Illustrious Explorers Club honours CPAWS board member

ROLLA, BC – The illustrious Explorers Club has adopted a new Fellow, a long-time board member and supporter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). Wayne Sawchuk, conservationist, guide, author and photographer, joins such luminaries as Sir Edmond Hillary and Tensinz Norquay, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, Robert Peary, Roald Amundsen and Thor Heyerdahl, great explorers whose names live in history.

Sawchuk, who lives on a farm near Rolla, BC, with his partner, poet Donna Kane, a border collie and a herd of horses, is a lifelong resident of northern British Columbia. He has worked as a logger, sawmill worker, wilderness guide, trapper, and conservationist. His photographs have been widely published and collected, and he is the author of  Muskwa-Kechika, The Wild Heart of Canada’s Northern Rockies.

The Explorers Club was founded in New York City in 1904, to promote the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the natural sciences. The Club’s members are responsible for a series of famous firsts: First to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, first to the surface of the moon.

For decades, Sawchuk has explored the wilderness of Canada’s Northern Rockies, leading parties of scientists and artists by horseback into remote areas on research and art expeditions.  Governor General Award winning author, John Vaillant contributed a feature article about Wayne and his work in the M-K to the November 2008 issue of National Geographic. Wayne is the recipient of two awards for his environmental and conservation work, the federal Canadian Environment Award of 2008 and the Province of British Columbia Minister’s Environmental Achievement Award, in 1998.

Sawchuk continues to lead expeditions in the summer and travels widely speaking about his conservation work.