Tabla de contenidos para Summer 2024 en Explore Magazine

@davidebwebb Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” —George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones Since childhood, Canadians have been hardwired to love summer. Fall, winter and spring were school times—early mornings, bus rides, sitting at our desks and so many rules. But July and August? That, especially during our youngest years, was our time. Barefoot on the beach. Wandering the woods. BMX bikes on the trails. Inner tubes on the water. Bliss. When summer starts, we are young again. For my family, it’s time to book weeklong camping trips to Vancouver Island—where, yes, I’ll be barefoot most of the time. (And I actually bought a BMX this year too.) It’s time to open the patio doors and leave them open until Labour Day. It’s time to spend…

What would you do if you found an injured eagle on the trail? It’s likely your pet’s veterinarian can’t and won’t accept the patient. “Nor should they,” says Dr. Sherri Cox, cofounder and medical director at the National Wildlife Centre (NWC). “Vets don’t get enough training in wildlife medicine and surgery. Nor do they have experience to work with wildlife,” Dr. Cox says. The NWC, a medical and rehab organization, aims to change that with their innovative Wildlife Veterinary Training Program. “We’re seeing more human-wildlife interactions than ever before,” says Dr. Cox. This is due to habitat fragmentation, urban sprawl, impacts of climate change and increasing societal interest in wildlife. Even if it’s unintentional, our impact is often harmful, creating a growing need for more vets with knowledge and experience…

GADD’S TRUTH May you live in interesting times,” is either an ancient Confucian quote or something Einstein said (according Tik Tok, any quote you can’t quite remember but want to use to sound smart is now attributable to Einstein). And from the Ukraine to the Middle East; from breathing forest fire smoke in May instead of late July—we’re living in undeniably, and chaotically, interesting times. It’s hard to read the news, or your social media feed, without feeling like you’re being bludgeoned with interesting but bad news. The algorithms of my own confirmation bias may have taken over my internet news feeds, but it’s lately well past the point of “interesting.” As I write this from my home in Canmore, Alberta, there’s a “Special Air Quality Advisory” in effect (in…

Follow the leader! Riders Lucas Cruz, Henry Fitzgerald and Elliot Jamieson find their collective flow through the ferns and berms on Mount Seymour in North Vancouver, British Columbia. The trails of North and West Vancouver have long been the epicentre of Canada’s freeride mountain bike scene—discover these and other trails on page 16 and 17 of this issue. DETAILS MODEL Nikon D7500 LENS 16-80 mm f/2.8-4.0 SHUTTER SPEED 1/500 APERTURE 2.971 ISO 3,200 FOCAL LENGTH 22 mm Located on the unceded territories of xʷməθkwəy ̓əm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl ̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.…

As I dipped my paddle to follow the lead kayak farther into the marsh, a movement caught my eye. I just got my head around fast enough to catch an eastern kingbird zoom by with a fish in its beak—being chased just as quickly by an osprey. It happened so fast, snapping a photo was out of the question. There was another question that popped into my head, though: was the osprey trying to steal the fish from the kingbird—or had the kingbird stolen it from the osprey, who was trying to get it back? Since Mak Soden, our Wye Marsh Wildlife Reserve guide and interpreter, didn’t see it happen, he certainly couldn’t answer the question. I’d seen an eagle fight an osprey for a fish during a previous paddling…

PROFILES Somewhere between the Florida coast and the Caribbean sea, Sanoa Dempfle-Olin opens up about being the first-ever Canadian surfer to qualify for the Olympics. On October 30, 2023, Dempfle-Olin earned her Olympic berth by taking home a silver medal in the women’s shortboard final at the Pan Am Games in Chile. She went on to double qualify for Paris 2024 by finishing 13th at the International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games this March in Puerto Rico. “It feels really good proving that my ability is meant to be on that level and that it wasn’t just a fluke,” Dempfle-Olin shares over a call after her three-hour training session in Floridian waters. At age 18, the Tofino, British Columbia, homegrown young gun bested the field of female surf pros…

Use the right tool for the job. The carpenter’s motto is just as appropriate for camping. A two-pound tent that sets up with trekking poles is the best choice when going as fast and light as possible—but at a drive-in campground it feels a bit like hand-sawing two-by-fours. In other words: the right gear for the situation makes everything a little easier, setting you up to have more fun. That’s where this Summer Camping Gear Guide comes in. The following pages highlight some of the coolest and newest camping gear for everything from ultra-lightweight backpacking to car and RV camping and everything in between. We begin on the gram-counting end and progress to the big, bold and brash—with notable sustainable and bike-packing gear mixed in. All that’s left to do…

Gone are the days of spontaneous road trips—not knowing how far you’ll drive each day or where you’ll stop. There are just too many people trying to do the same thing. Nowadays, you have to be more strategic in reserving campsites, more creative in choosing a unique destination and, of course, understand how to do it all on the cheap. Choose Your Own Adventure A good road trip is like a good story line. It’s got to have a purpose, whether it’s camping at national parks you haven’t been to yet, exploring some incredible off-the-beaten-path natural wonder or just taking selfies with a number of roadside iconic monuments like the Wawa Goose in northern Ontario or the World’s Largest Dinosaur in Drumheller, Alberta. Choose a destination, list some objectives to…

WILD SIDE My onboarding into the world of rock climbing was rough, to put it mildly. I grew up in Kamloops, British Columbia, where quality rock is scarce. So, following in the pioneering footsteps of some local Alpine Club of Canada members, we made the best of what we had. Along with a few other teenaged introverts, I made frequent trips to monkey around on obscure crags like “The Beehive,” a limestone bluff above the South Thompson River. It was sometimes terrifying—but the Great Outdoors was our first climbing gym. These days, when most newcomers to the sport first stuff their feet into a pair of sticky rubber shoes, it will be in an indoor climbing gym. There will likely be a hip-hop soundtrack accompanied by the steam whistle of…

YETI Rambler 1L French Press $145; yeti.ca Get a perfect pour and then a couple more with an incredibly tough French Press designed to make a balanced brew. After plunging, a GroundsControl Filter stops the brewing process to lock in flavour by separating the grounds from your brew and the double-wall vacuum insulation keeps your coffee hot pour-after-pour. YETI Roadie 32 Wheeled Cooler $475; yeti.ca Roll to tailgates, tournaments, and camping trips with this wine bottle compatible wheeled cooler. The Roadie 32 Wheeled Cooler is manoeuvrable, durable and small-vehicle trunk compatible and offers the same cold-holding power and durability you’d expect from a Tundra Cooler. Each Roadie Cooler is built with RockSolid Strength and armoured to the core to be virtually indestructible. Ortovox 150 Cool Logo T-Shirt $150; ortovox.com A…