain way because I just think we need more, I guess, collaboration. Because I know Sennie has his stolo Atlas for the phrase of violence. Valley, but I think that being able to tie it into current books where, because I would guess that the community that's perhaps buying Sunny's Atlas and the community that's maybe reading your books are probably not the same community. And so having more overlap between the two communities would be valuable. Yeah. And I sure wish I'd gotten a copy of Sunny's Coastalus historical Atlas long time ago. A lot of the material actually in some of the material in these books is derived from those books, but it's more derived from material.

that is ancillary to the book, you know, like research projects or whatnot that are referencing the book, but I didn't actually have a copy until fairly recently. And so when I was on the webinar, I was sending McCarthy. He's like, you don't have a name for, you don't have the name for Mount Lincoln up by Yale in your book. I was like, well, I didn't, I couldn't, I didn't know there was one. But if I had the book, I would have known. Oh, wow, that's interesting. So you're kind of like a student of the of the BC world where you're, I've gotten to see that you follow so many people who are influential, who like the Sunny McElsey's and staying educated on these events.

What has that kind of process been like for you to be kind of a student of the phrase of BC and learning about all the different kind of leaders through the area? Well, it's just amazing how much knowledge is in those leaders that most people don't hear. So like when someone like Sunny speaks, like it's amazing. because you're hearing all the stuff you've never heard before. And the reasons for why things are in that month. So, yeah, it's really just, it's, it's something that I'm really fortunate that in the process of doing the hiking books, I've been able to learn from all these

people and learn so much. So, yeah, I think it'd be, hopefully we can do some collaborations in order to bring more of that out. Yeah, because you also were both keynote speakers at a University of the Fraser Valley event, if I'm not mistaken, as well, right? Yeah, and I was like, I was like, what? I'm going to be a keynote speaker with Sunday McAllen? Like, this is ridiculous.

Like, what do I have to say? And so, yeah, that was a real honor. Him and Professor Keith Thorackelson and Ian Ruckner Smith. Yeah, that was a really, a wonderful event about indigenous place names in the Fraser Valley. Yeah, and Sunny told so many stories and offered so much insight. So, yeah, that was quite a highlight of last summer. Right.

Does this feel surreal to you at all? Because you're kind of a little bit hard on yourself in that you're like, how am I able to sit up here with these individuals when I feel like I'm lucky to be sitting down with you and hearing your journey through this and your willingness to share these stories and and approach it with a sense of responsibility. I think that that's what's so important and what makes your work so authentic. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think that the word responsibility is actually, yeah, that's kind of how I approached it is like, I'm going to write a hiking book. I want to write it in a way that seems responsible to me, which is why I want to have like

information about, you know, minimum impact and culture and history in the book. So yeah, it's about, yeah, how can I talk about these places? is an responsible way. And it's always, like, I'm learning more and more about, I'm always learning about what that, what that is. And it's been neat to see more awareness among hikers and the public about that as well. So, yeah, but it is, it is funny because, like, I mean, I write hiking books. I mean, I'm in the same knowledge category as something calcium.

Right, but you're providing more than just, like, do you get up a mountain? You're providing stories, you're providing information on the beauty of the environment. And like, that's something that I think for so many who just casually hike, they forget about. They forget about being able to recognize the difference between the types of trees, the different types of plants, the different types of mushrooms, the different scenery. And so let's talk a little bit for destination hikes. What are your favorite things to see? Do you love seeing a beautiful waterfall? Do you love like seeing wetlands? What stands out to you when you're going on these hikes?

What's kind of like, I want to get up there so I can see you this. I love all of it, obviously. But yeah, waterfalls are a big thing for me. And waterfalls are a good year round, too, so that's a good thing. Wildflower meadows in the sub alpine and alpine are a big thing. There's like, it's funny. Like, people ask why you hike hiking and I'll say the flowers. Like the flowers, wikiket.

But it's like these colorful meadows, right? Up in the mountains, they're just amazing. Like in July and August, there's something really amazing. amazing about being there. And when you're up that high, too, you're getting amazing views. You're breathing like early fresh air, there's butterflies. You know, it's, so being among those meadows is, is one of the best feelings. Being on, on top of the mountain as well, or walking along a ridge where you can see, like in 360, that's really something. Glaciers. But yeah, also old growth trees, like finding old growth trees in the woods, just really

huge ancient trees and interesting geology, like volcanic stuff or just, you know, sedimentary. I mean, there's all different layers of that. I like going to the islands. Any hike that involves a ferry, too, is a big thing for me. I love fairies. There's just so many, like, there's so many aspects of allot hikes. You like fairies. Can you elaborate on that? What

stands? I just love going on on the ferry. Yeah. So, yeah, any, any hike that involves like going to Bowen Island or Gambier Island or the Gulf Islands and doing a hike, it's ideal for me. I feel irresponsible that I have no idea which, which islands you're talking about right now. Yeah, so Bowen Island and Gambier Island are in House Island or Baskett's in like. And they, yeah, so they have small mountains on them. And these are great because they're kind of good all year round.

And they have like amazing like COSC 360 kind of views. And also on the Gulf Islands, like in Destination Hanks, I've got some stuff on Galeano Island. Yeah, but they're a great day hikes there you can do. Right. Yeah. Interesting. And so when you went about choosing those hikes, what was your experience going out there for the first time, taking ferries? Did you have to find places to stay or were you like, I'm just going to camp?

Yeah, it's a mix. Some of them, I really like the ones where you can kind of, you can kind of do it as a foot passenger in a day. So there's, you know, there's Mount Galeano, there's Mount Gardner, and there's Mount Kilham in my books. And you can do those as a foot passenger and do that as a day trip. It's a long, but you can do it. And then there's one in like Salt Spring where you really, because of the ferry schedule, you really have to go kind of car camp there in a BC park and then do the day hikes. But yeah, so it's a mix.

I kind of do sometimes they would, like, often I'll be like planning a weekend and be like, okay, I've got to do hikes in this area. How can I camp in an area and do these hikes? Right. And so you have to plan it out, make sure that you're able to get there for some of them for a longer period of time. And then for some of them you're able to kind of get away with going for a shorter period. Do you do these typically alone for destination hikes? Did you do these mostly by yourself?

No, mostly with friends from hiking clubs. Yeah, I mean, some of them are alone, but usually, you know, there's someone else who wants to go. Right. And what are those conversations look like? I find that when my partner, Rebecca and I, when we're up in some more unique places where it's off the beaten path, you meet more interesting people that I guess have like a different approach to having that conversation in the middle of nowhere. You get kind of more a thoughtful conversation than again when you're walking down a very main trail and you're kind of like,

and you just kind of give you a little head nod or whatever. There's more of a connection or a thoughtful conversation. So what is that like within the hiking community? it tends to like picking a hike is pretty functional often it's like you know what hikes do you want to do what hikes do you want to do which ones overlap what's good this weekend with the weather it yeah so it just kind of mashes together um and the good thing there's always people who want to go hiking and i love hiking with new people too so i'm always open to hiking new people and um yeah it's uh it's yeah you just kind of find something everybody wants to do and it's tends to work out right and do you bring your family at all on these on these hikes i do uh i do a few

hikes with my son uh he's he's nine and so he likes the shorter end of the hikes so i don't take him on a lot of the big ones i've taken them on on some of the shorter ones like he did quite a fee for uh in the new book right he calls his book um so yeah it's uh but you know it's surprisingly hard to take notes and and photos when you're but and also give your full attention to your child. So I did find it a bit challenging to do hiking research with them. On those hikes, I'd often like take him and it was good to see how he reacted to them and what he liked about them and whatnot, but it often returned and, you know, take more notes on a second trip and whatnot. Right. So have you used, did you use the same camera and the same

kind of style for both books? Or what kind of did you change around between the first and second? I've definitely used the same cameras for all the books. I've probably switched the icon I use, but it's pretty much the same thing. But the note-taking is pretty similar. I mean, I think I learned to take better notes. I had to take better notes for the second book, too, because it's more in-depth. So I think the note-taking has gotten better. I've gotten a better idea of what I need to take notes on.

