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The Narwhal is celebrating a deluge of award nominations and honours, as our non-profit newsroom is recognized in Canada and the United States for our dogged investigative journalism and our community-first, solutions-focused reporting.
In recent weeks, six journalism award programs have named The Narwhal as either a winner or a nominee, with two dozen honours in total!
Summary
- Canadian Journalism Foundation: The Narwhal, in partnership with the Investigative Journalism Foundation, is up for the prestigious Jackman Award. We also made the shortlist for the award for climate solutions reporting.
- National Magazine Awards: we’re nominated twice — in the investigative journalism and service journalism categories.
- Digital Publishing Awards: The Narwhal earned 11 (!) nominations across nine categories, including the award for general excellence.
- Canadian Association of Journalists: The Narwhal is a finalist for four awards across various categories.
- Nonprofit News Awards: we’re up for awards in two categories, for reporting led by Manitoba reporter Julia-Simone Rutgers, in partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press.
- Society of Environmental Journalists: the judges honoured reporting by The Narwhal with one second-place prize and two honourable mentions.
Two nods from the Canadian Journalism Foundation, including for its prestigious Jackman Award
Notably, the Canadian Journalism Foundation announced on April 17 that The Narwhal is a finalist for its prestigious Jackman Award.
The Jackman Award honours Canadian journalism that makes a social impact through courageous and original reporting, and northwest B.C. reporter Matt Simmons is nominated for his investigation into the BC Energy Regulator’s failure to enforce compliance with environmental and health regulations. Simmons is up for the award alongside peers at the Investigative Journalism Foundation, who collaborated with him on the project.
“Rigorous and fair reporting on oversight bodies such as the BC Energy Regulator is crucial to our democracy,” The Narwhal’s executive editor, Denise Balkissoon, said. “We’re proud that Matt’s efforts to hold the regulator to account have been nominated for one of the highest honours in Canadian journalism.”
We’re also on the shortlist for the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s award for climate solutions reporting. Freelancer Chloe Williams and photographer Gavin John earned that nod for their story about a bold plan to save the melting sea ice around Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation will announce the winners in Toronto on June 10.
17 additional nominations across Canada’s top journalism awards
The Narwhal’s work turned heads at the National Magazine Awards, Digital Publishing Awards and Canadian Association of Journalists awards— with a whopping 17 nominations between them.
At the National Magazine Awards, Drew Anderson’s dogged reporting on the owners behind some of the country’s biggest delinquent oil and gas companies scooped a nomination for the best investigative journalism. In the best service journalism category, freelancer Canice Leung’s story, “How to have your period in the woods,” scored a nomination for its informative and creative approach.
Over at the Digital Publishing Awards, we’re up for the top award, which honours general excellence in digital publishing. 2025 Indigenous editorial fellow Savannah Ridley is on the shortlist for emerging excellence. Our journalism is also nominated across seven additional categories:
- Best digital editorial package: Collision course: Animals killed on Canada’s railways, by Ainslie Cruickshank
- Best data journalism: Collision course: Animals killed on Canada’s railways, by Ainslie Cruickshank
- Investigative journalism: Our investigation, in partnership with the Investigative Journalism Foundation, about lax enforcement in B.C.’s oil and gas industry, with reporting led by Matt Simmons
- Best reporting on climate change: On solid ice: the plan to refreeze the Arctic, by Chloe Williams, with photography by Gavin John
- Best reporting on climate change: A new way to fight climate change: cataloguing the DNA of the Arctic Ocean, by Meral Jamal
- Best reporting on climate change: One year the ice is slushy. This year on the Prairies? -35 C with the wind, by Julia-Simone Rutgers, in partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press
- Best feature article: In the Rockies, more and more people are heading to the woods. Are we pushing animals deeper into the night?, by Sara King-Abadi
- Best online mini-documentary: Trouble in the Headwaters, by Daniel J. Pierce
- Best photo storytelling: Tiny birds, and their tiny superfood, could decline due to ‘irreversible’ effects of Vancouver port expansion, with photography by Isabelle Groc
“It’s so rewarding to see such a breadth of our reporting nominated,” said Balkissoon. “From hard-hitting investigations into lax regulatory systems in B.C. and Alberta to a sweeping, photo-rich story on Arctic ice to a practical guide to camping while menstruating — this is testament to the broad talents of The Narwhal’s amazing staff and freelance journalists. So is our Digital Publishing Awards nomination in the general excellence category. It all shows the reality that every story is an environment story.”
