It’s not a stretch to say that my love affair with the natural world began at birth.
At the time, my parents were living in Onanole, Manitoba, a small hamlet only a few miles south of Riding Mountain National Park. Mom’s parents lived just outside the Park’s south gate. Grandpa was the foreman of the golf course crew and Dad was one of his grounds-keeping crew.
Mom spent a lot of time with Grandma while the two men were at work.
One day while I was still a baby, Mom laid me down on a blanket underneath a few aspen trees that grew near the backdoor. She then turned to her knitting expecting me to fall asleep lolled by the rustle of the leaves in a mid-summer breeze. Instead, I became completely entranced by the magic happening above me. With each gentle puff, the silvery-green leaves would shimmer brightly against a background of intense blue. I’m sure that this is when the hunger to know these trees and the forest beyond took root.