And also, with the GPS, I've been better at, I've learned how to kind of take notes in the GPS with waypoints and that better in the first one. I didn't take them that well, like, in terms of plotting them. So I had to draw a lot of the maps at the end in Google Earth, which wasn't great. Right. You know, it looked out. But so, yeah, that's, I've had to learn. So that's become more efficient.

Interesting. And so what do you hope that people get out of the Destination Hikes book? What do you think is kind of like the story of that book? I think it's like, I like that there's some, there's like some big hikes in there, but there's also, like, lesser-known hikes, I think, that people are finding and enjoying. And because it's more in-depth, too, they're getting more of the flavor of the area. Yeah, I think Destination Hikes is kind of the way I wanted. It's the book, the first book to kind of turn out in a way.

So it's, it's, yeah, it just, yeah, it's just, yeah, I don't know. And the proceeds for that one goes to, I want to say the Hope Outdoors. Yeah, yeah, so that one, that one I decided to give a small portion of royalties to the Hope Mountain Center for Outdoor Learning. And what I like about them is they do, yeah, they're awesome organization and they do a lot of outdoor education stuff. And their genesis also comes out of a controversy around raising the level of Ross Lake and the kind of the environmental. follow-out of that led to the setting up of like a funding mechanism for environmental work and whatnot. So they came out of that and they do this outdoor education stuff, but they also do the trail building and maintenance. And what I like about that is their trail building and

maintenance work has really had a reconciliation focus to it. They've partnered with different First Nations depending on the trail and included information about the place names. and history. So they'll have colonial, but they'll also have indigenous history on these panels. And there's a lot to learn. Like I did one of their hikes is a Deca Wallace Trail up Fraser Canyon, and that's in 105 hikes. But when I first did it as a high school student, it was called the First Brigade Trail. And it's like it's quite a different experience to go back and hike it again, because now it has these big interpretive panels on it that describe the history in a way, that we didn't learn like I did it as part of a history hike and so we learned about the

the gold rush history of that that mountain lake mountain but now they've got kind of the double layer of history in there and it it really changes the experience of the hike like it's it's a much fuller experience it's quite something they've done there interesting can you tell us um why if we need to be ethical when we're hiking like i'm sure to you it's like it's obvious yes, but for people, like, we still see cans and garbage on so many different hikes. And so can you just lay that out to us? Why is that important? Yeah, there's kind of, there's a few layers to that.

There's one, obviously, like, it's environmental, like, well, for wildlife and, and for, you know, biodiversity. So there's, there's, there's, you know, you got to kind of think about it. If you're doing something in the environment, basically, I mean, you got to think about a thousand people doing that because it's not just you, you're one banana peel. I mean, there's other people going to do the same thing, right? On another basic level, it's also just thinking about the enjoyment of other humans, right? It's like if you've got your Taylor Swift playing or whatever, you know, you're taking a flower from somewhere, I mean, or a mushroom, like, or, you know, or whatnot. Like, it's, it, and if you have no right to do that, like, then it's, yeah, you're taking away from what other people.

are seeing and enjoying also you know just yeah they're just uh it's basically yeah it's the environment it's um people and also just being respectful of of the use of the area like if the area has a cultural purpose or if it's sacred or um you know i mean settlers you know in certain you know in you know in a lot of areas they have no business taking um you know plants out of the area or something, but the same is not the same for the indigenous people there. They may have the right to harvest or whatnot. So just, yeah, understanding that there's responsibilities. Yeah, I think of Kerry Lynn Victor did a really good job of laying out why indigenous place names matter, because for some people, they might be like, why would you, like why does it matter? It's just

the name of a place. And she basically argued with LaQuam is that now you know it's a mossy area. And so hopefully first it starts out And she did a great job of describing The first it starts out as like kind of a trail And then it becomes more of a main trail And it gets more developed Then they put in a park Then they put in a parking lot

Then they put in Then they pave the trail Then they build a house there Then they build a community there Then it becomes a whole area And you start to forget And she argues that if you have the name Laquam which is mossy place

You will be more likely to protect it Because you'll remember what it was before people came, before it was not a mossy place, before it became a park or a community that it was once this. And so you're more likely to protect it if you understand what it was. Yeah, I think that that's hugely true. Yeah. I think that it's valuable for people to be able to understand why we do these things, why the environment is important to protect. Because even putting in a thing like a garbage can, now you're pulling in rats, mice, other animals, and then the birds are going to start to notice that, and it changes the ecosystem in fundamental ways.

Yeah, it is funny with the hikes. I find that there's often places along trails, and people are like, oh, there needs to be a sign there or a fence. I'm like, you're three hours away from the trailhead. I mean, there doesn't need to be a sign or a fence and everything. Like, it's the less changes that we can make out there, like, are the better. I mean, everything you add or change along the trail. just for convenience or whatnot, is taking away from the area.

So, yeah, but yeah. Is that something you like being able to get to the point where it's no longer a developed trail, where it's more of like you can see it, but it's a little bit more gray, and you know that you're more in nature that it's not a clearly defined path? Yeah, that's really, yeah, that's what I love. I love those, like, meadow trails or where you're in the alpine and you're just following some carnes or um yeah i love that the remoter narrow kind of rough trails yeah right have you had any scares on any of these hikes you've done what's like definitely over 160 hikes um with 105 plus 55

in the next book so at a minimum 160 have you had any scares any bear experiences any cougars i've been really lucky you know i've had no injuries um surprisingly um and no one's had a real injury on a hike with me and haven't you to be rescued yet. And I can see lots of bears, but, I mean, after you see them several times, you started to get used to it, and it becomes easier. What kind of bears, sorry, were they black bears? They're black. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've still only seen grizzly bears from a vehicle, like, on the way to hike. I've never seen grizzly bears on a hike still. But you see a lot of black bears. I still haven't seen a cougar or bobcat. out there. Yeah, black bears, wolves, lot of the deer. Well, what were those experiences like? Because I, again, I feel like it's becoming artificial for people to think about. And I just had Lee Harding on, who's a biologist, who was kind of talking about wolf culling, which is basically shooting wolves from helicopters, which I completely disagree.

They're like, there's magical creatures, too. Like, it's, yeah, I saw them on the Nuka Trail last summer, and they just like appear out of the fog like the mist and you know they'd be like halfway across my vision before i could see them because they're so camouflaged in the way yeah it's uh it's amazing it's it really it's really something to see uh these large mammals out there um and and the bears uh yeah i mean the bears you realize they're going to generally steer clear of you um you need to make some noise and let them know you're there and um yeah i mean I've had, you know, like, say, five bears kind of around us to certain points. And there were no fears.

There were no kind of tingles of, oh, my goodness. No, my friend was freaked out, though. We had to walk all the way to the tidal shelf and into the water and walk around them that way, which is probably smart, but I didn't think we had to walk, you know, as far out as we did. We got soaked. But, you know, but, yeah, no, we, first of all, we're carrying bear spray, like, Bear bells, not bear bells, a bit like horns and all sorts of stuff.

