Wings of Survival: Saving Nature with Sport | Timm & Leanna

Shownotes

In today’s episode, I’m thrilled to introduce you to an inspiring duo, Timm and Leanna, the founders of Wings of Survival. This ambitious initiative blends their love for adventure and athletics with a deep commitment to environmental conservation.

Leanna, a former international track and field athlete and Canada’s first female decathlete, brings her passion for endurance sports and sustainability to the project. She’s also a personal trainer, a mom, and a cofounder of a chocolate company! Timm, a fellow endurance athlete, explorer, and PhD in global change ecology, complements this vision with his expertise in conservation and his role as an instructor at the University of Alberta.

Together, they share their incredible journey of following migratory bird routes across continents to raise awareness about climate change and biodiversity. They’ll give us a glimpse into how extreme sports, plant-based nutrition, and environmental advocacy intersect in their mission to inspire action for a healthier planet.

So, join us as we dive into their story, their experiences cycling across Canada, and their plans for this groundbreaking global expedition. Let’s get started!

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Transcript

Brighde: Welcome, Timm. Welcome, Leanna, to the World Vegan Travel Podcast. I'm thrilled to have you joining us today.



Leanna: Yeah, thanks.



Timm: Thank



Leanna: for having us.



Timm: you so much.



 I am so excited to have you on the podcast because your project, Wings of Survival, 



Timm: is 



Brighde: kind of epic. We've had a lot of people that have done some incredible travel as vegans, but I think this undertaking is probably biggest that I have ever, heard of or interviewed someone about. Can you tell us a little bit about Wings of Survival, and then I want to dig in to what brought you to this point?



Leanna: So Wings of Survival is an initiative Timm and I created about three years ago. I come from a athletic background and I was frustrated with races being cancelled because of COVID or fires, and poor water quality. So I found myself outside, training a lot and noticing there's a lot of changes happening to the environment. I wanted to do something but I didn't even know where to start. So at one point a race had gotten cancelled prior to meeting Timm. So out of frustration, I just was like, I'm going to take my bike and I want to go ride this route. Well, shortly after this, I met Timm, and I showed him this pathway, and he let me know that it was one of the migratory birds, one of their flyways, the Pacific Flyway. And he really challenged me to do the ride, but to do it in a more meaningful and impactful way. We're both very adventurous, and then I'll let Timm describe more about the science side. But, he has his PhD in ecology, and he's passionate about climate change and really, creating impactful change. So we were thinking bridging the two through sport, nature, and this amazing adventure by following the birds across 15 different countries, starting in Alaska. And going all the way down to Patagonia would be a really cool way to share a story and hopefully empower others to make individual changes that can really help nurture the natural world, and help make an impact that we can all do individually. There's things we can do individually and there's great organizations out there right now that we're partnering with to really help amplify this project. 



Timm: So I'd say, it's really an expedition series. That's ultimately what Wings of Survival is. It's a sequence of three expeditions. The first one is connecting North and South America. The second one is Europe and Africa. The final one is the down under region, Australia, New Zealand to Eastern Asia. So it's essentially connecting the continents. It's connecting countries and communities. And the unique component is, it's a blend of extreme sports, exploration, and community engagement. So it's really trying to win more people to take action for the planet.



 We will dig



Brighde: into a lot more about that later on, because this is something that's so important, and I really want our listeners to hear more about this. But something I'm really curious about, Timm, is, what inspired you to connect this with bird migrations. I'm a little bit of a bird nerd myself. I am not very knowledgeable, but I have a huge amount of appreciation for birds and everything about them. So why did you decide to kind of pair this with bird migrations?



