MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter Spring 2020

62 And for Fox, that journey comes back to nature. He’s even come up with an acrostic poem where the letters of the word spell out what he believes the power of nature to be nature: “ n urtures, a wakens, t ranscends, u plifts, r estores, e levates the human spirit.” Based out of Vancouver for the past four years, Fox also shares his photos and ideas at live public speaking events and has started a foundation offering mentorship to raise funds to help give underprivileged youth the opportunity to establish their own relationship to nature through wilderness immersion camps. “Kids have anxiety about the future, and we have some huge challenges coming,” he says. “But humans are not a bad species. We have a tremendous capacity to learn from our mistakes. We can see them and adapt, and it’s those moments when we push the boundary and get uncomfortable that helps propel things forward. That is the process of life—a tree gets tall by growing tiny rings year after year. Each tiny ring builds stability until one day, the tree is a hundred metres tall. That’s the same as life, you build on it and build on it and one day you stand tall too.” danielfox.co "When I shoot wildlife, I don't hide from them," Fox writes. "I want them to see me...When I press the shutter, there isn't me, the human, and it, the wild animal. Rather there is us.Two creatures sharing the same air, doing what we can to survive and protect the ones that we care for and love."