So we've got a safety equipment. And then you just kind of, you can tell you're being aggressive, right? So you're just, you know, you're kind of talking softly and backing away. You should be, you know, try to get them space basically and hope they go their own way, usually, which is usually what happens. But in that, like in the summer with the five bears, they were on both sides. of us on a narrow beach so you had to kind of go to the water to get around them because the inside was like pretty dense like forest started to navigate um so yeah i haven't had any

problems so far luckily um i mean i guess i guess it's a little scary when you run into cubs because you know the mom's there so um but you know you just get out of the giving lots of room and wait so yeah is it humbling at all because you start to realize like i am just like we get so used to thinking we're really important people and I've got my meetings and I've got 50 likes on this new post I made and I'm I'm so busy with all these things that you kind of forget this bear doesn't care about any of that oh yeah yeah yeah I would say so yeah especially yeah especially seeing seeing seeing a bear yeah because bear could could cut you open with that one claw you know so yeah it's it is right and what is it like to see

um the different ecosystems and see rivers running with with fish and them perhaps or seeing animals hunting for animals like we saw um right now the um great blue heron reserve has an insane amount of eagles right now and they're they're all ages and it was just so amazing to see them trying to hunt trying to find mice trying to find food and it was just like wow this is going on all the time and again i think we get lost in our i've got to go to work and i've got this meeting and oh no i've got this stress and like and then you realize these animals are doing this all day and they don't this is what the yeah yeah and there's a lot of also just noticing the animals because a lot of pikers might be out there and they'll just see

an animal and be like, oh, it's, I don't know, it's a crow or a pigeon or something. But there's actually just so many different kinds out there. And so when you start to take notice, you realize, oh, wow, that's a different kind. And maybe they're only up here for a couple of weeks because they're migrating. So yeah, it's when I was doing the kids book, my son and I were at Rice lake in Northland and we saw they were doing a trout release there so we actually got to put a couple trout into the lake and then um we saw an eagle swoved down and grab like one of the fish someone else had just put in there oh my gosh and that was pretty neat to see to see an eagle like come out of national geographic and come down and scoop up a fish yeah and then you remember that

the strength of their talons is just incomprehensible to like the strength of our hands and Their wingspans are incomprehensible, and these are really majestic animals, and you getting to see them in their natural environment. I just, I think that that's, if there's anything to get out of this, it's to connect back with nature and to understand these environments more. Yeah, and on the coastal hikes, too, tend to see dead animals more. So I've seen like a dead deer with like inside drift out or dead seal or dead whale. And like it's really quite striking to see a large animal, mammal, like kind of decomposing into the environment. It's not something we normally get to see. And it's, I don't know, yeah, it's really something.

That is really interesting because you kind of get used to seeing them alive. and then you kind of go, like, wow, this has been taken out or this has been attacked or something's going on here that's part of the natural cycle. And I think we get kind of in our PG-13 kind of mindset of like everything needs to be safe and PG-approved. And then you realize nature really isn't like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So what was your kind of journey into this more recent book? And like, what was your kind of approach to getting started with this one? Yeah, so this book, I was like, I definitely wanted to write a book of, easy shorter hikes and then and then just the idea of making it a kid's book made sense so and the publisher agreed so I got to to work on it so I proposed that idea as I was working on destination hikes so I had it lined up for immediately once I finished

destination hikes I had to work on this other book so it became yeah best hikes and nature walks with kids in and around southwestern British Columbia and it's got 55 hikes of the easier and shorter variety kind of covers the same region so it's you know north east west and south of Vancouver the hikes you know are like two hours three hours four hours they're shorter they're easier but they're not they're not really they're not supposed to be just nature walks though like there's no like trails or anything like they're supposed to be an introduction to hiking there they're there there's changes

in elevation, there's, you know, rougher trails, there's, it really is a good intro to hiking for anyone, really. It's not just really for kids, but it points out the kid stuff, you know, hollow trees and, right. And you got Maya Anton, who I'd like to have as a guest. Because I think she's great. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came about and about what Maya Anton's doing? Yeah. So, yeah, so for, I mean, for 105 hikes, we had C-Swice. wrote forward for that one, and she's an amazing squamish ethobotanist. And so I was, like, just someone I, that for years, I knew, like, if I wrote a hiking guide book, she might be one person that I wanted to open it.

And then for Destination Hikes, Cecilia Point from Musqueam, wrote the intro, and her intro is amazing. And then Maya, like, Maya is interesting, because I actually didn't know about her work until, more recently. Whereas, like, Cecilia and Cease, I've been following their work for years. Right. Like as a journalist and whatnot, like, and, but, but Maya, she founded indigenous woman outdoors. She's a Squamish language teacher. Does all sorts of work. This is incredible, young person out there doing real work. And so, yeah, I just asked her if she wanted to, was interested in writing and we had a nice conversation about it and Mabel's

really honored that she agreed and yeah she does a lot around spreading sharing indigenous knowledge and and it's just such a great spokesperson so yeah it's a it's the perfect

intro to the book really it's a great yeah from my understanding she works to reconnect indigenous women with the natural environment and I Again, I think that that's also what you're doing for everybody, but reconnecting people with these relationships with the land. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, she's making those connections and making it possible for just people who've been disconnected from their lands to reconnect.

So, yeah, it's incredible that work that's happening and also the language work that she does. And so yeah, it's just lucky to have someone like my writing forward for the book. And it's also, I think it's a great intro to the book. And I think having that, it definitely sets the tone for the book. Like, I think people have really appreciated the forwards in the other book. And they found it like it makes you think kind of going into the book in a different way about it. So yeah, it's.

And also just having. like right off the bat, you know, just acknowledging that there's a history here and a culture here and people here that are usually ignored in most hiking literature. So yeah, it's important to have that. Yeah, I think of just personally my grandmother attended Indian residential school and then my mother was born with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder as a consequence of the drinking that took place when she was a fetus. And then my mother was taken as part of the 60s scoop into a Caucasian family. And my non-biological grandmother was fantastic.

But I grew up with more of a disconnect from the indigenous place names. I don't know how to fish. I'm getting in more to hiking. We just bought Andy McKinnon's mushroom book. We've got your book. And so we're really trying to find those trails that are off the beaten path to make those connections again. And I think that that's so important to share with other people because we get so lost in like perhaps sports, football, the UFC, these things are good. But you're not connecting with nature and you're not understanding that there is life out there like trees that live so much longer than us.

And they're here and they provide life. And when I was talking to Sunny McKelsey, how we tried to use the tree without cutting it down and how strategic we are. like you think of how respectful indigenous people have been towards conservation in the relationship with life for so long that it's it's humbling to learn about and it's it places us as stewards for the environment and just to go to your books like I feel like that's the work you're doing in your books is to say like before you go into these hikes you're a steward for this environment and you have responsibility if you're going to enter that you understand these things and I think that that's what's so important that people take away from when they're traveling or exploring. that they're understanding their role within these environments. Yeah, I mean, I'm still definitely, like, looking at things through a hiking lens, and that hiking lens is very colonial and extractive often. Like, it's interesting, I was talking, when I was talking to C. Swice about the first book, and she was like, well, actually, I don't really hike.

You know, I go into the woods. You know, I go and I harvest, and I was like, that's okay. Like, it's not acting. you to introduce hiking, I guess. So it's just the way of looking at things can be quite different. So, yeah, it's, yeah, I don't know. There's a lot to learn and, yeah, I'm happy to be able to do what I can. But there's always, there's just, you know, learning.

