I’m from all over. Grew up in Toronto, moved to Sydney, Australia when I was 15 for four years, came back to Ottawa, moved back to Toronto and then came out to Alberta. Numerous tree planting trips around Canada in the summers in between. Just a vagabond.

So, yes, I’m somewhat from Toronto. Please don’t hold it against me, Alberta. I’m a decent person and I know that Toronto is not the centre of the universe.

I went to Ryerson University in Toronto for a journalism bachelor’s degree and Carleton University in Ottawa for a political science bachelor’s degree. It took way to long to finish both, but, sure, I learned a lot in the process. As Kurt Vonnegut once said, “We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”

I’ve found my profession, though. It’s journalism for life. I love the idea of giving back to a community, of engaging people in meaningful conversation about their home. Good journalism essentially creates the conditions so that a community can talk to itself in a full and meaningful way. In an ideal world, we, journalists, provide the grease, and you, readers, Jasperites, turn the wheels.

For the past year-and-a-half, I’d been working as a reporter in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta as the cops and county reporter.

Awesome job. I’m convinced you can find good, quality journalism no matter where you go and in Rocky, I did plenty. Living in a town that is the sexual assault, theft under $5,000, drunk driving and mischief causing damage under $5,000 leader for all of Alberta makes for some pretty interesting times.

Having to watch and report on the former reporter get busted for running a drug house in town made for even more interesting times.

However, I’m pretty glad to be away from Rocky, to be honest. I met some great people there, but having to drive six hours to go snowboarding at Marmot Basin and Lake Louise is really a pain. Rocky is isolated from the good life in the mountains.

The surrounding area does have its charms, though. Hiking and ice climbing in a place as isolated, quiet and serene as the David Thompson corridor is amazing and I fully recommend it, but going home to Rocky sometimes sucked. I’m not a hunter and I don’t own a quad.

 I’m not the kind of person who is going to do these things, although part of me does think it’s kind of awesome. It’s just a matter of different interests. Lots of people in Rocky want to do this and while it doesn’t make them bad people at all, it’s just not what I want to do.

So, here I am in Jasper, one of the premier locations in the world for doing stuff that I do want to do: snowboarding, mountain biking, hiking, exploring, climbing mountains, all of that stuff. I get to do it all while working a job that I absolutely love. That’s pretty amazing.