While on a recent trip to British Columbia, I met an amazing family, who have taken a year off of work and school so their son can live out his dream of taking a year long fossil fuel free journey to count
birds.
Recently, I was out in Vancouver,
BC for an Environmental Paper Network
steering committee meeting. We discussed
the state of the paper industry, the lack of a good recovered fiber
infrastructure, and connecting the climate change debate to forest protection.
Speaking of climate change, after the meeting, my buddy
Joshua Martin (who’s wife and former Dogwood Alliance employee, Kelly Sheehan
just had a beautiful baby girl, Cora Louise Martin) and I took a short vacation
that included a pilgrimage to Vancouver Island to visit Clayoquot Sound, the home of the first
forest-based markets campaign against PacBell and a visit with some friends in
Squamish, BC, adjacent to Whistler, BC, the home of the next Winter Olympics. While there we met an amazing family, the
Boothroyds, who have taken a year off of work and school so their son, Malkolm,
can live out his dream of taking a year long fossil fuel free journey to count
birds.
Excerpt from their travel website:
When Malkolm
Boothroyd finishes grade 10 in June 2007, he won’t be going on a summer
vacation. He’ll cycle south with his parents Wendy and Ken on a
“Bird Year,” a twelve month quest to count birds. Don’t feel sorry for him . .
. it was his idea. Our Bird Year is similar to a “Big Year,” a
quixotic birding obsession.
Our fossil-fuel-free 10,000 mile route winds along the Alaska Highway, down
the west coast to California, and east across
the southern US to Florida.
Check our REGIONAL
SCHEDULES and let us know if you have suggestions, or want to join us on
the road for birding and bicycling or have us stop in your community for a
slide presentation — we'll have many stories and photographs from our trip as
well as photo and video presentations from our journeys in the Arctic Refuge.
If you'd like to keep track of the birds we identify, have a look at our bird list
To follow, their adventures, visit: http://www.birdyear.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the great inspiration Malkolm, and please let us
know when you’ll be in our neck of the woods!