I think things will change and I'll have to approach things differently as time goes on in that moment. Right. think the parallels are for hiking and like how to live a good life because there was this one really good example and I forget who said it but they were like for some people they get up halfway to the top of the mountain and they realize they took the wrong route so they just stay there but like a great leader or a great mind is willing to own their mistake come back down and find a different path to the top but so many people in I think their lives they go uh like I think a good example might be

school as they go like, well, I took this four-year degree and now I don't even want to use it. So now now I have to go find a job I don't want to do because I took this like criminology course and I thought I was going to be a police officer now. I don't want to be a police officer anymore. So now I have to go be something within this field because that's what I set out to do and I got my education in this. And they're not willing to say, okay, let's go back to square one. Where do I want to go? And it kind of sounds like that's what you did within your journalism was you were like, this isn't me anymore. This isn't where I want to go and this isn't the direction I want to take. So you're willing to use the metaphor, go back down the mountain and figure out the next path.

And it's taken you, it sounds like it's been more fulfilling than perhaps you might have expected when you're quitting the job. Because in that moment, people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're leaving the job. Like, things are going to be tough. Like, how do you know this is the right move? Yeah, especially since journalism was such a huge part of my identity. You know, it's like, I'm not going to be a journalist anymore. That is hard. Yeah, working in newspaper was a big part of me.

So, journalists also tend to have this fiction they tell themselves, too, that everything they do is, like, you know, really good in helping the world. It's not true, right? But, you know, obviously, journalism is important, plays an important role in society and everything. But not everything you write is, like, helpful. You know, sometimes you're passing on perspectives that aren't helpful in the way you frame things. Like, it's, you know, it's kind of, you're playing an important role, but. journalists need to be a little more self-reflective, I think. But yeah, I love journalism, and leaving it was hard.

I didn't go that far. I went to communications, right? But, yeah, it realigned with what I wanted to do when I went to university. So when I went to university, too, like, I was supposed to, I don't know what I thought I was going to do with geography, right? I thought I'd work for environmental organizations. But I ended up at the student newspaper, the peak at SFU, and that's how I stumbled on in journalism, right? I just liked the paper. So I volunteered to write CD reviews, bad CD reviews. Sorry, CD reviews? Yeah. Like music reviews? Okay. Yeah. Bad, bad music reviews. And then

ended up, like, volunteering to write news. And that's how I got into being a news editor. And it was amazing experience, really, student newspapers, because you get to learn on the job. and you're learning from like your peers and you're getting to do stuff that otherwise you wouldn't be able to do when you go to a prime initial press conference and whatnot and you can just do all this stuff and you can write it however you want before you before we move on from that I just want to give my appreciation because the work that the peak has done I've actually utilized multiple different times with Ryan Darcy who's a neuroscientist and then more recently Sammy can

who is also a professor at SFU and so it does play a role and without those little blurbs I would have not known about these people and I couldn't have interviewed them without their work cool that's cool and you know it's the thing about working I student newspaper like that too is is that it got me it got me I mean it made it possible for me to get into journalism without going to journalism school right then that's how that's how I got the job at Euro Street because the editor had read my work in the paper also it's also how I got to

I lived in Toronto for a few years when I was starting out in media and worked at the Toronto Sun and Canadian University Press. So there was a lot of experience in there, experiences in there. But that allowed me to meet a lot of different journalists. And also, like, the amazing thing about journalism, too, is you talk to all these people. You get to talk to people. Like, if you're interested in somebody, you can interview them about something. So I got to interview so many people that were doing amazing things and not so amazing things. And people I definitely wouldn't have talked to

if I didn't have that reason to. And being a place like the Georgia Strait, which is an alternative newspaper, also, and I was an editor there, so I pretty much had free reign to follow, you know, to do what I wanted to write about, which is why I was able to write about any hiking by book that came out.

Or, you know, I just, you know, so I was able to learn so much from all these different people. And all that knowledge is useful. writing hiking guide books too Yeah, and it also sounds like you like as much as you were respectful to your roles, it sounds like you tried to make sure that the role was serving you as much as

you're serving the role, that you're willing to say like, okay, I'm willing to do this work, but I want to make sure I'm getting, I'm feeding I don't know, you can say like feeding your soul, feeding your passion. I think that was started from being in student journalism. There's a whole debate in student journalism

about whether or not student journalists should just cover stuff on the campus or be an alternative media source. And I was hard on the alternative media source side. So I covered, you know, stuff on campus, but I was also like covering protests in the downtown East side and provincial politics and whatnot, like covering what I thought was interesting because I thought we could cover in a different way. So, and then working at an alternative newspaper, so I've always thought, like, journalism doesn't have to be a certain way. It can be, like, you're going to hear like two, three perspectives on

SK&W, but maybe we could just focus on the fourth and fifth one or something. So I didn't always felt that I didn't have to do things in a particular way, and that if I was injured to something, I could write 10 stories about it. And people might complain,

but it's, you know, it's a balance. You're balancing out the other stuff. You're not having to have the whole balance in your one piece. Right. How do you feel about that right now? I know you're no longer in that kind of medium, but I do think that what you're saying is important. I think that having different perspectives allows us to have a more informed public discussion. What are your thoughts on

the ethics of journalism and the responsibilities they have? Yeah, I think it's hard now because, of course, we have media sources that are catering to particular political points of view. So, like, on one hand, it's good to have media sources that come from different points of you because it was bad back in the day when we were also just hearing a mainstream point of view all the time. But when they're not able to take facts or, you know, acknowledge facts, and that's a problem. Also, it's been, it's been really sad to see, like, how much the media has contracted and become smaller since I was in journalism. I mean, a lot of the newspapers that I first got work with or aren't even here anymore.

And as a communication person, I noticed that as years go by, I have less and less journalists to try to approach to get to write about the stuff that I'm, you know, doing in my organizations. Right. And so it's, yeah, it's journalism is tough industry to be in. I'm glad I don't know how I've, the people who are still going to it, I'm really impressive. Yeah, I subscribe. I don't know if you know the Fraser Valley Current.

I love the Fraser Valley Current. Yes, and Tyler Olson, Jody Grual, and I'm forgetting the other, Grace Kennedy, are doing great work because they're doing the in-depth pieces again. They're doing actual genuine writing of like long information that lays out. This is like the government's perspective. This is the First Nations community's perspective. This is this biologist guy's perspective and really going through it all. And I just saw that Tyler was kind of like, we're not that. different from regular news sources and I was like you are you really you're giving back like when

I read your piece I feel like it's balanced I feel like your personal perspective is really not there and I appreciate that I know that you have your viewpoints but I can feel when I'm reading this that this is the facts again this is something I can be confident in and I'm really optimistic when I see that and I'm hoping to have the CEO of OMG the news or overstory media group Farhand? Yes. I would love to interview him because I think his model

is hopefully the future because I know that for a certain period of time you had venture capitalists coming in, kind of gutting the newsroom area and getting rid of the extra parts and really cutting down these businesses

and his approach has been very different and hopefully the future of journalism, hopefully his model is successful and I'd like to support it in any way I can. Yeah, it's been neat to see how far he's come to because he used to be, I met him when he was,

was at Vance Lee Buzz, which became Daily Hive. And they did really poor journalism for many years. And then, but he's, what they're doing at this OMG media with these community-based email newsletters, like you wouldn't think email newsletters would have these huge and death stories that they're doing at the current. And there's also like, there's the Tri-Cities Dispatch is another one. That's a different company. That's Constellation Media.

but they do these Yeah, they're providing these amazing These are replacing community newspapers But they're bringing back that In-depth thing that you wouldn't think would happen with an email based But it works Really well

Yeah, I'm really optimistic And I hope that they continue Because there's something There's just something that feels different And I don't want to harp on any one journalist But when I go on Facebook And I see them posting there Not Fraser Valley print

But when I see other news organizations posting their article and then posting their opinion of what they're saying. It's like now I don't feel like I'm getting a balanced perspective. Now I feel like I'm reading your perspective on what's going on, which is really just an opinion piece. And when I can't tell the difference between your opinion piece and your writing as just a pure journalist, to me, I'm concerned now.

