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Amanda Leslie has camped at Fundy National Park in New Brunswick nearly every summer since she was a child, spending countless days hiking through the Acadian Forest. In 2015, she started crossing the country to learn more about Canada’s park system. Among her adventures, she camped with Syrian refugees in Kejimkujik, soaked in the hot springs in Banff, stood over a glacier in Jasper, toured a salt-water fjord in Gros Morne, and visited 5,000-year-old tipi rings in Grasslands. Her experiences evolved into a book of creative non-fiction, showcasing the diversity of national parks while revealing a connection between people and nature. This is an excerpt from her manuscript “Wild Places: Exploring Our Connection to Canada’s National Parks.” It won the 2021 Penguin Random House Canada King’s College MFA Prize for best nonfiction book proposal.