Timm: Yeah, and I'm in the same boat. I'm not a crazy birder but the idea really came from this map created by Bird Life International, which depicts the different flyways. And there's eight in total, and that keeps changing. It's a visualization of how birds migrate across the seasons between continents. And looking at this map, it just triggered this idea. And for me, it's been a long search in a way for a lifelong endeavor, something I could do to be very impactful. Something where I can pursue my passion for sports, and for nature and exploration. And this map I would say, it was just one puzzle piece amongst many triggers and many experiences that we pick up in life. And something just sparked that idea, let's follow the bird migration. So, birds are beautiful, and they're very charming, and their songs their feathers, there's so much beauty in birds, and even if someone's not appreciating that they're bird fans at the moment. I think we can so easily become enthusiasts about birds. And the beauty is, they take us everywhere. They connect every place. So it's this idea of a shared responsibility, and shared opportunity. I think that's what I really like about the birds. It's this idea of how do we as a global community take action. And of course, we all have different economic backgrounds, and cultural backgrounds, and whatever that looks like, but essentially it's that one planet, and birds are the connecting organism.



Brighde: Leanna mentioned you have a PhD in conservation. Can I ask a little bit about that, Timm?



Timm: Sure. Yeah. So I'm German born. I left almost 20 years ago by now, and then I moved to New Zealand; originally just for a year, but New Zealand is obviously so beautiful. So I didn't want to leave. And then I got this opportunity to do my master's degree in New Zealand, and got drawn into the tropics. So I did all my research in Bangkok, in this beautiful biosphere reserve. So strong educational component as well. That was my master's, and then I had this opportunity to do my PhD in Australia, but again, did all my research in Asia. So I lived in Borneo for a couple of years, in a hammock.



Brighde: Oh, wow.



In 



Timm: the rainforest and collected lots of data and yeah, that was my PhD. So essentially, I've always studied the human footprint on biodiversity, on carbon, whatever makes an ecosystem, but always around the notion of how we as humans change the surface, be it deforestation, be it logging. I came to Canada about five years ago; living in Edmonton since the two postdocs, where I worked on grassland ecosystems. And we might get to talk about this later, but that's my personal favorite in Canada. I love the grasslands.



We looked at grazing systems. So the grasslands are being grazed and not by bison, unfortunately, as much as it used to be. We looked at different strategies for grazing, and how that impacts water, and carbon, and biodiversity, and including birds. So that's been my postdocs and yeah, I've been working on this expedition project now for the last three years and excited for it to 



Brighde: I can't imagine. 



Timm: happen.



Brighde: So we'll talk more about like your next step, but I really want to ask Leanna, what was your athletic background? I did a bit of digging into you, and you really have had quite a number of accomplishments. Would you mind sharing some of those in your story to this point?



Leanna: Yeah, sure. Thanks. Yeah, I was a competitive athlete since I was little. Did gymnastics and tennis, and then really took a passion for tracking fields, and competed internationally as a pole vaulter for Canada, and then became Canada's first female decathlete in 2015. So typically only men do the decathlon. We can do it, we can do all events just the same as the guys, and so I did a decathlon in Vermont. That was so much fun. Then after having my daughter in 2017, I turned to endurance sports. So I started doing triathlons, and this is where my passion for training in nature and playing in nature really started to unfold. I started to really notice the environments around me changing. I'd be cycling in the mountains and see the destruction of what the fires have left behind, or the ice fields regressing. Swimming, same thing; not being able to swim in certain areas because the water quality is really poor. And so I just fell in love with endurance sport. It's giving me so much more than, say, track and field when you're at that high level. You're very focused on yourself and just these one events. And so, here I was in nature every day training and just really loving it. I competed in the Mount Everest Marathon, did Ironman Canada a bunch of times. 



Brighde: Goodness.



Leanna: Yeah. The world's hardest triathlon in Patagonia. I did that with Timm, and then recently 



Brighde: we cycled across Canada.



Oh my goodness.



Leanna: It's been a really amazing way to give back to the environment in a way. Like to use my sport as a platform to help empower others and to help create change, impactful change around the places that we, Timm and I, get to go and travel to.



Brighde: I am just astonished at both of your athletic accomplishments. I remember about six years or seven years ago now, I did a 25 kilometer trail run. And the time that I had to devote just for the training for that was lot. So I cannot even imagine what you would need to just get the physical fitness up, in order to do those things. Let alone the actual preparation for very long distance bike rides, which require a huge amount of logistics and gear. I just can't imagine. 



 I am very impressed and astonished that you would undertake something like this. Incredible.



So you recently completed, what we could call like a warmup event for your Wings of Survival expedition. Was this just a little bike ride across Canada? Can you tell us about that?



