I grew up in rural B.C., the son of book publishers who instilled a love of the printed word. To pay for college, I worked as an encyclopedia salesman, skidder operator, salmon fisherman and, most successfully, newspaper editor.

In 2005, I moved to New York for journalism school and worked part-time at Newsweek before taking on a steadier role at the New York Post. In more than a decade of working at The Globe and Mail, I've filed stories from an army patrol in Afghanistan, a Black Hawk helicopter in Fargo and a prison in the Netherlands. I have two sons whom I hope will someday see the Vancouver Canucks win a Stanley Cup.