I’ve always been attracted to water. When we moved to Toronto in the Beaches, the lake was just there! It’s where I hung out, played, swam – I’m a big swimmer – it was just really a piece of my neighbourhood.

I really love Lake Huron. I don’t have a cottage, but whenever I’ve been there, it’s just been so marvellous; obviously Georgian Bay is a piece of that, it’s so fantastic. Lake Ontario is sort of “home base”. And Lake Superior because it’s grand.

My degree is in environmental science and toxicology. In a way, that’s what got me into Great Lakes work – the toxics aspect. When I was little and in my first year of university, I wanted to be a marine biologist: I wanted to be Jacques Costeau the second. Water was always a piece of my academic and personal interest.

The Great Lakes are so aptly named. When you think about that whole ecosystem – how so many people are dependent on it, how so much wildlife depends on it, the geology and the ancient glacial manifestation which created the lakes, and how they were compressed and sprang up – it’s really a wonder of the world. There’s a natural history part of it and then there’s the utilitarian part of it, and altogether, we wouldn’t be here without them.