 We decided to postpone the larger expedition a year ago, and we still wanted to create some momentum, and we wanted to also trial some things that we'd be using for the longer expeditions, such as vehicle support, collecting scientific data. Just the physical stresses of cycling a 150 km a day on our body. And Timm might go into more detail about this, but we also wanted to have the environmental side as well. So we, Timm, created the route. We highlighted and stopped in 30 protected areas or KBAs, key biodiverse areas that may not have been protected or may not be protected yet. And so that's how we structured the route from Halifax to Vancouver. We also partnered with the University of Alberta and University of BC. We did studies on our mind, and also body and nutrition, which was really great and very interesting being plant-based athletes. Because that's the question I get all the time is, how do you get your protein in? How do you keep your muscle on? And it's great because the results showed that we kept our lean mass on for the most part, cycling that much. So that was really great to see. It's just nice to have those numbers. And then also studying our minds and our bodies, what our bodies went through. So we were able to, on this cross Canada ride, highlight these protected areas to mainstream communication around the 30 by 30 biodiversity target, which is that we need to protect 30 percent of land and water by 2030. So that's where the 30 days came and the 30 protected areas came, which was really quite clever. I think Timm, I'll give Timm most of the credit for that. He did most of the planning. Yeah, and it was a great experience to see Canada and all across each province. 



Brighde: Timm, this 30x30 project. I have heard of this before, through some of the other podcasts that I also follow. A question I have, or something I always tell myself when I hear about this 30x30 goal, is, if we could just give up grazing land and be eating more plant focused, we would probably be able to achieve that goal quite easily. Is that an accurate statement or is it a bit more complicated than that?



Yeah, I'd say more complicated. Maybe I take a step back. So 30 by 30, is really part of the biodiversity targets. It's not a single one, it's multiple targets that more or less all countries around the globe have subscribed to. So it's an equivalent to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1. 5 degrees which we have already exceeded this year, but it's the equivalent in the biodiversity space. It was born in Montreal in 2022, so it's in a way, a Canadian concept. That's where it's originated or has been sealed. The idea is to protect 30 percent of land and water by 2030. And just to give you an idea, Canada is roughly at 15 percent and that's very similar to most countries. So it's an ambitious target. It would mean doubling the amount of land and water protected in the next six years, five years, but it's just around the corner. This is 30 by 30 in a nutshell. The problem is, once grassland is turned into agriculture, immediately huge amounts of carbon are being released into the atmosphere. So soil and grasslands are a huge carbon store just like the forest. Just the ocean is the biggest, but grasslands are so vast across the planet. There's much more grasslands than forests. So as long as there's grazing, we're keeping a lot of carbon in the ground and any kind of grazing is going to be beneficial to having higher biodiversity levels. So turning it into a monoculture is always going to be worse. There's going to be less birds. There's going to be less insects. There's more fertilizer use, more pesticides. So I think that's one side of the coin, and the other issue is, if we look globally, we're using so much land for planting crops that we as humans don't get to eat, right? There's always the animals in between. So there's so much research that shows if we didn't have animal agriculture, and we just directly ate all the soy and all the corn and whatever is being planted. It would not just be sufficient for every human on the planet, we could even set more land aside. So there's different angles to it. And of course, if we talk about 30 by 30, we'd like to keep it diverse, right? Not just grasslands, but there's so many different nuanced ecosystems that we find across the globe. So we want to make sure we're protecting diversity. For me personally, what I would love to see, I like to see grazing, but I'd like to see rewilding. I'd love to see a shift where we're really getting more bison on the land, because we know it's not just a carbon problem, but it's a biodiversity problem. And the more biodiverse ecosystems there are, the more beneficial it is for us as humans. So this is what I'd like to see. Fantastic. I'd love to pick your brains just for a moment, Timm, about an observation that I made when I was in New Zealand a few months, a few years ago. As I'm sure listeners know, New Zealand is very famous for a lot of sheep grazing. When they talk about New Zealand, they talk about like these beautiful sort of rolling hills, which generally is like grazing land for sheep. And, after I read Rewilding I think the name of it is by George Monbiot, a British, advocate for rewilding. After I read that book, I looked at those rolling hills in a different way. I did go to the forests in New Zealand, and there are these patches of forest, just like there are patches of National Park, all over the world and in many countries. These forests are really so special. Like they really do look like something out of avatar in terms of the species, are just so incredible. And I started looking at these grasslands in a different way, thinking, that maybe looking at these grasslands in a romanticized way is maybe not quite accurate, that maybe before colonization, it was just this incredible forest. Can you tell me that I'm right or I'm wrong here, please?



