Best Action Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Leap of Faith by Remy Scalza
Category Sponsor: 
Peterborough & the Kawarthas Tourism

Published in Canadian Geographic Travel - Summer 2014

Best Action Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Maui Tropical Storm by James Ross
Category Sponsor: 
Peterborough & the Kawarthas Tourism

Published in Kamloops This Week, May 9, 2014

Best Action Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Racing in the Inner Harbour - Toronto by Sharon Matthews-Stevens
Category Sponsor: 
Peterborough & the Kawarthas Tourism

Published in Sailing - Wing and Wing Across Ontario, July/August 2014

Best Evocation of a Place Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Red sand dunes of Sossusvlei, Namibia by Hans Tammemagi
Category Sponsor: 
Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation

Published in Indian Country Today, December 28, 2013

Best Evocation of a Place Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Rainbow Bright by John Sylvester
Category Sponsor: 
Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation

Published by Saltscapes, July/August 2014

Best Evocation of a Place Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Hiker in Grand Canyon by Hans Tammemagi
Category Sponsor: 
Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation

Published in Indian Country Today, January 11, 2014

Best Evocation of a Place Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Beacons of Hope by John Sylvester
Category Sponsor: 
Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation

Published in  Country Extra, May 2014

Best People Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Cradled on the Waves /Nebraskan Rancher Trys PEI Oysters by John Sylvester
Category Sponsor: 
Le Québec Maritime

Published in Country Extra, December/January 2014

Best People Photo • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
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Weighing the Catch by Debbie Olsen
Category Sponsor: 
Le Québec Maritime

Published in Red Deer Advocate, October 2, 2013

1st Place winner in People Photo category

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Inuit Madonna and Child by Bruce Kemp
Category Sponsor: 
Le Québec Maritime

Published in West of the City Magazine, November 2013

Best Cultural/Historical Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Act of God by John Lee
Category Sponsor: 
Québec City Tourism

Published in NUVO Magazine, Spring 2014

It was the smaller, follow-up earthquake that did it for Christchurch and its eponymous primary landmark. The first – a 7.1-magnitude rattler that struck New Zealand’s third-largest city on September 4, 2010 – had injured locals, shaken buildings and raked downtown’s beloved cathedral with cracks and broken windows.

But the 1881-built Christ Church Cathedral – a hulking Gothic Revival icon that loomed over the city centre and dominated South Island postcards – remained standing, comforting Kiwis as a symbol of...

Best Cultural/Historical Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
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Retail Zen by Natasha Mekhail
Category Sponsor: 
Québec City Tourism

Published in Mercedes-Benz Magazine, November 2013

Experience the refined simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic where you would least expect it: in the bustle of Tokyo’s shopping districts.

“The whole ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life.” From The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura

In a Japanese tea ceremony, the walk to the tearoom is the first step in the ritual. In this short stroll through a garden, forest or bamboo grove, guests...

Best Cultural/Historical Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Loveable Leipzig by Nancy Wigston
Category Sponsor: 
Québec City Tourism

Published in TraveLife Magazine, July 2014

On a bright autumn afternoon, I’m nursing a warm cappuccino at a café in Old Leipzig’s pedestrian-friendly heart. Hard to believe just across the plaza, in St. Nicholas Church a movement began that would bring German communism to its knees.

Monday “peace prayer” groups had long been meeting in the pretty, while-columned church. Just a dozen-odd people at first-- no big deal-- but word spread, and crowds grew until, overflowing the church, they spilled out onto the streets. By October 9, 1989 they numbered 70...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
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America's Worst Weather: A Trek Up Mount Washington Can Be Delightfully Foul by Peter Johansen...
Category Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia

Published in Montreal Gazette, July 14, 2014

Rik Dow apologizes. He’s guided us up the highest mountain in the American northeast for a panoramic view, but we’re shrouded in pea soup.  “I’m disappointed for you folks that the clouds aren’t cooperating for scenery,” he says.  “But they’re cooperating to show off the weather we’re famous for.”

At 1,917 metres, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington sits in a magical kingdom of peaks and valleys. Wild rivers course through.  Shades of green escape counting.  It’s so jaw-droppingly picturesque that painters (...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
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Bear Necessities by Cinda Chavich
Category Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia

Published in Get Lost Travel Magazine, April 2014

The piercing scream is sudden and unexpected, stopping us in our tracks on the muddy trail. An ugly confrontation is in progress nearby, but only the gnashing and growling makes it beyond the impenetrable wall of bamboo. Moments later, the prize we’ve been seeking for days stumbles out of the forest. It’s dirty and bloodstained, fresh from a brutal mating battle, but it’s the real deal: a rare giant panda.

We’ve come to the wilds of central China – the Foping Nature Reserve, high in the Qin Ling...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
A bird poop boom by Carol Patterson
Category Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia

Published in Red Deer Advocate, December 14, 2013

I always thought bird poop was something you wiped off your car or clothing as fast as possible. I never knew it was worth money, but for a few years in the late 19th century 80 percent of Peru’s income was derived from seabird droppings or guano.

Peru has been described as the ‘birdiest’ county in the world. With over 1800 species it rivals Columbia for most species, but Peru has more endemic species and more species counted in a single day.

Not only are the birds a visual delight, they are...

Best Food & Drink Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
The Future of French Food by Amy Rosen
Category Sponsor: 
Ottawa Tourism

Published in Air Canada enRoute Magazine, October 31, 2013

On a whirlwind eating spree – and a spin through the Bocuse d’Or culinary competition – our writer follows Gallic cuisine on its quest to regain top spot on the podium of the world’s great culinary cultures.

