Acknowledgements

Writing Bumble bees of Unama’ki: A Guide to Becoming a Buzzing Naturalist has been an incredible journey for me. It was an excellent outlet for me to offload my creativity as I worked on my honours thesis for my undergraduate degree and I am deeply grateful for everyone who helped make this Guide a possibility.

To Dave, thank you for sharing your passion for insects, science, and the little things in life with me. To Jasmine, thank you for providing lots of tech support, creative ideas, and for giving me confidence boosts along the way. And to Katherine, thank you for inspiring me to create an honours project that was a little out of the norm but a lot more me.

To the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources Maliamu’kik Msit Ko’kmanaq, Species@Risk, Bras d’Or Watershed Project, thank you for making field days so much fun!

To my loving parents, sister, and partner, thank you for fostering my love for nature and for taking the time to drag me away from my work to enjoy it for myself!

I would also like to extend a special thanks to the citizen scientists of iNaturalist that contributed to this book in the form of bumble bee photographs. Thanks to you, this book has been transformed from a simple written document to one that is full of life and colour.

Lastly, thank you to the bumble bees of Unama’ki, for showing me how beautiful life really is.