By: Marie du Plessis, Executive Assistant

Laura Paskevics is the 2015 recipient of Nature Canada’s Charles Labatiuk Scholarship Award. An avid outdoor enthusiast with extensive experience independently exploring wild lands throughout Ontario and western Canada, she is a recent graduate of York University and holds a Bachelors Degree in Geography.

Laura hard at work in Killarney Provincial Park

She is keen on relocating from Etobicoke to Sault Ste. Marie to pursue forest conservation and sustainable resource management related studies at Sault College in September.

Laura is enrolled in Sault College’s Forest Conservation Technician program and will be pursuing future studies in Fish and Wildlife and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). She is looking forward to combining her current theoretical knowledge in the fields of human and physical geography with extended field studies in Algoma district’s interior. She is particularly excited to pursue applied research projects that combine computer mapping, methods of environmental data collection and digital aerial photography. Ultimately, she hopes to work in the Ontario Parks system.

Laura is currently living and working in Killarney Provincial Park where she has the remarkable opportunity of exploring the park’s extensive cultural heritage, scenic landscape of the La Cloche Range and over 50 inland lakes.

Working at Killarney Park has provided her with the unique opportunity of not only being immersed in the richly diverse and thriving wilderness, but also develop and experience backcountry work.  We congratulate Laura Paskevics for her commitment to nature studies and wish her well in her academic endeavours.

[four_fifth][separator headline=”h2″ title=”About the award”]
The Charles Scholarship Award was established through the legacy gift of the late Charles Labatiuk through the Charles Labatiuk Nature Endowment Fund. Charles Labatiuk was an avid nature conservationist, mountaineer and world traveler who enjoyed and excelled as a photographer, writer, and gardener. The scholarship award was introduced to honour his life and his passion for nature.[/four_fifth][one_fifth_last][/one_fifth_last]