My name is Charlotte Heller, the Watermark I'm going to be talking about today is Lake Vernon, which is a lake that my camp was on when I was a kid. From about ages 10 to 17 I went to this camp that's just outside of Huntsville Ontario. This was my first experience in a really immersive outdoors setting. This is where I learned to kayak and canoe, which is now one of my favorite hobbies to do, as well as my first experiences swimming out in a lake and doing canoe trips, which was an immersive outdoor experience I hadn't gotten previously.

This experience growing up as a kid and being at camp on this lake is where I really came to appreciate how lucky we are as Canadians to have access to such pristine waterbodies, and I think is what fueled my interest in pursuing environmental science within my undergraduate and masters programs, as well as dedicating my career to environmental science and protecting our environment.