Laurel Archer, Instructor

Laurel Archer, COLT Instructor,  has just returned from the Murray River Marathon – a 404 km race across Australia’s hinterland Dec. 27-31, 2009.  Check her website www.laurelarcher.com for updates on her recent adventures.

Laurel Archer was born in the suburban wilds of Regina, Saskatchewan, a mythical place, with mythical beasts, and very little water.  Her first canoeing expeditions took in the wind and waves of Crooked Lake in the Qu’Appelle Valley at the tender age of seven.  The mighty Wascana kept her paddling during high school, but it was during her university years that she finally committed to the path of adventure, heading north to the big water of the Churchill River.

Since then, she has paddled waterways from the Arctic to Honduras, Costa Rica, Belize, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Myanmar, Chile, Argentina, and Hawaii.  She has paddled every kind of watercraft known to woman, including marathon racing shells, 400 lb. outrigger hulls, whitewater canoes and kayaks of all shapes and sizes, sea kayaks, dugout canoes and bamboo rafts. In June 2007 she was inducted into the International Explorers Club , the 162nd member of the Canadian Chapter, for her work in documenting and conserving historic and little known rivers in northern Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Laurel currently lives in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. She writes as much as possible when not teaching for the Canadian Outdoor Leadership Training (COLT) program at Strathcona Park Lodge, guiding for various outdoor adventure companies, including Batstar, and canoe racing competively.

Always reading, even as a child and while paddling, Laurel wrote her first book at the age of 34, her 267 page Masters thesis.  Lately she’s been writing everything from poems to plays, and has a special talent for writing about her adventures (and misadventures) in the wilds.