I just completed an expeditionary cruise in and along the Great Bear Rainforest of Canada in October, 2024 with Maple Leaf Adventures for the Calgary Herald, the story published and entitled: Zen and the Art of Bear Watching. I have been a staff and freelance journalist -- and a travel writer -- for more than 25 years for the top publications in Canada. I previously won a NATJA Media Silver ?Award for a culinary story on another Maple Leaf trip (wine and islands). Assignments over the years have ranged from on-the-ground reporting during a Canadian military mission to Donetsk, Ukraine to cruise ships, backcountry lodges, dive blues bars and much more. I won 17 writing and photography awards from various North American associations in the three year period prior to the pandemic, when I stopped accepting travel assignments.