Photo by Gillian Stead

I have a restless spirit, but am hefted to my home. I seem unable to leave it, much as hefted sheep don’t stray even when they are left to graze in a landscape without borders.

The Niagara Escarpment’s hills and valleys, its cliffs, streams, bank barns, brick and stone farmhouses, meadows, rocky soil and limestone course my blood. Someday I may leave the place where I was born and raised, but not yet. There’s still work to do. Things to discover. Places to explore.

I never intended to become a writer, but a dozen books, including my Loops & Lattes hiking guides and hundreds of magazine articles later, I can no longer deny it. I’m not an imposter. I am a writer. And there is power in my pen. Power that I’ve been slow to recognize. Power to help protect the landscape that embraces me. Power to give back, to raise awareness, to encourage, to recognize and to celebrate.

CJ, my instructor, tells me that sketching draws on the more creative left side of my brain. The one I use less seldom in so much of the work I do. Maybe that’s why, I’m tired after my two-hour weekly sketching class – and why it so engrosses me.

Adding sketches to my two latest books (An Illustrated Field Guide to Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail and 40 Days & 40 Hikes: Loving the Bruce Trail One Loop at a Time), has opened up a new and creative world for me. It’s so much fun bringing my words alive by adding whimsical drawings. And we all need a good laugh these days!

My friend Linda writes, “Nicola’s Illustrated Field Journal for the ECT is the non-fiction equivalent of a graphic novel. The format works really well for hiking trails. Congrats!”

I hope you enjoy this new phase in my creative process where I combine hiking, writing and drawing.