• Best of environment: Space invasion: Is it too late to save the Great Lakes?
• Best of places: Remote paradise: The wonder of B.C.’s Triangle Island
• Best of exploration: Last icy stand
• A Great Canadian Trails adventure to the Canadian Badlands and Rocky Mountains

Hundreds of waterfowl washed ashore. Decaying feathered lumps dotted the beaches and rocky shores of the Great Lakes. Geese, gulls and loons had drowned in their native waters, their paralyzed necks unable to lift their heads above the waves.

The first documented die-offs from avian botulism in Ontario’s Great Lakes were in Lake Michigan in 1963-64, just a few years after the St. Lawrence Seaway transformed the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River into a 3,700-kilometre inland commercial shipping route for international vessels, the longest such system in the world and a major artery of North American trade.

But since 1999, the carcasses of drowned birds have piled up in the tens of thousands. On Lake Erie, the devastating die-offs have become a near yearly event.

Off the northwest tip of Vancouver Island, an isolated speck of “inhospitable” land is home and sanctuary to millions of seabirds

As he approached the fog-shrouded cliffside, photographer Ryan Tidman began to notice specks of black breaking through the low-hanging cloud. Drawing closer, he realized he was seeing a natural wonder — thousands upon thousands of common murres circling the island as they prepared to nest. Though a mere dot in the ocean 45 kilometres off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, Triangle Island is home to more than two million birds. It’s in what’s officially called Anne Vallée (Triangle Island) Ecological Reserve, after a researcher who died there in 1982.

Tidman, who says he has “loved all things in nature” since he was a kid, studied environmental sciences at the University of Guelph and visual communications at the Royal Ontario Museum. Now a photographer documenting Canada’s most iconic animals and landscapes, he has been captivated by Triangle Island since first spotting it in the distance while sailing past on an expedition to the Great Bear Rainforest. “It’s Game of Thrones-esque,” he explains, “truly a surreal place.”

On May 15, 2021, under a clear and windless sky, Alison Criscitiello and I skied out onto Mount Logan’s glaciated summit plateau. From the Yukon mountain’s base, it had taken us and two friends — Rebecca Haspel, a geologist from Calgary with a serious talent for self-propelled adventure, and Toby Harper-Merrett, a Montreal-based climber and vice-president of the Alpine Club of Canada — nine days to reach this 20-kilometre-long expanse of snow and ice. At 5,000 metres, we were finally on the so-called “Roof of Canada.” From the edge of the massif’s high tabletop, Mount Logan’s various subpeaks rose before us, adding depth and shadow to the dazzling white-and-blue expanse. To the north, a sea of mountains and ice stretched out before us as far as the eye could see. The view was as breathtaking as the rarefied air.

Canada, your experience in Alberta includes significant historic sites like dinosaur fossil beds and buffalo jumps. As we leave the multi-hued canyons and wind-sculpted hoodoos of the Canadian Badlands, we go along the foothills of the mountains into Waterton Lakes. While the landscapes are spectacular, remember to also keep your eyes open for the abundant wildlife including bighorn sheep, grizzly bears and bison recently reintroduced in Alberta as a conservation project. From here we keep the mountain backdrop for scenic drives to some of the world’s best hiking trails in Banff & Yoho National Parks. We take a big dose of fresh air wandering endless forests, admiring the panoramic mountain views, the turquoise colour of the glacier-fed lakes, and rainbows at the waterfalls.

Meet your ambassador

Check out these other upcoming trips:

- Alberta Birds and Dinosaurs with Nancy Web
- Haida Gwaii with David Gray
- High Arctic Explorer with Joseph Frey