The Tyee
Serving the cranberry crowd. How bartending in a small northern town convinced me to move there.
I started each shift by vacuuming the grey carpet, which had withstood years of spilled beer, crushed potato chips and creek mud....Continue reading
Globe and Mail
Seeking greener pastures: the pandemic is spurring a millennial back-to-the-land movement
2020 was the year we obsessively refreshed rental and real estate listings as cottage-country prices soared, wondering if we could afford a piece of sanctuary. Something in our collective consciousness has flipped and we’re headed for the hills ...Continue reading
Cottage Life
Is the raven the most Canadian animal? (award-winning)
Ravens have lived in the North for millennia. That’s far longer than our paltry 150-odd years of nationhood. They were there to welcome the first humans across the Bering Land Bridge 15,000 years ago, and we’ve been interacting with them ever since...Continue reading
Cottage Life
Is the raven the most Canadian animal? (award-winning)
Ravens have lived in the North for millennia. That’s far longer than our paltry 150-odd years of nationhood. They were there to welcome the first humans across the Bering Land Bridge 15,000 years ago, and we’ve been interacting with them ever since...Continue reading
Cottage Life
How to make your three-season plumbing work all winter (award-winning)
Our 800 sq. ft. log-and-frame cabin two hours outside of Whitehorse was never designed to be lived in from November to March. In our first winter, plummeting temperatures and frozen pipes regularly set us scrambling for every space heater, hair dryer, and heating blanket we could get our hands on. On -30°C mornings, I opened the kitchen faucet with trepidation. Would there be water? Showers? Coffee? The rest of the day hung in the balance....Continue reading
Cottage Life
5 tips for moving to a small town
Three years ago, I moved to a small town of 300 people near the Yukon-BC border. Since then, I’ve de facto become a rural real estate agent and lifestyle counsellor to my extended network of friends, many of whom are now contemplating ditching their city digs in favour of full-time cottage living. Here’s the advice I give them...Continue reading
BoatUS
American marine sanctuaries welcome you (award-winning)
Some 110 miles offshore of Galveston, Texas, in the deep subtropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico, lies a secret garden. Formed by underwater mountains, known as salt domes, rising some 450 feet from the sea floor, East and West Flower Garden Banks support a chromatic symphony of corals, sea plants, and marine life....Continue reading
BoatUS Magazine
American marine sanctuaries welcome you (award-winning)
Some 110 miles offshore of Galveston, Texas, in the deep subtropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico, lies a secret garden. Formed by underwater mountains, known as salt domes, rising some 450 feet from the sea floor, East and West Flower Garden Banks support a chromatic symphony of corals, sea plants, and marine life....Continue reading
BoatUS Magazine
Following the Whales (award-winning)
At the completion of her 1,500-mile journey, a humpback whale waits patiently for the arrival of her calf in the warm, shallow water breeding grounds of the Caribbean. Of course, "wait" is likely a misnomer, as her sense of time and space is a world apart from our own. ...Continue reading
Yukon North of Ordinary
Cabin fever
Off-grid column. In the short, dark days of February, my husband Robin and I restlessly pace the yard, trudging an endless circuit between the shed and the insatiable wood stove that heats our 800 square-foot log home. The monotony is interrupted when I notice our husky has gone through the trash, eliciting a dinner-time debate over dog parenting...Continue reading
Crusing World
Sailor Profile: Bob Shepton
Bob Shepton skied in the darkness, down a Greenland fjord that he’d sailed up only a month before. It was January 2005, and he was overwintering his Westerly 33, Dodo’s Delight, just outside Upernavik, a settlement so far north that there was only a blush of dusk at local noon. “Must fill the diesel heater,” he thought to himself when he reached his icebound boat. He walked along the deck, removed the plug, and began to pour. Almost instantly, red flames leapt from below. Something had gone terribly wrong....Continue reading
BoatUS
Electric Dreams (award winning)
When Gregory Grande plans to go boating on a Saturday, he plugs in his 1970s-era powerboat the night before. The next morning, he and his partner, Sue, launch at Bigelow Hollow, a state park in Union, Connecticut. Grande starts the motor. The only sound: the clicking of the key in the ignition...Continue reading
Good Old Boat
A Stand-Up Draftsman (award winning)
Ted and Betty Brewer’s living room is warm and inviting. Two harpoons hang on teak-colored walls, and a model boxcar sits on the shelf alongside other artifacts marking a life well-lived. A picture window overlooks a baseball diamond across a quiet street in Agassiz, British Columbia....Continue reading
Cruising World
Young & Restless: Cruising Millennial Style
Not so very long ago, in a South Pacific anchorage, I watched a neighboring boat of three young cruisers going about their daily routine. Their 28-foot classic-plastic yacht looked as though it had been in a head-on collision with the watersports department at REI. Dive gear hung off every available inch of lifeline...Continue reading
BoatUS
What Women Want in Boating (award winning)
We'd accepted an invitation for sundowners on a couple's boat when, amidst chips, dips, and pleasantries, I found myself caught in the dreaded man-talk triangle. Our host was describing a recent engine problem. I asked a question about it, but he launched into an explanation ...Continue reading
Canadian Geographic
Chasing butterflies
In 1976, my husband’s grandparents solved one of the world’s great natural mysteries: the monarch butterfly migration. Four decades later, we retraced their journey.
We stood transfixed on a mountainside near the Michoacán-Mexico state border, gazing up at thousands and thousands of monarch butterflies....Continue reading
Sailing World
The Lone and Lonely American
The Golden Globe Race is stuff of dreams, and nightmares for those who risk all.
It’s bedlam on the docks at the Golden Globe Race Village in Les Sables d’Olonne, France. Storm sails and immersion suits lay strewn along the docks, couriers run up and down the gangway...Continue reading
BOATUS
Why aren't millennials buying boats? (award winning)
"So, where are all the boaters your age?" asked a 60-something-year-old, at a patio bar on Gabriola Island in British Columbia. "When I was your age, we all had boats and had great big raft-ups out on the water."... Continue reading
Pacific Yachting
Cape effect (award winning)
Tracing your fingers north to south along the undulating US west coast, you’ll notice several defiant projections, punctuating the surrounding coastline as it slopes south east and falls away to the Pacific Ocean. Cape Blanco, Cape Mendocino, Point Reyes, Point Arguello, Point Conception: the names of these giant capes have been long etched into mariner lore...Continue reading
Cruising World
Ruggedize your electronics
After a couple of months cruising in the Caribbean, I watched no fewer than three laptops bite the dust. The experience served as a prescient reminder that personal electronics are not designed for the rigors of sailing life. Laptops, tablets and smartphones take a beating in the marine environment... Continue reading
SAIL
5 tenets of a 2 captain sailboat
There is an unequivocal principle in maritime hierarchy—a ship can have only one captain. On our boat, there are two. As young cruisers, 33 and 28, sailing from Vancouver to Cabo aboard MonArk, our 1979 Dufour 35, we have learned not only how to cross bars, manage Santa Ana winds and dodge tankers, but also how to navigate our relationship....Continue reading