Timm: No, it's very accurate. And New Zealand's just done such a good job to sell the country as green and clean. 



Brighde: Yeah.



Timm: You had this maybe 250 years ago. It would have been forested. It would look very different in New Zealand for sure.



Brighde: Okay. Thank you for confirming what I thought. That is fantastic. All right. the So this cycle across Canada that I think you just recently completed, what were some of your favorite spots that you visited? The places that you went, these 30 protected or not yet protected areas. Can you talk a little bit about those? Some of them or your favorites, Leanna?



Leanna: Well, as Timm mentioned earlier, the grasslands, I think, is completely underrated here. Especially out West. Well, in Edmonton, we always head towards the coasts or the mountains, and for the last couple years, Timm kept telling me about these epic grasslands. So it was great to cycle through them and feel how special they are, and it's really sad, as Timm said, there's only 1 percent left. So it was a pretty special place to go. The Bay of Fundy was very special. Seeing the large tides coming in and out, ecosystems around the water were pretty special. I like the East Coast as well. I really saw how diverse Canada is from coast to coast. It feels different in St. Halifax than Vancouver. Just everything in between. Each kind of city we passed through was unique in its own way, even traveling New Brunswick into Quebec. We stayed relatively South when we went to Montreal. Yeah, and then climbing up through the mountains. We were on the highway sometimes and then we were on gravel or mountain biking trails for maybe, I don't know, maybe about 20%. We were off Main roads and then the rest were gravel. So lots of great places to check out all across Canada.



Brighde: Amazing. Yeah. I feel like I just arrived in Canada in 2020. So maybe just after you arrived, Timm, and I feel like there's so much of this incredible country to explore yet, and I can't wait to get more out and explore those places that you talked about. So I guess with the fact that you were being studied, essentially, for this trip. Do you know how many calories a day you were burning for 150, kilometers each day of different terrain?



Timm: Well, definitely different between Leanna and myself. How much, what did I have Leanna? Six or 7,



Leanna: Yeah.



Timm: calories?



Leanna: We tested our resting metabolic rate, which is just our calories at rest. So we did that at the very start of the trip, and then at the very end of the trip. So throughout the 30 days, our rates increased. So the need for more calories, we were burning more. So for instance, when I had done the initial tests, I was around 1500 calories. And then when we finished the ride, I was at 2500 calories. So my rest, that's just at rest daily, I needed 2, 500 calories, which I thought I was like, yes, I can go eat whatever I want, but it returned very quickly to normal. So yeah, it was easily, and I think Timm, you were around 5, 000. A bit higher on some days, definitely. We are budgeting our calorie expenditure, or the calories we're intaking. For Timm, we were trying to get him to eat 5, 500 to 6, 500 calories. So yeah, close to 7, 000 calories, which is a 



Brighde: lot of food.



Wow.



Leanna: And I was more in that kind of around that 3, 000 mark. So Timm is burning almost 4, 000 calories more than me. He's got lean mass. I too have lean mass. Yeah, he's just a bigger human being. His resting metabolic rate, again, those are just calories at rest. Timm was already a thousand calories more than me. And then you put on the exercise on top of that. So he's just burning. He burns usually double than what I do.



Brighde: Got it. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Was it hard to reach those calorie goals? Were you hungry enough to want to eat all of those calories without trying, because I can imagine there were some days where you just were too tired to eat. Can you talk to that, Timm?



