VOLUNTEER WORK
–
Deckhand & Out-planting Assistant
GIANT KELP RESTORATION, VANCOUVER ISLAND
I volunteered with the The Kelp Rescue Initiative out-planting team on Vancouver Island, helping assemble and install RKEVs (Arrays to Recover Ecosystem Vegetation) designed to give young giant kelp a better chance of reaching maturity in areas where grazing pressure is high from species like urchin, snails, and kelp crab.
Kelp forests are some of the most important and overlooked ecosystems on the coast. They support biodiversity, help regulate carbon, improve water quality, and protect shorelines from erosion, but across much of the world, including parts of the West Coast, they’ve declined dramatically.
Being part of this work matters to me because it’s practical, collaborative, and rooted in restoration. It’s one thing to care about marine ecosystems in theory. It’s another to be out on the water, helping rebuild the conditions they need to recover.
The Kelp Rescue Initiative brings together science, innovation, and community to support kelp recovery in British Columbia, and I’m grateful to have been able to contribute in small, but a hands-on way.
Humpback Behavioural Data Collection
CATALOGUING NORTH PACIFIC WHALES
I volunteer with the Marine Education and Research Society by observing and photographing humpback whales along the coast of British Columbia and contributing behavioural and sighting data to support identification, cataloguing, and long-term research.
That can include documenting behaviour, group size, travel direction, feeding activity, and other observations that help build a clearer picture of how whales are using these waters over time.
This kind of community-supported data collection plays an important role in marine research. It helps deepen our understanding of humpback whales, from site fidelity and feeding strategies to movement patterns, calving, density, and the broader conditions shaping their lives along the coast.
I’m grateful to contribute to work that helps make these animals, and the ecosystems they depend on, more visible, better understood, and harder to ignore.
Donor Outreach for Annual Gala
CONNECTING ESOURCES, & CONSERVATION
I supported the Pacific Salmon Foundation’s annual Vancouver Gala by connecting staff with local businesses interested in contributing to the event’s fundraising auction.
That meant identifying potential partners, making introductions, and helping create a bridge between businesses and a tangible way to support salmon conservation efforts in British Columbia.
Work like this sits a little further from the water, but it’s no less essential. Conservation depends on strong relationships, community support, and the ability to translate care for ecosystems into the resources needed to protect them.
I value being part of that connective layer, helping link people, organizations, and opportunities in ways that support the long-term health of salmon and the systems that depend on them.
Hatchery Monitoring
LOCAL RECOVERY OF COHO & CHUM SALMON
I volunteered with the Bowen Island Fish & Wildlife Club supporting hatchery monitoring for the 2024 broods of coho and chum salmon.
The work is hands-on and detail-oriented: helping monitor egg, alevin, and fry health, track development and disease, and ensure the conditions needed for juvenile salmon to survive until they are released.
It’s small-scale work, but it connects directly to much larger systems. Salmon are foundational to coastal ecosystems and communities, and their survival depends on consistent, long-term care at every stage of their lifecycle.
I value being involved at this level, close to the work itself, contributing in a way that’s practical, local, and part of something much bigger over time.
ART FOR AN OIL-FREE COAST
CREATIVE ADVOCACY FOR A COAST AT RISK
I contributed original artwork to Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s Art for an Oil-Free Coast campaign, a large-scale creative advocacy initiative opposing the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the threat of oil tanker traffic along the coast of British Columbia.
Created in collaboration with my husband, 3D modeller Thomas Wood, our exhibition combined hand-rendered, pointillism illustrations with low-poly 3D printed forms inspired by species of the Great Bear Rainforest and coastal waters. We chose the low-poly style intentionally, as a way of representing how easily living, complex ecosystems can be flattened into abstraction, memory, and loss.
What I value about this kind of work is its ability to say something that data and policy often can’t. Art creates a different kind of attention. It can make ecological risk feel tangible, emotional, and impossible to ignore.
This project gave me a way to contribute to conservation through image, form, and story, and to be part of a broader cultural effort to protect the coast.