Wild Trails to the Sea

A tender and lyrical story celebrating the natural world and our place within it, Wild Trails to the Sea follows a coastal family as seasons change and children grow. With a hopeful refrain, a parent shares their dreams for their young ones, urging them to pay attention to every bit of magic the world has to offer, from watching a mayflower bloom to skipping pebbles on an icy pond, encouraging a lifelong love of natural spaces.

Told in gentle free-verse with luminous, tactile illustrations, this nostalgic story celebrates raising children in the great outdoors and will leave them enchanted with the lemon-burst of spruce tips, the steam of saltwater bonfires, and white rocks as vast as the moon.

While this book will resonate with any reader who appreciates a coastal landscape, those familiar with the unique coasts of Nova Scotia will find delight in recognizing places such as the Cape Breton Highlands, Long Lake, High Head trail, Hirtles Beach, and Kejimkujik Seaside Adjunct. And those who have yet to visit will be inspired to explore them.

The debut children’s picture book by celebrated Halifax-based editor and co-author of Amazing Atlantic Canadian Women and York-based, Nova Scotia–born paper-collage artist Elena Skoreyko Wagner, Wild Trails to the Sea is a love letter to the earth, the sky, and the sea—and to their future stewards.