I took my first breath on a crisp fall day in a centuries old fishing village in The Netherlands. The sixth child of what would later be a family of seven, there was never a dull moment! We lived outside the village in the polder, just inside the dike holding back the sea. It was a charming place to live. For various reasons, including more space and greater opportunity, my parents made the decision to move their family to Canada after I had completed kindergarten.
We settled in the Niagara Region of Ontario where my appreciation for everything to do with the outdoors continued to develop. As a young child, I often took to drawing as my go-to activity. As a teenager, one of my older sisters introduced me to camping at Kilarney Provincial Park and i was hooked on the peace and beauty i found there. Since then there have been countless more weeks spent camping and cottaging in the regions of Muskoka, Georgian Bay, and the Kawarthas, among others.