Nature and science videos from Parks Canada

Career highlights

Jennifer migrated from her Alberta prairie home to the west coast of Vancouver Island to complete a master’s degree on fish in the eelgrass meadows of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. The wild West Coast captured her heart and mind, and she’s called it home for 20 years.

Over her 14-year career with Parks Canada, her passion for the marine environment has always shone through. She has worked both above and below the ocean’s surface, “studying everything from kelp to abalone and rockfish to grey whales.” Jennifer occasionally ventures onto land to explore coastal streams and forests but is always drawn back into the ocean realm.

Career highlights

Diane was first recruited from Laval University where she was finishing her master’s degree in marine biology. She started as a junior player with Parks Canada in 1990, working at the Saguenay-St.-Lawrence Marine Park and sharing her passion for marine life as a park interpreter and diver. In 2008 she took up her current position working on the establishment of national marine conservation areas.

Throughout her years at Parks Canada, Diane has appreciated the diversity that her jobs have offered. The 2017 highlight was participating in research on narwhals at the proposed Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area in Nunavut. Marine biology is her passion, and she loves sharing it.

Career highlights

Emily loves getting the public involved in her own professional passion, ecological restoration. “I have a PhD in ecology and I used to think that the solution to most problems was to collect more data,” she says. “Now I see that people and relationships are central in the solution to every ecological issue.”

Emily’s PhD is from the University of British Columbia and she also has a certificate in dialogue and civic engagement from Simon Fraser University. A highlight of her job at Parks Canada is facilitating restoration workshops at national parks. “On day two of these workshops,” she says, “it really feels like we can save the world (or at least our treasured part of it).”

Career highlights

Carmen’s rookie season with Parks Canada was in 1997, when she worked as a “field donkey “ carrying bear feces (poop) up the Äʼ äy Chù Trail in Yukon’s Kluane National Park. “I loved Kluane so much I told the wardens I would be back the following summer,” she says. “But it took me 13 years to return.”

During those years of exploration, she sharpened her scientific skills and got a PhD in forest ecology from the University of British Columbia. Now back at Kluane, she oversees the park’s monitoring of Dall’s sheep, mountain goats, moose, bats and frogs. For fun, she loves to “ski and mountain bike down things” with Bert, the family dog.

Career highlights

Darroch is a true backcountry guy. A Parks Canada scientist since 2007, he is based in Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park, where “the backcountry skiing is amazing.” He has a PhD in wildlife science from Virginia Tech and specializes in birds. Every summer he does field work in Torngat Mountains National Park in northern Labrador. There, he works closely with Nunatsiavut Government (the regional Inuit government) to help develop science programs for the new Torngat Mountains Base Camp and Research Station.

Career highlights

As Parks Canada’s first full-time wildlife veterinarian, Todd is responsible for animal welfare and wildlife disease management in all our protected areas. He has not one but two doctorates—the first in veterinary medicine, the second in veterinary preventative medicine, epidemiology and public health.

Career highlights

Yuri has been in his current position with Parks Canada since 2007 and has loved every day of it. He has covered every accessible (and not so accessible) corner of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve—on foot as well as by boat, canoe, plane and truck.

He holds a PhD from the University of Queensland in Australia. Prior to starting with Parks Canada, he completed post-doctoral projects in three areas: the nesting ecology of marbled murrelets (Simon Fraser University, Canada); the ecology of subtropical estuaries (University of Queensland, Australia); and migratory shorebird habitat use (Canadian Wildlife Service and Simon Fraser University).

Career highlights

Becki is one of Parks Canada’s speciality players—an expert in “rescue archeology.” This involves doing careful but efficient archeological work on a site that may soon be lost because of a changing environment or land development.

She is especially interested in preserving the Fortress of Louisbourg from coastal erosion and other effects associated with climate change. With a BSc in palaeobiology and a MA in heritage management, Becki is well equipped to unearth the civilizations beneath our feet.

Career highlights

Early in her career, Chantal worked in different positions and parks: Forillon, Waterton Lakes, Banff, and Jasper. As nature interpreter at Jasper National Park, she was briefly memorable as Zigzag Dragonfly, a character from her presentation on freshwater ecosystems.

After a stint at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, she rejoined Parks Canada as the Northern Bioregion Ecological Integrity Monitoring Ecologist. In this position she was constantly “encountering amazing people and overpowering landscapes”—and learning from both. She now brings together multiple partners and perspectives in the work of monitoring, researching and presenting Wapusk National Park.

Career highlights

“I am one of the lucky few who call Torngat Mountains National Park their office,” says Gary. “We facilitate experiences through an Inuit cultural lens in one of the most beautiful places in this country.”

A member of the Inuit community, Gary joined Parks Canada in 2006 as Visitor Experience Coordinator for Torngat Mountains National Park. He has also worked as a transitional minister for the new Nunatsiavut Government, the regional Inuit government.

Career highlights

Candace graduated with honours from the Natural Environmental Technician – Conservation and Management course at Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology. She then worked for a forest soils scientist doing research on the use of wood ash as a forest soil amendment (a substance that improves the health of forest soils). This project was a collaboration between Natural Resources Canada and Pic Mobert First Nation. Candace co-authored a manuscript based on this research that will be published in 2018 in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research.

A member of the Pic Mobert First Nation, Candace began her career with Parks Canada in the summer of 2017 and is excited to be part of the team.

Career highlights

Daniel began his Parks Canada career at Forillon almost twenty years ago, and he’s still there. Beginning as a park warden, he developed his skills as a project leader in resource protection and eventually became an ecologist in 2007.

Since that time, he has coordinated the park’s programs in ecological monitoring, restoration and species at risk. His master’s degree is in moose biology, and lately he has found himself returning to this first love of his. Moose are making a comeback in the park, and managing the species will be a challenge in the coming years.