Joanie & Gary McGuffin

Lisa Tucker 4 July 2023 1370 126 4

Joanie & Gary McGuffin Lisa Tucker

Joanie & Gary McGuffin are internationally acclaimed explorers, conservationists, photographers, authors, and documentary filmmakers.

Joanie is an explorer, public speaker, educator and one of the founders of the Lake Superior Watershed Conservancy. She is the author of 8 books with her husband Gary. Their first photographic book, Superior: Journeys on an Inland Sea, chronicled their 3-month 1989 circumnavigation of Lake Superior by canoe.

“Lake Superior is the greatest freshwater lake on Earth. Its wolf’s head-shape can be recognized from outer space at the heart of Turtle Island (North America). The Conservancy’s mission was set up to embody the whole watershed – not just a piece of it because water knows only nature’s boundaries. If we can get individuals, communities, businesses, and industries to understand and work together for freshwater protection on Lake Superior, it is hope for the whole planet.”

Gary is a conservation photographer and wilderness explorer, Gary knows the northern Ontario and Great Lakes landscape intimately. He has spent more than 30 years with his wife Joanie travelling in all seasons and sharing their stories through digital media, newsprint, magazines, television, and radio advocating for careful stewardship of our land and waters.

For 15 years, Gary has been championing the watershed of Lake Superior and is a founder of the Conservancy. His most recent photography and research project tracking where the Group of Seven made their famous sketches in northern Ontario, culminated in the production of the film Painted Land: In Search of the Group of Seven. The film highlights one of the Group’s most famous painting regions; the North Shore of Lake Superior.

Gary and Joanie developed the strategy for Trans Canada Trail’s 1000 km/600 mile Lake Superior Water Trail—a project that is being implemented by the Conservancy. Recently Trans Canada Trail officially made the McGuffins National Champions of The Great Trail.