GateWay
contest
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history
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eccentricity
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conservation
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conservation (2)
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defence
CONTEST
Bonding
moments
By Jessica Sims
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The Gierszewskis strike a classic family pose in Nahanni last year.
(Photo courtesy of the Gierszewski family) |
SOME PARENTS pack up the car and take the kids to Disneyland for memorable vacations. Not Sue and Paul Gierszewski. Starting in
1993, when their daughters Karen and Lynn were five and two, they’ve used trips to Canada’s national parks
as a way to see the whole country. Seventeen years later, the family, who live in Mississauga, Ont., has visited a total of 42
parks, from the northern canyons of Tuktut Nogait on the Northwest Territories/Nunavut border to the rolling expanse of
Grasslands in Saskatchewan.
The 2010 National Park Memories Contest
Do you have a favourite national park anecdote or memory to share? If so, post your story as a
comment. Canadian Geographic Travel editors will select their favourite story and send its author a prize pack from the magazine.
Share your national park stories and you could WIN!
Click here for complete rules and regulations.
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“Summer vacations were never about places with a lot of people,” says Sue. “Ours are wilderness,
back-to-nature-type experiences.” But they don’t always work out as planned.
In Wood Buffalo National Park in 1999, the Gierszewskis went for a swim in a clear
limestone lake to escape the deer flies and heat. The instant they entered the water,
they were charged by a swarm of black leeches, which stood out ominously against the lake’s white bottom. The family jumped
out of the water just in time to meet a pair of bison, which ambled up and started drinking from the lake less than 10 metres away.
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