Evan Roberts

Evan Roberts works in Churchill as the Visitor Safety Officer. His role with Parks Canada is an important one, as the research work of our teams and partners happens in some of the most isolated Parks-administered places in Canada. Accompanying these teams and assessing the numerous wildlife and environmental hazards is a full-time job, and it's a job Evan is proud to do every day.

This is Evan's breathtaking story of his experience in Wapusk National Park:

"Years before I worked at Parks Canada, I worked at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, assisting with freight hauls into the park. It was the spring season, and we were driving our snow machines north of Broad River. Up ahead of us looked to be a 10-to-11-kilometre-wide cluster of trees on the horizon. As we got closer, we realized we were about to drive through a herd of moving caribou.

“Now we're driving through them on the trail, and my mind is racing.

“'How do I count them all? How do I get a video of this AND stay on my machine AND get through this trail?' A feeling of danger might have been present, but in the moment it really wasn't on my mind.

“We stopped at our fuel cache location and all the emotions came pouring out. I'm not sure I have the word for it. Awe-struck? Jubilation? Mostly it was, 'How lucky am I to get paid to do this as a job?'

“If someone told me I'd go from being a seasonal employee to having a permanent position at Parks Canada four years later, I really wouldn't have believed them."