Timm: Yeah, I always see it as an invitation to just keep eating. It's really nice if you feel you can just keep eating and if it all goes into the right places, and it's all being burned again. So it's actually quite nice. And I had a little frame pack and just different treats. So Leanna's Seven Summit Snacks Chocolate is one of my favorite fuels. And we tried different vegan foods like jerky and cookies. And so was this adventure box on the bike frame. I'd just be eating a lot. And then we had a wonderful support person, Bill Auld. He runs an initiative called Northern Latitudes in Ontario, and he's got a podcast and he's a professional photographer. He could pull a kitchen out of this trailer. When you're out and you're exercising and you're challenging yourself. I enjoy that. Not having to watch calories. 



Leanna: Timm's great at eating while exercising. It's a talent. It's amazing how much he can eat.



Brighde: Awesome. And were you paying much attention to macronutrients during this time?



Leanna: Yeah. So I did most of the cooking and prepping of the snack bakes. We were writing down everything we ate. We did that for two weeks. So one at kind of the start and then one towards the end of what we ate, and a complete breakdown. The dieticians we worked with there, they broke down the carb, protein, calorie, but we had a general idea of how much. I knew how much Protein was in everything, especially our meals at night. I wanted to make sure we were recovering. One really good thing is, neither of us got sick and neither of us lost a lot of weight. So that means we hydrated really well and we were eating really well. So I was quite pleased with the food plan. In the morning I'd make a massive pot of porridge. We'd use our Grupo vegan protein powder in there. Timm loves chocolate, as he mentioned. So chocolate's a great fuel source for long duration sporting events. So he could just fuel off chocolate the whole time. Yeah, we played around, we had a big amount of food. So at night it was always pasta and rice. Again, just making sure we're getting enough carbohydrates. I would add salt. We're really big on eating the food in the most wholesome form. We don't like too many additives or preservatives. We got really excited if we saw a Subway sign because we could go there for very, pretty cheap and you could get the vegan patty wrap. That was probably our go to place that's all across Canada, that was under 10 dollars to eat, and you could just load it with veggies. 



Timm: The cool part was also Bill, our support driver, he also turned vegan for the journey and we haven't followed up. We don't know what he eats these days, but he really embraced that whole idea of being plant-based and that was great to see.



Brighde: That is really cool. And was he doing some of the cooking for you as well?



Timm: Well, it was mostly Leanna, but he was helping to get the groceries and he was doing the washing.



Brighde: All right, fantastic. So I know you only recently finished the Trans-Canada ride, like in the past few months or so. I assume that the universities haven't got to crunching all of the numbers and publishing their results, but maybe you were able to make some observations about the results that you were reporting to the universities.



Timm: Yeah. So no, you're right. It takes time in science. So we're waiting, but being a scientist, I also appreciate it takes time to clean the data and then to start analyzing. And it's a process. So what we did was, we had four professors. So one lady from the University of British Columbia, and then three professors here at the University of Alberta. We integrated body, mind and nutrition. And often times they're studied separately, but we know that they all affect each other, right? It's all interconnected. So it was really neat to win those then different labs to be part of this journey, and then, on top of this, being plant-based, that makes it even more exciting. It's a very unique study. It's wonderful to be in those studies to be the subject matter. It's really exciting. It's lovely to have this female male comparison. And of course, it's just two people, but it's still telling us a lot of stories. So we keep working with those scientists. And for this big expedition, the focus is really on this parallel journey between migratory birds, and us as humans. It's summer in the high Arctic and they're eating and they're fueling and they're having their offspring, their little ones, and at some point they got to have to be ready to fly this huge distance. So they're building up fat reserves and they're not too worried about their respiratory system. But once they start on their journeys, that changes, right?



Brighde: Yeah. I'm sure you've already thought of this, but I think we need to get a documentary done of you guys for the Alaska to Patagonia one. This could be like the next Game Changers documentary or something like that.



Leanna: Sure. That's the goal. So we do have two producers on board. And on our website, you can see a little bit of a movie trailer. That was done here by a company in Edmonton. So he created a seven minute kind of mini doc, just to get a feel for what you guys might experience once we're done.



Brighde: Incredible. So you said that the Trans-Canada ride was like a warm up, which, again, blows my mind. What were your big takeaways that you're going to apply to your first expedition from Alaska to Patagonia?



