"In the beginning, it was the root, the tree, the bark that taught my ancestors,” says Todd Labrador as he splits a long spruce root into sinewy twine used to stitch birchbark onto a canoe frame. Each summer, Labrador builds a birchbark canoe at a shelter in Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site in Nova Scotia. This particular canoe was nearing completion in August 2019 when I signed up for a one-day workshop with Labrador, keen to say I had a hand in building this traditional and oh so Canadian craft. “We don’t have the elders to teach a lot of these things anymore, but the material will teach you how, if you listen to it.”

A party boat in the form of a double-decker, Mississippi-style sternwheeler isn’t what comes to mind when I think of transport to Georges Island in Halifax Harbour. But it is indeed a reservation aboard the Harbour Queen that gets me there. And yet, maybe it’s the perfect conveyance to help celebrate the opening of the island to the public after a 55 year wait. While Georges was declared a National Historic Site in 1965, it wasn’t until 2020 when Parks Canada installed a new wharf on the north shore that it became accessible.

The title of Marlis Butcher's new book is intriguing — Park Bagger: Adventures in the Canadian National Parks. We've asked the Burlington, Ontario-based author where the term comes from and what led her to visit all of Canada's national parks and then transform her travel journals and photography into a book.

Boating lazily down the Rideau Canal National Historic Site first on a hot summer journey and then on a cool and rainy fall one, I wonder how I lived this long in Ontario oblivious to the magic of this waterway. We glide into one lock after another, watching as Parks Canada staff use hand-powered winches to operate the gates and sluice valves, raising or lowering us from one water level to another as the watertight chambers either fill or empty.