Heather

I’m a Canadian science writer who specializes in archaeology.  My work as a writer has often taken me to out of the way places and led to memorable encounters with both the living and the dead–subjects I like to write about in books and magazine articles. I’ve freelanced for National Geographic and many other Canadian, American, and British magazines. I’ve written four books, and my fifth is due out in August, 2024.

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, where my dad was a professional hockey player and my entire family was nuts about hockey. Sadly,  I failed to inherit the hockey gene, and must now be the only Canadian on the planet who is ambivalent about the game.

I majored in history for an undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta, and did a master’s degree in English literature at the University of British Columbia. After that, I worked for a time as a museum researcher and book editor.

I began freelance writing when I moved to British Columbia and since then I’ve traveled extensively to cover stories–from the Sahara to Baffin Island and from the Atacama to Tonga. The best flight I ever took was in the backseat of an F-18 fighter jet, where I flew upside down 200 feet over the boreal forest in northern Alberta.

Today I live a few blocks from the ocean in Victoria, and I love nothing better than exploring the region’s trails and neighborhoods with my husband Geoff and our Labrador retriever, Gillie.