My Love Affair with National Parks began in 1981. I met Steve that year while we were studying at UVic. His summer job was in Banff as a National Park Warden. He said, “Come riding horses in the mountains with me”, and after a summer of work on the Prince Rupert Ferry I met him in Kelowna and we drove to the mountains. 

There was two weeks of perfect sunny weather, riding a big sorrel mountain horse. I blistered on my knees and heals. I lay in meadows of flowers, swam in glacier lakes and creeks and sat on the tops of mountains. We sipped tea and whiskey and nibbled chocolate sitting under a Pine Tree watching a summer squall go by. It was magic and I fell in love. 

For the next 20 years we spent time in the National Parks of the west. Banff, Jasper, Elk Island, Pacific Rim, Haida Gwaii, Waterton, Glacier, and Revelstoke, we hiked, skied, canoed, camped and shared the love with our children. The parks were our refuge, places that nourished our soul and our life. So this week in honour of National Parks and my relationship with them I have Fleece Artist Organic Cottage Sock Yarn available. Hand-dyed in colours representing National Parks across Canada they are perfect for the socks that one needs to hike in, sit by a campfire, put on to keep warm in a cold sleeping bag, or to just enjoy. 

The National Park System was created to preserve, honour and educate. They are here so that we can maintain a healthy connection to the earth and remember our humanness. They honour a time when humans walked the earth lightly and where the sounds of nature from an elk bugle to a whisky jack call, to the buzz of bees among the wild strawberries affirm our infinite connections. 

So it is my hope that as you knit a pair of socks, a hat or something more with this Fleece Artist yarn that you connect into those moments when you have spent time in a National Park and feel the nourishment. 

Here’s to infinite connections