Swimming Holes and Beaches of Southwestern British Columbia

Alex McKeen is an award-winning journalist whose work for Canada’s largest circulation newspaper, the Toronto Star, has taken her across North America. Before beginning her career in journalism, she studied music and the social sciences at the University of Toronto. While she doesn’t swim competitively, she has taken particular delight in teaching swimming to kids and adults of all ages and abilities for more than a decade. She loves how bodies of water as small as backyard pools and as expansive as the Pacific Ocean have the power of pulling people together. She lives in Esquimalt with her partner and an extremely fluffy cat.

George Harwood Smith is the Curator at East Quay, an award-winning arts center in Somerset, UK. Before this, he curated exhibitions at North Van Arts in North Vancouver, where he fell in love with the many swimming spots on Vancouver’s North Shore. When not working, George regularly takes personal pilgrimages to swim spots in Canada, Europe, and his native UK, finding the best places to immerse himself in the water. A keen photographer, he feels at home in rivers, lakes, or the ocean and believes swimming is one of the best ways to connect with nature. George currently divides his time between Somerset and London, UK, but retains close ties with British Columbia, his home away from home.