Jillian A. Brown Photography

03/30/2026

12/03/2025

01/28/2024

While food sources are plentiful, grizzly bears will come together to somewhat peacefully share in the abundant bounty. Salmon spawning season is like nature’s dinner bell, that can last for weeks at a time, calling in bears otherwise recluse to join in. Older males mingling with the next generation to which they may battle for hierarchy later in life, while female bears and their yearlings feed down river. Mother’s keeping a watchful eye upon other bears and an ear to their cubs, still aware, but seemingly at ease. In amongst them, there is a calmness, until a newcomer emerges from the thick wilderness and every bear raises its head in a look of almost disbelief. All but the cubs seem fazed by the bear who has appeared in the distance and now makes his way across the mud flats towards the water’s edge, and soon mother bears are wrangling up their young and quickly disappearing down the beach as the reigning dominant male takes over the table.
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01/01/2024

Ending the Year and a day of adventuring by finding a hidden away spot, deep in the temperate rainforest valley. Where the trees glow with vibrant green mosses, the ground squishes playfully beneath our boots and rain from days prior still falls from the leaves above. Sounds of waterfalls come from every direction and a river swirls below our secret spot. A picnic lunch fills our hungry bellies but quickly cools our hands in the damp air, so of course we finish with a steaming hot chocolate filled to the brim with all the marshmallows heating our core and sweetening our tongues.
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12/30/2023

12/15/2023

One of the most gratifying moments of each day on any expedition, I think almost all adventurers will agree, is that daily hot drink. Whether you’ve just rolled out of your sleeping bag to a cold chill on the forty second day of rain, your eyes swollen with tiredness and your skin cracked from dampness, that first touch of morning coffee, with its grounds floating atop the murky water like the chunks of earth that have eroded from the flooded river, none of it matters as the warm liquid slips down your throat and glows heat from your core. Or at the end of a day, a long day, hiking up mountains that hide false summits and summer snow. Unexpected creeks that fill your boots with needles and brush so thick even the animals avoid, but you can not. That hot drink of hot chocolate, with its sugary goodness that sparks life back to your sore muscles and frustrated mind. Almost immediately shifts a sullen end of day face to an almost perky one with a hopeful smile that the following day may not be as gruelling as todays, but at least if it is, I have that day’s warm drink to look forward to.
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
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12/11/2023

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0uMLK4pfsx/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

09/27/2023

As I grew up catching the painted turtles in the marsh neighbouring our family cottage, I began to dream of the day I would be able to share these experiences with youngsters like I was when I first began to be curious of the creatures around. Even as a teen I would bring the different reptiles and amphibians to the kids next door for them to see and feel. Now with my nieces, nephew and stepdaughters I am privileged to have the ability to connect each with everything around them. Learning, appreciating and finding love for all things wild, not just fluffy and cuddly, but slithery and slimy. Becoming curious as I was of their names, of how they live, what they eat and finding courage to try holding and learning to respect how precious each is in their environment to which we are surrounded by.

“If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched. Share my wildlife with me. Because humans want to save things that they love.”
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09/26/2023

Crikey and I were just finishing up our morning hike when I heard the rustling and saw the leaves and small twigs falling from the large oak tree. There had been some word of a family of bears around the island but this was the first even sign of them. But this wasn’t just a sign, it was them! A beautiful sow and her two cubs. She sprawled out on a large lower branch while the two cubs clambered around much higher, with one, at the very tip of the highest point. I quickly ran back to the cottage, grabbed my cameras and made my way back to the tree. I watched them for a long while while Crikey dog sat by my side gazing on and when momma bear chuffed, Crikey leaped up and let a small bark before sitting back down to continue to observe. After that morning, it seemed these three became the talk of the island and you could easily track their movements through the endless facebook posts by residents. It became quite the entertainment for everyone as the bears kept a decent enough distance from cottages and only munched on the local flora and fauna, there was not much call for alarm, just simple awareness.

“Whenever we encounter wild animals in nature, we must only ever show kindness and compassion.”
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09/25/2023

I’m not sure why scuba diving has never been a big draw to me, and yet snorkelling, holding my breath and swimming along the submerged cliffs in the frigid glacier water of the local British Columbia lakes, to find the lost items from the summer tourists or being called upon by neighbours as a youngster at the family cottage, to dive and retrieve dropped keepsakes, has always been a love of mine, a fascination. When Ryan asked about us getting a new type of set up to allow us to swim freely and breathe below the surface, I hesitated and then replied, “uh yes!” (not sure why I even hesitated
Within a single backpack all we need to dive 30 feet. Skimming crawfish, coasting along the murky bottom of Lake of the Woods, while spooking Northern Pike that lounge in between the boulders. Our Nomad has opened up a whole new world of underwater adventure and exploration!

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

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