Yeah. It's like watching CNN now. They don't divide the opinion from the news now. It's like awful. Yeah, and it's very concerning because I feel like there's very reasonable people like yourself who have been in the industry who are saying this and yet at the same time I see so many people saying CNN is as balanced as it's ever been and it's like I don't I don't know how you can say that and I think that when we can't have faith in these institutions the whole

political conversation is more messy because we can't even agree on what news is and what opinion is and then the the politicalization of everything increases and that concerns me because I do believe in climate change, and I've gotten to interview various people who have deep knowledge, but that's, again, an issue that's become politicized over time because news organizations aren't as trusted as they used to be. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a great state of affairs. So can you tell us about what the pivot was for you in regards to, like, you went from the peak, and then you moved into, I think, the Georgia Strait, and you worked for a few different. What was that experience like? And what did you gain from that? Yeah, it's, it's. It's, it's. It's, it's,

It's been really something because I started off at the peak, which is like an alternative student newspaper. It's a lot of freedom to try to experiment and do stuff. And then I went to Canadian University Press, which is like a national newswire that's made up of student papers. And that was wonderful because I was able to get like the national editor position. And so I was able to meet like up and coming journalists all across the country who are now like at all these outlets all around the country.

and like you know work on content that went to all these papers and that got me that allowed me to get a job at the Toronto Sun which is totally different it's more of a conservative tabloid but I got great experience there being acting as kind of another like a kind of like with my job at the student newswire was facilitating content sharing and then editing copy editing like the political stories out of Ottawa and Queens Park and so I got a ton of experience there and then got to go to Georgia Strait which is where I always wanted to work having you know read it since like high school and university that's where I wanted to work and so I got to work there and I got a lot of got a lot of freedom there from the editor yeah and just the people have been able to meet

and the things I've been able to learn and who have been able to talk to and go had been like huge like just being able to satisfy my curiosity about things right and so who are some of your role models within the space you've talked about your experiences as a journalist you've gotten to meet various people um you've had the opportunity to um interact and like i'm sure you know who Andy McKinnon is um you've gotten to have Cecilia point um who are some of your role models who inspire you in the work you do today that's a good question um Definitely, there's, well, there's the, there's the, there's the, the authors of the previous guidebook, and then there's the authors of the guidebooks in the States, Spring and Manning.

There's, uh, yeah, you know, various like knowledge holders and, um, people that I've encountered, like, uh, ceasewise and Silly Appoint and, uh, Sending McCalsy, and, uh, people, people who are like doing also like making real change in the world like like Maya and Tom. Lots of environmentalists like Joe Foy at the Wilderness Committee, people who've been involved in these fights over long years to protect these new natural areas that where there's a lot of hikes, whether it's like in Manning Park or you know, Garibaldi, all those areas. There's lots of people that have put time into those areas. So yeah, just, I don't know, it's a wide variety of people.

Right. Do you have any thoughts on what's going on with Ferry Creek right now? Fairy Creek, you know, I'm a little out of touch with what's going on there right now. I know the Wet So Wet and Struggle is getting a lot more media attention lately, so I've been paying more attention to that. But Ferry Creek, Ferry Creek definitely has been. interesting to see and um also the conversations all the conversations just raised about who has their right to speak for the land there and and uh what what is the role of like these outside protesters and and whatnot like it's been pretty complicated um but like obviously it's uh old growth trees there aren't you know there's there's not as many left as there used to be

and there's less and less and something needs to be done. And, you know, like Squamish Nation said they want a moratorium on the cutting wheel growth trees in their territory because they're so little left. And so there's things happening. So, yeah, I don't, it's a tough question. Yeah, it's been really something to see people stand up for the area. But it's also been, like, some aspects of that have been troubling as well.

like who speaks for that area and and you know there's been some people in that group that you know who seem to be speaking out of turn for the protesters it's been it's been it's been a strange thing to watch right and how do you stay up to date on these kind of events and like writing your book like it seems like this is something that you're genuinely interested in and so i think of like I watched Fantastic Fungi on Netflix, which is a series with Paul Stamitts, UBC professor, Susan Simmerd, there's Andy McKinnon's book, B.C. mushrooms. How do you go about kind of staying up to date on what's going on? Because you've kind of had a journey of like, and I'm interested to know, like, what's your journey been in regards to learning about the plants and then the trees

and perhaps the wildlife? Have you had like a learning curve and is, each year or something where you're like kind of diving into a new topic? Yeah, it's just been gradual, I think. I like field guides, so I've got a bunch of those. And, yeah, just, yeah, I mean, in terms of keeping up to date with things and whatnot, I mean, it's, you know, reading things, reading long reads. I mean, I try not to spend too much time as Olshamini, but, I mean, if you're following something like Ferry Creek, Like you actually do have to follow it on social media

because you have to follow like land defenders who are actually there and to don't get that perspective. You're not going to see it in your else. So yeah, it's just trying to follow things but not get too overwhelmed. You know, I'm not as much of a news junkie as I was when I was in journalism because I burned that out of me a bit. But I still do love, you know, reading the names and whatnot. Right.

So where would you like to take this moving forward? I know your book's coming out in May. Do you have something kind of already on the horizon? Or what are your kind of plans after that book releases? Yeah, it's just, well, I'll be after that, after the kids' book, like With Kids' book comes out, I'll be doing, I'll be working on an update of the first book. So 105 hikes is going to get a second edition in a few years. So I need to start doing research for that.

And so that's, that's cool because I'll be able to to kind of, you know, take what I've learned from, from the other books and, and apply it to that, you know, and make, make, make that book better, I think, like, make the writing better and make the photos better. And I also just want to, I just want to make the book quite, quite new. So I want to, I want to, I want to, you know, change, like, 20, 30 of the hikes. maybe just to make it more of a new book and but also update info for the other hikes. So yeah, that'll be a bunch of work. Right. When you talk about updating the photos and changing the language, can you elaborate on that? Because I'm super interested in your, like, I really respect people who are willing to, like, improve. And with the podcast, I'm always looking at getting new video cameras.

How do I improve the audio quality? How do I make the experience for the guests better? How do I promote it better so it reaches more people? How do I make sure that the questions I'm asking resonate? How do I make sure I'm doing enough research and I'm informed so I can have a good conversation. And I'm always trying to improve the craft. And I always respect individuals like yourself. You did an interview where you talked about how you're trying to improve your craft.

You're trying to improve these things. And so I'm interested to know what does that actually look like? Well, I think part of it is like never really lose that imposter syndrome. so you're always kind of a little anxious about your work. So, yeah, I always am seeing, you know, I pick up the book and I see what's wrong with it, right? So it's just, it's, I'll be able to, it's great to have a chance to rewrite things. And I'll be able to, like, there's trails that I've revisited and, you know, and I've also gotten feedback about some of the write-ups too, right?