Purple and blue floodlights wash over the historic city hall in Lyon, its marble fountains and archways looking like a 17th-century monument primed for prom night. Inside, the champagne is free-flowing as chefs Alain Ducasse, Thomas Keller and Guy Savoy huddle around one of the cocktail...

Best Family Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
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Living in the past by Josephine Matyas
Category Sponsor: 
Visit Florida

Published in Doctor's Review, January 12, 2014

They say the two islands of St. Kitts and Nevis are sisters. I see St. Kitts as the older one with a closet full of splashy outfits: casinos, sprawling resort properties, a cruise port and acres of duty free shopping. Little sister Nevis is the Cinderella of the duo. Modest and hard working; pretty with plenty of substance. It’s not that there is anything wrong with St. Kitts; it’s just that Nevis has … a better personality. There. I’ve put my bias up front.

It’s only two miles across the channel from St...

1st Place winner in Best Outdoors/Adventure Feature

Award Year: 
2014
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Warming Up to Winter by Mark Stevens
Category Sponsor: 
Tourism Saskatchewan

Published in Just for Canadian Dentists, January/February 2014

It’s late in the afternoon and the sun has already dropped behind the western hills, now swathed in deep shadows, that stand sentinel over Algonquin Park’s southeast boundary. A light snow falls and there is a thick layer on the ground, fluffy as a feather quilt.

The silence is absolute but for the crunch our snowshoes make on the snow as we step onto the trailhead of an undulating path just inside the park.

Come July, visitors to Algonquin flood Highway 60, the park’s main artery...

Best Service Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Inclusive Disney by Lisa Kadane
Category Sponsor: 
Booking.com

Published in WestJet Magazine, April 2014

The Happiest Place on Earth caters to guests with a range of abilities 

I barely survived the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland when I was three, so I wondered if Bennett, my six-year-old autistic son, would embrace a pirate’s life or stage an epic tantrum in the middle of New Orleans Square from sensory overload when our family flew south to Anaheim, Calif., on vacation. But it turns out the famous resort, along with sister park,...

Best Story about Travel in Canada • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Small Town Rodeo by Remy Scalza
Category Sponsor: 
Tourism Yukon

Published in Canadian Geographic Travel, Summer 2014

Behind the rodeo grounds on the edge of Pincher Creek, a small town in southwestern Alberta at the confluence of highways 6, 507 and 785, cowboys have improvised a locker room. Sitting in the grass, they tape themselves up for another ride, shoring up busted elbows and knees with Ace bandages. Steer wrestlers limber up with squats and jumping jacks, while saddle bronc riders put their saddles in the dirt and jerk back and forth in pantomime of the ride to come.

“It’s pretty hard to explain what it...

Best Story about Travel in Canada • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Northwest Passage: Where the Ghosts of History Roam by Bruce Kemp
Category Sponsor: 
Tourism Yukon

Published inWest of the City Magazine, November 2013

The big, cream-coloured male bear paced with us along the shore not more than fifty metres from where I crouched in the bow of the inflatable boat. With his poor vision we were a fuzzy outline, but the outboard engine’s low thrum warned him interlopers were just offshore. Awestruck by his size and raw power of his movements, the thing I remember now was the hope that if he decided to charge, my boat driver could get us out of there in a big hurry.

On the third day of our voyage through the...

Best Story about Travel in Canada • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
A High Way With Byways by Amy Rosen
Category Sponsor: 
Tourism Yukon

Published in: Food Arts, June 2014

On a remote isle adrift in the forbidding Atlantic off the Newfoundland coast, Murray McDonald weaves the islanders’ hardscrabble traditions into contemporary statements befitting the sustainability ethos of the visually striking Fogo Island Inn. XXX bundles up to visit a faraway wintry hinterland.

Out on the North Atlantic on the eastern edge of North America, the January winds wail and thick sheets of ice crack apart as we make our way on the ferryboat from Farewell to Fogo Island before driving another...

Best Service Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
The ultimate Doctor Who: fan-boy pilgrimage to Britain by John Lee
Category Sponsor: 
Booking.com

Published in: The Globe and Mail, October 19, 2013

My replica Sonic Screwdriver doesn’t necessarily make me a nerd when it comes to Doctor Who, the world’s longest-running TV sci-fi show. But my TARDIS-patterned bathrobe and remote-controlled Dalek are conclusive evidence of a slavish love for all-things Gallifrey.

And if you understood any of those references, you’re likely just as excited as me about the weekend of November 23, when the show’s 50th anniversary special will be simulcast around the world.

Gearing up to toast the...

Best Service Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Play hipster for a day in Portland by Joanne Blain
Category Sponsor: 
Booking.com

Published inThe Vancouver Sun, April 19, 2014 

The only thing cooler than Portland just might be Portlandia, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's sketch-comedy sendup of the coastal Oregon hipster haven.

The hit indie show skewers some of Portland's best-known traits, including its love of dogs, DJs and coffee and its reverence for cyclists and recycling. And it's populated with enough oddball characters — including a slew of celebrity guest stars — to remind you that you're definitely not in Kansas any more.

The fourth season of the show,...

Best Service Feature • [node:field-award-placement] • 2014

Award Year: 
2014
Award Recipient: 
Doggy Downtime by Jody Robbins
Category Sponsor: 
Booking.com

Publishsed in: Calgary Herald, April 28, 2014

Inside the world of jet setting pooches

Make no bones about it, Monty Wade was one pampered pooch. Until his passing earlier this year, the spritely half-cocker, half-bichon frise had logged more travel miles than most bipeds. He even enjoyed a retirement trip to California, where he relished lounging in a backyard pool in Palm Springs and strutting through Downtown Disney, before checking into his kennel at the park.

“Of everything Monty had done in his life, he still hadn’t seen the ocean. It...