My name is Geoff Green.

There have been many water bodies that have influenced me. I’ve been on every ocean in the world, even water skied on every ocean in the world for some strange reason. But if I had to pick one that was the most influential it’s probably going back to my childhood and the Wilmot Creek which was basically my backyard.

We could run and explore and camp and get into trouble. But it was one of those childhood experiences that started connecting me to not just to water but to the natural world. My Watermark would be one day in the Arctic, and we were ready to go and then one of the students that was with me said there’s a whale and right there a bow head whale had surfaced and we walked over and quietly just listened to this whale breathing and at one point it took this deep breath that you can feel in your bones and it dove under the ice under our feet and disappeared and the students were all totally silent then one of the kids said that whale came for a reason to deliver us a reason to go home and make a difference with what we learned. And in fact they did, they wrote this incredible thing called message from a bow head from that encounter with the ocean and with that whale. And that later went on to be part of the reason why Isabella Bay was declared a national wildlife area to protect bow head whales in the Arctic Ocean. One of the things I love the most about working with youth on these issues is that they just get it and that gives me a lot of cause for hope. As Canadians, we are so blessed and so fortunate and I think as a result it gives us a responsibility to be leaders and make a difference. Just pragmatically speaking, our connection with the nature world will make us happier, more successful, and more sustainable.