Leanna: Yeah, I think a big part of it was the vehicle support, testing out what kind of vehicle. So in this instance we had a truck pulling a trailer, which was great. It was awesome that Bill, it was his own personal vehicle, so that was great. But we camped every night. So setting up camp in the morning and at night, it just adds an extra couple of hours on an already long day. So having more of an RV style setup where Timm and I can just lie down in a bed right away, or same with all the engagements that we plan on doing, being able to have a safe area for that, is super important.



Timm: Yeah. I'd say it's all around efficiency. So we do spend the entire day on the bikes. Usually something happens, unexpected. So we start in June, and the goal is to finish in March, in the Southern Hemisphere. So it's really the progression of summer, which means there's going to be lots of fires. So there's obstacles in the way that you might not know in the morning when you start. It adds time. So efficiency is really important. Not having to camp would be an ideal scenario and it's just nice to step into a vehicle and lie down. Bill was so amazing. So there's not just a documentary. We have two world class producers from the UK now on board for the last two months, Rebecca and Ben. So they are, they're talking to production companies and really using their network to, to make this happen from a production point of view. But then there's also a virtual engagement platform. You can see the movement of birds, because we'll put little GPS devices on those birds as part of an ongoing research study, so people can see the movement of birds. So we'll record some sounds in the places we go, photos, of course, and clips really to bring people on this journey with us. So having a support vehicle just makes all the difference in order to download material and organize, and being in a position to talk to media. There's already been so much interest and I'd like to believe it's only going to increase once we're on the go. 



 



Brighde: Something, maybe this is just my sort of planning brain, thinking, the logistics of taking vehicles over borders and making sure that you align with the rules for insurance. Very often countries will have different rules for vehicles in terms of how roadworthy they need to be, or the color of the brake lights, or anything like that, because before when you did Canada, it was just one country and you were familiar with it. How do you envision trying to deal with that challenge? Or maybe it's not a challenge, I don't know.



Leanna: Yeah, so we've already started doing some pre-planning on the vehicle, the types of vehicle. For instance, we can't have a loaner vehicle. We have to have proof of ownership, especially while going into Mexico. And I would imagine it's quite the same crossing the Darien Gap as well. That's a tricky one. So we have to actually get a shipping container to ship the vehicle over or do we then trade out a vehicle? We've done a couple of long trips. We did one up to Alaska as well, and things to be aware of is just the day to day maintenance on the vehicle as well. We had to do an oil change. I think Bill had to do one as well across Canada a couple times. So the type of vehicle also will require more effort and then making sure that we can access the right parts in each country or we can get an oil change. So making sure that the vehicle is one that is in Alaska and is in South America, that if something does happen or it breaks down, that we're able to get it fixed and up and running again.



Brighde: Amazing. Incredible. I think as vegans we can all relate, like it can sometimes be a little bit of a challenge when we are traveling. I've talked about on this podcast at length about like different tips and tricks and things like that, but I do think that you probably got some fun tips to share or recommendations to share when it comes to traveling as a vegan who's consuming between four and seven thousand calories a day. May I kindly ask, what was your go to grab snack when you went to a convenience store? 



Timm: So if I can answer, we had this, is it called Louisville or Louisville jerky? And I found that absolutely delicious.



Brighde: What about you, Leanna?



Leanna: I think when I run into a convenience store, the first things that grab are usually the hummus and pretzels, and then the Kind Fuel Bar, so normally I grab one of those if I'm out of chocolate, for sure.



Brighde: And what is your favorite fruit or vegetable to like snack on the go? 



Leanna: Well, we pass many great local kind of markets, and Bill would fill up with some market carrots. I love a carrot right from the ground, it's so tasty, and the fresh blueberries and strawberries. Just nothing beats that, especially in the summer.



Timm: And you Timm? I don't know, banana is not a local product, but obviously for a bike ride, it's hard to beat a banana. 



Brighde: I agree. What was your favorite quick, easy to make dinner? Leanna, I think you did most of the cooking.



Leanna: I don't know what Timm's favorite was, but, just a bowl of pasta and then I take the Big Mountain Foods Crumble, and I just crumble it in there with a can of beans, and a can of coconut milk, and then I add my salt and my oils, and the flavoring, and keep it simple and keep it in one pot.