Like, you know, good and bad. So it's being able to have the chance to revise it and make it how I want. it to be and how it should be and also like there might be some hikes where i focused a lot on a certain aspect but now i'm interested in another aspect so i want to focus on that more you know so it's it's yeah it's like i'm sure some of the hike write-ups won't change that much because nothing's changed there and maybe i'm happy with the focus but there's some where i where i know like it i started the write-up a certain way and you know i think maybe i focused on this aspect for too much and i want to kind of get right into the hike and then you know talk about this aspect or you know

I'm sure there's, yeah, I'm an editor, right? So I also want to edit it. Fair enough. And is there like times you want to do certain hikes when you're planning a book like this? Do you go like, this is so beautiful during the spring or during the fall? And like I want to get that aspect of it. Yeah, especially with summer hikes, yeah, for wildflower season and that kind of thing. Doesn't always work out though.

There's definitely some hikes that I've done like, you know, in September when it's snowing when I would have preferred to do it, you know, in August. So you try to schedule that out. But at the same time, I'm also pretty loosey-goosey about scheduling. So things don't always happen when they're supposed to do. Yeah, my partner and I tried to do Joffrey Lake. And we did it in, oh, it would have been like June. And it was still completely snow.

And we did not expect that. So we pulled up and it's all snowy. And we were like, yes, we're not doing this hike today. And we didn't dress for it. We were just kind of like, it's June. And in Chilliwack, it's super sunny and warm. And it's like 30 degrees. And it's not at that elevation.

And so have you ever run into that? Or do you ever hike in the snow? I hike in the snow. Yeah. I'm not as big into snow-shoeing as other hikers are. Just don't enjoy it as much. But I do do it. And I also just do, I take the wintertime also and do a lot of lower elevation hikes in naturewalk.

So that's when I do a lot of the. forest walks and waterfall stuff. So it's, yeah, just hiking around and I just trend to do lower elevation things. It's good because there's a lot of forest hikes that I might not do in the summertime because I'm focused on getting up a little higher. But I can do all the valley things in the off-season. That is so cool because I think of that would be something I guess that would benefit me is because we're interested in doing hikes, but we're terrible at planning in advance.

And so we're like, oh, we want to do like Joffrey Lake right now. And it's like, it's January. Like, this is terrible time to try and do that. And so being able to figure out what seasons are good seasons to be able to do these hikes and enjoy yourself and get out there and kind of having a plan for that in advance. Yeah. And so in the hiking with kids book, there is info on whether, you know, what season the hikes are good in. And that's, yeah, so that's supposed to help with that. But yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of nature walks in the valley that are all year round.

Sometimes doing like the muddy hikes is really good in the winter because the mud's frozen. That's brilliant. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about, there's two. One is your choice to swim because you changed that over time. You started out as somebody who wasn't interested in swimming that much when you were doing your hikes. And then you kind of switched your perspective. Could you share that? Yeah, I never really swam on hikes.

Like, I never really did lake swimming. And I just was a, not a great swimmer, right? Growing up, I, like, flunked out of the swim club because of asthma, I guess. And then I've just always been a really bad swimmer. And then, yeah, just a few years ago, I decided to start just, you know, I'd always be like, nah, I'm not going to swim. But then be like, oh, I missed out, right? and then started swimming in lakes and it's funny like the more you swim in lakes the more

comfortable it is the less you it doesn't feel as cold even um and so now every chance i get i'm trying to swim in in lakes on hikes and uh it's uh you know i've swam in like really cold rivers and you know with that kind of glacial blue in it in it's super cold and then uh it's you know gone up in the mountains and so i'm in alpine lakes um even at like nighttime with the stars above and it just like it really adds to the do it just really adds to the experience and I love it now so it's so refreshing the only thing is I have to be careful not to like swim too long like on a part hike or something because swimming's tiring like moving your whole body right and then and then you have to hike down like yeah I can't imagine that's another part I I'd like to know about

because people forget about the amount of light pollution that we have and you're a person who gets away from that. Do you take an interest in the stars and looking at the sky at night? Yeah, yeah, really into, really into that. The light pollution, yeah, and the lack of light pollution. It really struck me early on in one of my first camping trips. Like I remember waking up in the middle of the night at Elphin Lakes in Garibaldi Park to go to the washroom and be stumbling outside and seeing the Milky Way and really noticing the Milky Way for the first time. Like, it was just brilliant. So yeah, being out there and being able to, I always try to, I love watching the sunset.

If I'm camping out in the backcountry, I pretty much always wake up for sunrise. I can't sleep very well anyway, so, but just being able to watch the sunrise. Usually no one else wakes up too, like everyone else will still be sleeping. But I always try to make sure to go out, I mean, you always had to go out to go to the washing in a little bit when you can't get any of this or some reason. So I always try to go up, make sure to get out to see the stars. And, yeah, it's incredible. You can generally, if you wait a few minutes, you're probably going to see at least one meteor.

And, yeah, just being out of see the Milky Way so clear, you just can't see that in the city. It's kind of overwhelming looking at that sky. So I really do enjoy that aspect, and light pollution is a problem. Yeah, it's something that actually does invoke a sense of awe in people when they actually get to see it and they understand like oh we're like a little blue marble hurtling through space

able to see light that's traveling at intense speeds and realizing that some of the light that you're seeing is actually from burnt out stars that are no longer that way anymore but that light hasn't traveled like there's so many different aspects to nature that I think we can disconnect from

as I think I've alluded to multiple times and the sky is one of them And then I just got my partner for her birthday, a telescope because we're trying to commit ourselves to educating ourselves on these things and understanding mushrooms more. And because they're like our ancestors. We have like a long relationship in terms of like the tree of life with mushrooms. And they help destroy old trees, but they also give life to new things. And they play an integral role. Like if you learn about lions main and its impact on our neurons and you learn about.

Chaga and the immune benefits of it. There's so many different things to learn about in terms of the environment and how it can have a reciprocal relationship with us. And Carrie Lynn Victor, who's a plant medicine practitioner, talks about the benefit of plants and how to interact with those in a healthy way. And I think that having more of those connections and learning about things like when I watched fantastic fungi, they talk about how there's mycelium underneath. And the trees with the mycelium are able to feed.

the other tree, if they have more food, they're able to move that food through the mycelium through to another tree or to their tree baby, to their tree relationship. And that's like a Susan Smart thing, right? Their research, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible. Incredible. Like, it's crazy. And then you, like, and then you're out there. And like, to me, that's why we're so lucky to know people like you. And like, I don't think of you as just a hiker. I think of you as, like, an educator for what these beautiful mountains have to tell us and teach us and share with us in terms of understanding of the natural environment and the beauty that you could miss out on if you just stay on your local trail that's paved and well-maintained and groomed. You can lose your

understanding of how bizarre this planet is. Yeah. I'm just lucky, great, because I, hiking is my favorite thing to do, and I'm able to share my, like, channel my passion into the book. So, it's just, it's, it comes naturally. And I just, I really like writing the books. I mean, obviously it also like it's hard as hell to sit down and write i find like uh but once you get going then it's it's great and i love it i love like um yeah it's amazing the things you enter when you're so i feel like i feel like my work is is is you know it builds upon that you know real work with the earth like people like son and calcy and susan samard that they do because they're out there doing, you know, the real cultural research work and I'm learning from it,

but I get to, you know, relate it to the hiking and talk about it that way. So yeah. Yeah, I think that that's where we're lucky. And it scares me when I think about people not reaching their full potential because, and that's why I think highlighting people like yourself is so important from my perspective because I want to encourage people to figure out what your passion is, whatever it is, and then share that with the world, whatever that looks like. And you found a way to do that. And I think that that sets an example for other people to go figure that out. And when I think of my indigenous community, when I think of people who are just getting by when they're working at save on or when they're struggling at McDonald's, that you need to figure out what that

