Carol and Emma founded The Narwhal together in 2018, and will celebrate the organization’s seventh birthday next week
May 9, 2025
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Six years ago, Emma Gilchrist celebrated The Narwhal’s first birthday with a champagne chug. The Digital Publishing Awards recently awarded Emma its “top individual honour.”
Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal
My love letter to Emma GilchristBreak out the champagne: this week we’re celebrating the incredible journey of our co-founder and national recognition across the Narwhal pod.
How can you truly sum up your friend’s incredible journey to journalism and leadership?
Some time ago I sat down to tackle a daunting but deeply gratifying task: writing a letter to nominate The Narwhal’s co-founder, Emma Gilchrist, for a national leadership award.
In a way, the activity was cathartic — I put aside all my other duties to write up a small catalogue of all the incredible things I had learned and witnessed first-hand about Emma and her inspiring path through life. (That’s me in the photo, cheering on her champagne chug at The Narwhal’s first birthday celebration!)
But it was also anxiety-inducing, because how could one paragraph stacked atop another ever capture the wild-stallion energy and beauty and acclaim and heartbreak of Emma’s story.
So, spoiler: my paragraphs could not fully overcome that challenge.
Although we love to embrace levity at The Narwhal (hello pet gifs), building a newsroom is an inglorious task. Our little-publication-that-could will celebrate seven years next week, and for more than half of those years, Emma and I have joked that her job is akin to being in the bowels of an enormous ship, shovelling coal into an ever-growing furnace. We’ve also joked about our jobs feeling like being trapped on a treadmill. Oh, and also being dragged behind a horse … (I swear we love it and live for it, I swear, I swear).
But through it all, Emma has held this place together with a combination of humour, humanity and incisive strategy that I don’t believe I’ll ever see bundled in another human being. My award letter also touches on the personal rollercoasters Emma has been riding behind the scenes — her essays on her struggle to find her birth father as well as the devastating experience of terminating a pregnancy for medical reasons also won national awards.
Listen, I could go on and on. There is no one like Emma and I guess there’s no place like The Narwhal because of that! It feels especially good to celebrate Emma from afar, as she’s on parental leave with a chubby blue-eyed baby in her arms. (Hiiiiii, Mollie!)
And there’s even MORE to celebrate, if you can believe it. Nine other Digital Publishing Award nominations have also rolled in across our team of staff and freelancers:
Our Manitoba reporter Julia-Simone Rutgers has been nominated with photojournalist Amber Bracken for best climate change reporting in collaboration with the Winnipeg Free Press
Our editor Michelle Cyca and freelancer Kayla MacInnis for best one-of-a-kind storytelling, in collaboration with IndigiNews
And Arik Ligeti, audience engagement editor Karan Saxena and assistant editor Jacqueline Ronson for best editorial newsletter
Additionally, we’ve just learned that northwest B.C. reporter Matt Simmons’ gorgeous feature on the healing power of fire is a finalist for the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Award for Climate Solutions Reporting. (Matt also led the reporting, alongside former director of investigations and enterprise Mike De Souza and Ontario reporter Fatima Syed, for The Narwhal’s investigation into leaked recordings from inside TC Energy boardrooms, which is a finalist for the foundation’s prestigious Jackman Award for excellence in journalism, announced last week.)
I remember standing alongside Emma in rooms where we were told The Narwhal would never fly. We were told we weren’t legitimate journalists, we were pushed out of rooms and mocked. I felt cowed at moments, but Emma never did. She had this clarion vision for The Narwhal she could just see over the horizon and any impediment to that made her resolve to build this publication even stronger.
And there’s one other thing about her that’s been key to what we’ve built here at The Narwhal: Emma never failed to believe in the readers that would come out of the woodwork to support high-quality environmental journalism that champions the public’s interest. And you’ve come in droves. (If you’re a reader and have been waiting for your time to become a member of the pod, we need you now, more than ever!)
It’s a deep personal and professional pleasure to see Emma’s efforts recognized in this prestigious award, alongside the incredible team of journalists who bring The Narwhal dream to life!
With love and popped champagne,
Carol Linnitt
Acting executive director and editor-in-chief
The Narwhal is on a mission to deliver the best environmental journalism in Canada on the most beautiful and user-friendly digital platforms — and we’re not resting on our laurels. And so we’re thrilled to introduce you to Andrew Munroe, the person who’s already working hard to make our site sing as The Narwhal’s first staff web developer.
When we put out the call late last year, we knew we needed to find someone special — someone who lives at the intersection of journalism and code, who could elevate our work and showcase it to more people across the country. In Andrew, we found our perfect match.
Andrew, who jokes he “moved to Vancouver to pursue my passion for paying a lot of money for housing,” brings diverse experience in building websites and interactive digital journalism, including for the Global Reporting Centre, The Tyee and others.
Read more about Andrew’s passions and talents (including his recent debut as a guitarist in an emo cover band) in this Q&A.
This week in The Narwhal
Family farmers in British Columbia were already struggling. Then Trump started a trade war By Paloma Pacheco
A trade war could help remake B.C.’s food system, but will small-scale farmers be left behind?
Danielle Smith says separation is about alienation. It’s really about oil By Drew Anderson READ MORE
Ontario’s Bill 5 sparks new concerns where a legacy of environmental damage remains By Savannah Ridley READ MORE
The Right Honourable Mary Simon aims to be an Arctic fox By Michelle Cyca READ MORE
Rocky Mountain coal mine in Alberta takes next step to expansion By Drew Anderson READ MORE
A dam destroyed their river. 61 years later, two First Nations fought for justice By Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood READ MORE
Emma Gilchrist and the whole Narwhal pod prove it’s true: anything is possible if you stick together and just keep swimming! Tell a friend, and remind them to subscribe to our award-winning newsletter!
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Six years ago, Emma Gilchrist celebrated The Narwhal’s first birthday with a champagne chug. The Digital Publishing Awards recently awarded Emma its “top individual honour.”
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