THE THING THAT DRIVES ME...
EXPLORING
Because I’ve always known, and I feel continually drawn to, exploring and discovery and communicating what I’ve learned to anyone interested. Some people are satisfied to experience the same thing over and over. I’m not. I’m always wanting to push the boundaries and go further.
Here are a few ways I've done that.
EXPEDITIONS
The remote west coast of BC's Great Bear Rainforest consists of hundreds of islands, from rock slabs jutting a hundred feet out of the sea, to massive islands with inlets, watersheds, salmon, wolf and bear populations, wetlands, rainforest and more diversity.
In winter, Pacific storms wash logs and marine debris onto beaches, most in the southeast-exposed ones.
I came up with the idea during the pandemic for my colleagues and I to use our expedition ships, coastal maritime knowledge, and planning expertise to create, plan, fund, carry-out and study what I think is the largest, remotest marine debris removal expedition on this coast. We conducted baseline research for Environment Canada, and shared our knowledge in reports and general public communications (like newspapers and magazines).
This expedition is something I am hugely proud of: for creating something never before done; collaborating with skilled experts to head out into the unknown and figure out how to do it; and for creating such amazing results / benefits for the coast that we did multiple expeditions and won a BC Premiers award for it.
Photo: Jeffrey Reynolds
NW Vancouver Island Exploration
In my mid-twenties, BC Parks gave me a fantastic assignment: get in a small boat, head out to Brooks Peninsula, Kyuquot Sound, Checleset Bay, Rugged Point and the Bunsby Islands (where the province had just created protected areas) and, over the summer, record / photograph what is there.
It was dangerous (part of my report included the need for a larger, welded aluminum, seaworthy boat with sleeping accommodations for 2 rangers), but it was also incredible. I still maintain friendships with people I met in Kyuquot. I love this place so much that decades later I even created a trip that explores it in my ecotourism company.
Photo: Kevin J. Smith