passion is and then just make it a part-time thing. Start on Saturdays and Sundays. Put a little bit of work into whatever it is, whether it's hiking, whether it's talking to people, whether it's educating yourself on topics and then start a social media page start sharing it bit by bit let people know that you're interested and then doors will slowly open start a podcast talking about your favorite things yeah exactly start sharing what you enjoy with the world and hopefully those doors were open and then people like me want to sit down and talk to you and learn about how did you come about this and how did you get started because we're so lucky when people choose to do that because other people could get a book deal and be like oh i'll just tell them how to get to the

top of the mountain and that's all that I'll do. And then we miss out on the ethics and the indigenous history. And like to me, you've taken such an ethical approach to this by highlighting, I think every forward has been done by an indigenous person. And so you've really worked hard to tie that in and make sure that whoever reads your book is educated on the ethics and the responsibilities and learning about not just how to get to the top, but the beauty between you and the top and going back down. And I think that when we're able to learn about those things, it feeds a part of us that I don't know if we know exists like I don't know if the news would ever be able to cover that that they'd ever see that aspect of it like it's not just about getting to the top taking

the photo which is what you see on Instagram is like look at me I made it to the top and all of the journey there gets lost and that's what you kind of highlight in your book is it's not just about the top it's about this old growth tree you're going to walk past it's about this meadow you're going to see and these flowers are unique to this area and there's a lot to learn between you in the top and you'll be better off by learning these things. Yeah, that's what I love about with this stuff. Yeah, it's lucky to be able to do it. Right. And so you're going to be working on your next book shortly here, which is going to be 105 hikes the sequel. Where do you want to take this long term, though? Do you enjoy doing the

public speaking elements? Where do you kind of envision yourself within this over the next five years? Well, public speaking has always freaked the hell out of me. But, but, if you're not, promoting the books I've actually learned to become comfortable with it and started to enjoy it so yeah it's uh I'll never be in the speaking for the sake of speaking but I do like doing the media stuff that's good um but yeah in terms of like uh I'll do more yeah I'll do more public speaking during you know for the books and to talk about those issues I've found invited um But yeah, I hope to continue writing books, but I'm also happy if these are the books that end up being in it, and I just get to update them. Yeah, so I'm not too sure.

I mean, I feel like I could work on hiking books for quite a long time. I'm not sure if there's another type of material that I want to get into. I'm definitely not a novelist. So, yeah, I don't know, but I definitely hope to work on hiking guides for this region for as long as I can. You said for this region, can you just tell me a little bit about what made you choose just to stick with the southwestern kind of BC area? Is there any desire long term over your life to go see other areas like the Yukon or other parts of the world? There's definitely a desire to go, but in terms of writing, In terms of book writing, like, I mean, I live here, right?

I've grown up here, so it just makes sense to me to write about this area. It's also, like, in terms of logistics, it makes sense, you know, to do this area. I mean, if I wanted to, I could probably do other regions, but that would require quite a lot of doing quite a lot of time out of town and stuff like that. So I think it would be logistically difficult for me to do it. And, yeah, I mean, I'm here. my kids here and so yeah it said i'm kind of devoted to this area so i i love this area and i definitely want to try some trails elsewhere but um i kind of like those to not be my writing too

those are my like when i do the trails on the west coast of vancouver island it's out of my area for writing but i like i don't choose to write about that area right so i don't i take no notes and i turn my phone off right and that's where you kind of reconnect with your passion for it, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah, interesting because I think that it's so valuable for people to realize how hard it is to write these books. Because, like, you think like, when you go for a hike, you're like, oh, like, what's, I got to the top and I came down. Like, I do, I've done elk multiple different times. And it's a, it's a pretty easy one when you think about like being able to get to the top and bottom, um, relatively well done, maintained

trail. And I don't know about the trees in the area or what the area might have been known for. And So when you're putting in work to explain each trail and all the information, it wouldn't be easy to do all the trails in Canada when you think of how much its work it's taken just to do the southern part of PC. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it'd be quite, yeah, it'd be quite a lot. I think it'd be quite a lot. I tried a challenge to do a large area.

I mean, one thing is that by me focusing on this area, I'm constantly learning about this particular area. and the research and learning kind of builds on itself. So I've learned so much from going through these books. And, yeah, I tend to write hikes together in a kind of in a region and learn a whole bunch about that particular area while I'm writing about it. But, yeah, I think it'd be, it's interesting too, because sometimes people look at aspects of the books

and like indigenous place names. They're like, send me a link to where I can find all of them. Like, you can't find all of them. There's no place, there's like dozens of languages here. There isn't going to be one place where you can find the names. Like it's such a ridiculous way of looking at it. And so, yeah, there's often people will ask, like, where did you get these names? I'm like, well, I had to look at like so many documents to find them.

But they're out there, right? But there's not going to be one place to, it's not necessarily going to be easy to learn about all these things. So it's, but yeah, I really enjoyed it. And perhaps maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it's good that you have to put in work. Like we live in a time where things are made too easy and that you almost appreciate it. Like when Google was kind of getting started, people thought, like, we're going to have the most informed society we've ever had. Because you're going to be able to ask every question.

imaginable and we're going to have such an informed populace. And now we're all kind of going like, well, why do we not have those encyclopedia books where you can flip to a page and you don't know what you're going to read about and you don't know what you're going to connect with in that book if you just open it up and start going, oh, I didn't even realize I could ask that question. And so I think we get lost in making it easier and easier and easier to the point where it's like, well, now you've kind of lost the beauty of the journey of learning. Yeah. That's funny mentioned encyclopedia because growing up my family did have a set of the world book encyclopedia and my brother used to kid me because i would read it like i would just read it and i especially

liked reading about all the different countries and all that so i know i read all about the little microstates and you know like it's like but yeah just you don't flip through things and i mean you can go down the wikipedia rather than i guess now but it's uh yeah it's different you don't encounter things as much that you weren't predisposed to um Yeah, I have my grandmother's world book series and I'm proud to have it because I think it is something that we forgot about and we get so lost in trying to get the answer to a question that we forget about the beauty of not knowing or the beauty of learning over time and your willingness to go through these things and learn about them and try and understand more. I think that that sets an example of like this has been a journey for you as much as it's been an educational experience for others. You've had to go learn things in order to tell people. It's not been like, I've known it all for 30 years, and I'm just going to tell you what I know.

It's been like, I have to go out and learn and expose myself to new information and then come back to my readers and educate them. Yeah, it's been, especially the historical aspects and learning about some of the indigenous place names and the different languages. Like, that's a lot of learning. it's been a lot of learning and it's been there's still like an incredible amount to learn but you yeah you can't just pick it up like

it just takes a lot and yeah people always want like the quick answer and like with that site native land right you see so many land acknowledges now that are just copied and pasted out of there and so many of them are wrong

like so many of them are either got the wrong area because the website's, you know, the website's gotten better, but there are, you know, different territories. They're not represented properly. And then the way they're named, people don't know what they're coughing and pasting. So they'll, they'll use, you know, the Halkamaelam word, our land, as a name for the nation rather than Stalo or, you know, like it's, you see it all time. Yeah, I listen, my personal perspective, I'm pretty against land acknowledgments as they're commonly done. And I've gotten to listen to Dan George's podcast, The Reconciliation Road, and he interviewed Bruce McIver, and they also

indict the idea of reconciliation through just giving land acknowledgments because often it's done with like the University of the Fraser Valley requires everybody to have a land acknowledgement in the beginning of their course. Well, for so many people, they're not going to know what they're saying. And so that goes, that's more lip service. And I think if you look at certain government decisions, you can say that we've had enough lip service. We've had enough people not knowing. And so I like the people who are interested to come to the table and let's work towards reconciliation. Let's try and educate ourselves. But for the people who aren't going to participate or who are going to copy and paste, don't bother. Don't waste your

