Parks Canada and Indigenous partners are working to reduce wildfire risks at the Cultural Use Area in Jasper National Park. Work will continue within four hectares (10 acres) around the Sixth Bridge turnoff to Maligne Canyon through March, as long as the ground remains frozen.

As monarch butterflies begin their annual spring migration from Mexico to southern Canada, they face what’s called “landscape fragmentation.” This species-at-risk needs specific habitat for food and shelter but the landscape is being lost or broken up by things like urban development, roads and industrial agriculture.

For four enchanting hours, we are alone on Cape Breton’s most iconic trail, snowshoeing through silent forests, passing through a barren area protected from browsing moose, rejoicing when a final stretch of boardwalk ends on an oceanside cliff with jaw-dropping views of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the snake-like Cabot Trail highway.

Fetching as she is, the reconstructed French fortress is not the draw on this blustery day as a fierce winter storm approaches Cape Breton. It’s a 40-minute interpretive walk that quietly beckons because it speaks to how coastal erosion is impacting the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, its rocky shoreline and one of its centuries-old mass grave.