Stephanie Pearson is a journalist, a 2023 National Geographic Explorer, and a contributing editor to Outside magazine. She is the author of “100 Great American Parks,” a beautifully illustrated collection of the nation’s most intriguing landscapes published by National Geographic.

After earning her master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Pearson began her career at Outside, where she was on the editorial staff for more than 13 years. Her assignments over three decades have included reporting from Mount Everest Base Camp, meditating with Tibetan Buddhist Scholar Robert Thurman in Bhutan, and producing an online science curriculum while traveling through Australia and Latin America with National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner and his team.

Pearson has received four Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation in the categories of Foreign Travel, Environmental and Sustainable Tourism, Service-Oriented Consumer Work, and Travel Journalist of the Year. Her work has also been anthologized in “The Best American Travel Writing” series.

Madeline Kloepper is a Canadian artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Major in Illustration from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Although she grew up in the lower mainland of British Columbia amidst a sea of humans and spent a few years in Vancouver. Following the completion of her degree in 2015, Madeline migrated northward and has gratefully settled on the unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. She lives happily in a little old house with her partner, Ben and sweet pup, Heidi.

Madeline’s work is inherently narrative and often influenced by childhood, nostalgia and the relationships we forge with nature. Her work has been recognized by Society of Illustrators New York, Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, Creative Quarterly and been featured in 3x3 Magazine, SAD Mag and UPPERCASE magazine.

When she is not exploring the vast outdoors of Northern British Columbia and admiring the trees and mountains you can find her sipping coffee, making pottery and dreaming up narratives in her sketchbook