Brighde: Got it. Save on the washing up. I like it. I know a big part of your goal for this project is to inspire people to look at their own lives, and how they might make changes in their lives. And I think as vegans, we often think we're doing enough, but I'm sure we've all got ways that we can do a little bit more. Would you like to maybe suggest some ways that people might make some changes in their lifestyle and their travel habits that might be better for the planet? Timm?



Timm: Yeah. So I think from a scientific point of view, being plant-based is arguably the single biggest positive impact we can have on the planet. As I said earlier, if we all went plant-based, we could free up so much land to really use nature based solutions to mitigate or reduce biodiversity pollution, whatever's out there. What's really important is for people to understand, not just the impact we can have as individuals, but the opportunity to use storytelling to invite other people to join. As humans, we're not constructed to have something imposed on us. If we can use our travels and what we do, could just be a travel in a day, and the beautiful photos perhaps we're taking, and the social media which people use. Let's start embedding important messages, right? The challenge for a lot of people is to connect the dots, right? To understand the relationships between our actions, not just as individuals, but as societies and the repercussions. So planting seeds is just really important.



Brighde: I love it. Thank you. Did you want to add to that, Leanna?



Leanna: Yeah, I echo what Timm says. Also I really like showing people. So that's one of the things. I make a really good lasagna. Vegan lasagna. In Canada, we have so many options that you can make really delicious dishes. With my daughter, it's interesting to see because she's starting to ask me like, what is in a hot dog, right? She doesn't understand that's pork or that comes from an animal. She loves animals. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I don't know. I think it's, if you're vegan and you know how to make these great dishes that people might miss, that were typically more meat based, and you show them how to do it vegan, then they like that. It makes it easy for them to at least try. 



Brighde: Love it. I love it. Thank you so much. Can you tell us when you will be starting the first leg of the Wings of Survival expedition?



Timm: We are right now in a position where we do have lots of great partners. There's exploration societies, there's different organizations coming up at the sports and nature interface. There's a number of brands, there's Environment Climate Change Canada, there's NGOs like Birds Canada, for example. So we have all these wonderful partners. It's just appreciating how quick time goes, and really impact has always been at the core of what we're doing. So realistically, I don't think it's going to be 2025, but the year after, just to be able not to feel pressured into starting, but to be in the best possible position at the start in Alaska to really have maximum impact.



Brighde: I see.



So if you follow Wings of Survival and our story on social media and our website, you'll definitely see that we will have something, some fun travel and our bike plans that also help support environmental initiatives.



Well, let's talk about how people can connect with you. What are your social media handles and websites, et cetera?



Leanna: So at Wings of Survival, is our Instagram. That's where we post all this stuff about Wings of Survival. Our website is www. wingsofsurvival. com, and that's the best way to support us, is to like, share, and repost. That goes a long way as well.



Brighde: Did you want to add to that, Timm?



Timm: To listeners who are maybe interested in our story, they might feel, oh yeah, they're coming through our place. Do we want to talk? Are there ideas of what we might be doing? And yeah, we did already share a map without any text with Bill about our plan B, if we don't start the big expedition in June.



Brighde: Yes.



Timm: We can look at twelve months, but it's always, do we start in June, 2025 or the year after? So yeah, if people are interested, we always love to talk and see if there's ways to connect and make this more impactful. For us, it's really about transformative change that we would like to see. Yeah. Feel free to reach out to anyone.



Brighde: Yes, and any listeners that feel that they can connect Leanna and Timm with some people or media or anything like that, that could be helpful in getting some more media for Wings of Survival. I'm sure Timm and Leanna would not say no to that, so please think deep and try to connect Leanna and Timm with anyone that can share the word about this incredible adventure. I want to thank you both so much for taking time to be on the World Vegan Travel Podcast. I can't wait to see what you get up to. And if we can have you on the podcast again at some point with either an update or after another big trip or after the first expedition is done, then I would love to have you both joining me again.



Leanna: Yeah, thanks so much for having us.



Timm: Yeah. Thank you



Brighde: Thank you.