And the Canadian Association of Journalists has named The Narwhal a finalist in four award categories:
- Data journalism: Manitoba reporter Julia-Simone Rutgers and Malak Abas, reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press, analyzed and mapped the unequal impacts of a transit overhaul in Winnipeg
- Scoop: Matt and Zak Vescera, reporter with the Investigative Journalism Foundation, revealed that oil and gas giant TC Energy successfully lobbied the federal government to gain access to sensitive information gathered by Canada’s spy agency
- Labour reporting: Matt earned a second nomination for his investigation into sexism and gendered violence in the tree-planting industry
- Emerging Indigenous journalist: Savannah Ridley’s body of work as The Narwhal’s 2025 Indigenous editorial fellow earned her a spot as a finalist
Julia-Simone Rutgers is a finalist at the Nonprofit News Awards — twice!
Meanwhile, across the border, the U.S.-based Institute for Nonprofit News announced earlier this month that The Narwhal’s Manitoba reporter, Julia-Simone Rutgers, is a double-finalist at this year’s Nonprofit News Awards.
Rutgers is nominated in the community champion category for her coverage of Winnipeg’s transit system, which underwent a massive redesign in 2025. Winnipeg’s bus route shakeup was a topic of heated debate in the city last year, and Rutgers used GIS mapping software and other data analysis tools to deepen the civic discourse. Most significantly, her reporting revealed that the drastic route changes were not equitably distributed, and disproportionately impacted low-income neighbourhoods.
The community champion award honours reporting that makes “a significant contribution to the well-being of its community through a journalism-centered project or service,” according to the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Rutgers is also a finalist in the awards’ explanatory category for a piece she wrote making sense of the potential impacts of American tariffs on the agricultural sector. As U.S. President Donald Trump hurled tariff threats over the border last year, Rutgers cogently explained how a trade war would hurt farmers on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, earning her a nomination for providing “insight and understanding of a significant and complex subject.”
Rutgers’ position is part of an innovative partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press that sees our two outlets co-assigning, co-editing and collaboratively publishing her stories on environmental topics.
“Today’s realities of journalism funding in Canada mean local markets sometimes struggle to sustain deeply-reported journalism in their communities,” The Narwhal’s managing editor, Sharon J. Riley, noted. “Not so in Winnipeg — we’re thrilled that our partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press is bearing fruit and making in-depth environmental reporting available to audiences in Winnipeg.”
The winners of the Nonprofit News Awards will be announced during a ceremony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 16.
Three honours from the Society of Environmental Journalists
The Society of Environmental Journalists also recently feted Rutgers’ work. The organization awarded her second place in the feature category of its annual awards program.
That prize recognized Rutgers’ on-the-ground look at the devastating impacts of hydro dam flooding in Indigenous territories, and how Cree communities are working to restore their lands in the wake of that damage.
The story was a “standout piece of solutions-focused storytelling [that] treats Indigenous-led conservation with respect and empathy,” judges wrote of Rutgers’ story. “It weaves Traditional Ecological Knowledge and oral history into a narrative that feels grounded and uplifting.”
The Society of Environmental Journalists also awarded a second honourable mention to freelancer Chloe Williams and photographer Gavin John for their story on the attempt to slow the impacts of climate change in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, by artificially thickening sea ice. Judges said their story did “a great job at centering Inuit voices in a conversation about geoengineering to save the Arctic.”
Northwest B.C. reporter Matt Simmons also turned heads at the U.S.-based Society of Environmental Journalists, where judges recently awarded him a first honourable mention in the beat reporting category for his ongoing coverage of energy politics in B.C. “Delivering stories like this requires reporters to go the extra mile,” judges said of Matt’s work covering B.C.’s energy industry. “These stories also had a real-world impact.”
“It’s no secret that journalists across Canada are working under increasingly difficult conditions,” Balkissoon said. “At The Narwhal, we’re lucky to have more than 7,300 members who donate regularly to make our work possible and a stellar team of dedicated journalists who won’t give up. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners.”
Updated April 30, 2026 at 2:00 PT: This article was updated to include recent award nominations from the Digital Publishing Awards, the National Magazine Awards and the Canadian Association of Journalists.