time trying to attempt to fake something because that's not going to help us. That does nobody any good. And it's a disservice to yourself because you're being a little bit dishonest if you're putting something in that you don't understand. Yeah. I've given my fair share of land acknowledgements and yeah I've never quite figure out how to be totally comfortable with them but yeah you see so many that are just copied and pasted with no idea and the other thing you see so many that are like it's so easy to be offensive in the way people state them um there's so many that are just offensive the way it's oh yeah it's often counterproductive yeah the way i used to describe it as like if you're like an institution and you're saying i acknowledge that i'm on the

stolen unseated territory of acts well you're basically saying i have like i have your candy bar and it's over here and you don't have it and so i just like to acknowledge that i took it and it's like well that's not very productive in terms of like are you going to give it back is this the plan are you going to donate the land back what's the what's your reason for saying that and i think that the kerry lynn victor who's a muralist um what we talked about was she tried to do um land acknowledgement with a school and they chose to make recognize the land and the animals and the life around it rather than focusing on which nation it's about like understanding the streams the rivers the mountains the the life the ecosystems that exist around you because if again if you understand

that you're more likely to protect it and take care of it and i think that for everyday people that's probably the best route is go learn about the stream go learn about the river down the road from you go learn about the mountains and how what trees exist around there. That's a better way to acknowledge the land than to just copy and paste. I'm on this territory from this area because then you don't really understand what that means. You're not going to go meet the governance system there. So go inform yourself about the ecosystems that exist around you and appreciate them. If there's an application to build a giant building, maybe put in your two cents and say,

hey, I really like this natural area. And I'd like to preserve that. That would be more valuable for the everyday person than just putting in something into their email signature that they don't understand what they're saying. Yeah. Yeah. We have a loud acknowledgement in my email thing you at work, too. Yeah. It's a tough balance because I know some people, like yourself, I'm sure you understand what you're saying and you know what the words you're using, but for so many, they don't.

And then it's not like, indigenous people care so deeply about the land and the environment that I think the best thing that we can export to, everyday Canadians is take that same passion, take that same interest, and have a deeper relationship with the community around you. You don't have to learn about what's going on across all of BC, but if you have a park down the road from you that's full of beautiful trees, we'll try and preserve that. And if there's an application to tear all that down for a house, maybe say, how about no? How about let's try and protect that? Because you think of the work you've done living in Burnaby and how far you have to travel to experience these areas. I'm sure it gets a little bit farther and it's a little bit more challenging and the roads get

a little more paved and the trail gets a little more used and then it's like well maybe I won't do this trail this time because it's so busy and I want to go out into the the wilderness and that distance that you have to travel it might be expanding it would do you have thoughts on that yeah it definitely like I definitely like that cover quite a wide area in the books because of that for my own interest like it's it covers a wider region than the under three hikes book does. And I also purposely include some of the stuff in the States because I feel like that, you know, the border

or just the border, it's not, you know, that stuff is closer than Wistler, a lot of it. So, yeah, just trying to get, kind of looking at it bioregially a bit, I guess. And then, but yeah, just, yeah, I can see going further afield and, and, yeah, I always look into new areas.

so interesting. Have you ever thought about starting your own podcast talking about like a hike and your thoughts or what you learned from doing a particular experience? Like I think of you did like a really long hike and you met people who like live at the top of this mountain in the middle of nowhere. Can you tell us more of it? Like those are like those were they had like a house and you had posted like they had this little place and you got to meet them and I thought that that was a kind of a wild experience. I don't know if they live there or it's a cabin that you're able to rent out or something like that. I can't remember that one.

But I have, what's been really neat is I've been on hikes where I've gotten to, gotten to cabins and been able to meet like, like the people who are responsible for, like, protecting an area. Like, once I was in on Sunshine Coast and I went to a hike to a park, provincial park hut and met like an environmentalist George Smith who was actually, one of the key leaders of the fight to like protect that buck like decades ago and just to hear those stories straight from the person who was who actually like literally they built that hot too i was in um it's amazing like yeah these uh experiences like being able to to meet people like that by

accident uh out there has been really something yeah that's fantastic i am so grateful that we were able to sit down today and hear about the work that you've done, the books that you've written, and your journey, because I think that there's so much to learn about the environment, about fungi, about fauna, about the ecosystems, the stars. I think that you are like a doorway for so many people to get interested in these things and to kind of get away from their laptops, get away from their cell phones, and start to reconnect with nature. And your commitment to that, I think it motivates other people. It can, it kind of starts as a catalyst. And people pick up your book and then they start going, why can I do a hike a week? Why can't I

get out there? Why can't I start going for walks more? Why can't I get away from my TV and start focusing on the things that matter? And hopefully that has a cascading effect because it sounds like that really long hike had, it gave you a chance to kind of soul search and figure out what you wanted to do. And I think that we need more of that. We need more people being mindful, reflecting and figuring out where they want to take their life. And are they happy in their life? Are they treating their loved ones well. And when you're out in nature, it's an opportunity to reestablish your relationship with the environment and with the world and where you want to be in your life. And I think that your passion for this, I think it's contagious. It makes other people

interested. It makes other people go, like, well, like, this person's doing these many hikes. Why can't I do one a year? Why aren't, why aren't I out there? Why aren't I learning about these things? And the amount that you can learn and grow from interacting with these things, I think it's insurmount. Like it's incomprehensible what you can gain from going out there. And I think you've shown that because it sounds like you're learning more and more all the time. And each book, you're learning something new and experiencing different hikes. So it's not like you're like, I've done all the hikes and now I know and I know everything. It's like even when you go during a different season, you learn different things about that environment and you have a different

relationship with it that time than you did the time before that. And I think that that's hopefully the life people can start living is just being more curious. being more open-minded and humble. And I think that when you're out in nature, you have more humility. You see the stars and you go, hi, I am super small in this. And you look at the bear and you go, holy, like this thing, it would take no effort for me just not to be alive anymore if this bear wanted to make it so. And so I think that nature is a good way for us to humble ourselves because I do think

that social media can be a place where we can start to get really egotistical and what are my likes at and what are my comments at and what are people responding with? Is it important to people? and how do I make the next one below up and we get lost in that and you start to forget about what really matters which is family, the environment, connecting and living that more wholesome life

and I think that that's the path that you're setting for people and all they have to do is pick up the book to learn more. Well, thanks a lot, Aaron, and I love what you're doing with this podcast. I've got a whole bunch of episodes bookmarked on Spotify that I want to listen to the whole thing of. So thanks for having me a wonderful conversation. Absolutely. Can you please tell people how to find you

on social media, where they can grab with your book, and all of that information. Yeah, as much as I hate social media, I'm on all of them. So I'm on, you know, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all the other ones. And you can find all that and info with the books at 105 hikes.com. Awesome. I am grateful, honored that you were able to take the time. I knew it was a long track out. And so it meant a lot to me that you were able to do this today. I really, really hope listeners go out, buy your book, pre-order your upcoming book. Can you just name all of your books and yeah so there's 105 hikes destination hikes and the new book is best hikes and nature walks with kids in and around southwestern british columbia and that's

coming out on may 17th 2022 that's this year and uh you can find that at hundred and five hikes dot com and it'll be in all the local bookstores in it awesome go support it he is doing so much amazing work and i am so grateful to have had you on thank you stephen thank you Thank you. Thank you.