Board

2025 DIRECTORS

2025 OFFICERS

Megan Cameron-Jones

Joan Eamer

Rebecca Furnell

Nola Johnston

Rich Ketchen

Sarah Kopjar

Rolf Lutje

Barry Moerkerken

Hugh Skinner (Past President)

Joshua Sohn

Alison Thomas

Cathie Traill

President: Sarah Kopjar

Vice President:

Treasurer: Rich Ketchen

Secretary: Megan Cameron-Jones

Megan Cameron-Jones

Megan has served as a Corporate Secretary for +35 years, providing regulatory and management services to public companies in addition to serving as a director on various junior gold company boards. She moved from North Vancouver to Gabriola in 2020 and now only leaves the island grudgingly. Megan spends much of her free time walking her odd little crew of dogs on the island’s trails.

Joan Eamer

Joan is a biologist with experience in water pollution, climate change impacts, environmental assessment and habitat conservation. After university and jobs with the BC Government on aquatic habitat studies and impacts from mining, her work has been mainly related to Arctic terrestrial and marine ecosystems: in northern Canada with Environment Canada and internationally with the United Nations Environment Programme. She moved to Gabriola in 2011 and continues to work as a consultant, though only occasionally these days – as dabbling in art and music has rather taken over. She and her husband Ted share a home with their daughter and teenagers, conveniently located adjacent to the 707 park.

Rebecca Furnell

Rebecca was raised on Gabriola and has fond childhood memories of forest walks and tide pool explorations. She left the island to attend university in Nanaimo and Ontario, and moved back in 2009 after three years of “when we move back to the West coast” conversations with her other half, Alex. Since then, Rebecca has lived in a “yome”; built a unique house using many local materials; grown food at the Commons, at home, and at other people’s houses; enjoyed swimming in the ocean; worked at a variety of jobs on the island; been a trustee for the Gabriola Commons Foundation and board member of GaLTT, and most recently opened a café & catering business with Alex and her childhood best friend and her partner. Rebecca is an avid walker of the many trails of Gabriola (and beyond, when time permits). As a GaLTT board member Rebecca hopes to help preserve what we have for future generations and engage with the community in building fascination and respect for our local natural world.

Nola Johnston

Nola would almost always prefer be outdoors in nature than anywhere else, and is passionate about protecting natural places. She worked as a graphic designer and illustrator with a strong focus on interpretive/educational design projects for provincial, territorial and national government agencies. She taught graphic design courses at Emily Carr University and BCIT for many years as a contract instructor. She has explored a good deal of BC while hiking, camping, canoeing and skiing, was a provincially certified canoeing instructor, and has served on the board of the Recreational Canoeing Association of BC as Newsletter Editor and a member of the Environmental Committee. She and her partner moved to Gabriola in 2008. She loves spending time enjoying local trails, whether alone or with friends. (After getting hopelessly lost in the 707 on her first hike there, she set herself to learn every trail, official or otherwise, and might have succeeded if people didn’t keep making new ones.)

Rich Ketchen

A retired accountant, business executive and financial communication consultant, Rich brings a broad range of skills and interests to the board. He has served as a director and officer of the Victoria Festival of Authors Society, Peninsula Streams Society and West Vancouver Streamkeepers Society, and a volunteer removing invasive species for the District of Saanich. An avid cyclist, Rich has enjoyed cycling on and off-road on Gabriola since he and his wife Janet purchased property on Gabriola in 2023.

Sarah Kopjar

Sarah and her husband Randy bought their property on Gabriola in 2006. The trails on Gabriola are one of the many wonderful things that attracted her to the island and supporting GaLTT was an early contribution. Since moving to Gabriola full time in 2015, she has explored many trails and volunteered with GaLTT. Sarah has diverse work experience ranging from painting murals to managing the front store of a small pharmacy and volunteering on several education related committees. A love of cooking, gardening and walking makes Gabriola the perfect place to be.

Rolf Lutje

After having lived in Squamish for a number of years, Rolf, his wife Monica and their dog Lucy moved to Gabriola Island in 2023. Rolf has worked in front line and leadership roles in the mountain resort/recreation business, worked for Mt Seymour Resorts, Whistler Blackcomb, Technical Safety BC and a short stint with BC Parks. These roles included working in: mountain resort operations, maintenance, construction and safety oversight. Rolf was also an active volunteer member of ground and marine search and rescue organizations (RCMSAR, North Shore Rescue).

Having worked and recreated in the mountains for many years, Rolf has seen firsthand the effects of climate change. He believes it is important to encourage people to actively experience the natural outdoors and develop a sense of environmental stewardship.

His prime recreational activity, besides lying on the couch with the remote, is playing in the outdoors. He has discovered that on Gabriola the skiing is not great but it does have a plethora of interesting and scenic trails worth exploring. Rolf and Lucy walk the trails daily and hope to soon introduce Milo (recent canine addition to the family) to all that the Island has to offer.

Barry Moerkerken

Barry grew up in North Vancouver and moved to Gabriola in 2004 from Maple Ridge. He enjoyed the many trails and the easy access to the outdoors that both those communities offered but living on Gabriola combines that with a much more relaxed life-style. He has worked in construction management for nearly 40 years all across this country and internationally, and enjoyed the feeling of coming home to Gabriola and walking the dogs on the many trails built and maintained by GaLTT and enjoying all that this island has to offer. Now retired, he wants to give back and help contribute to the great work that GaLTT does. He enjoys traveling and exploring the many fascinating parts of the world.

Hugh Skinner

Hugh Skinner and his wife Lou, bought property on Gabriola Island in 2008 and moved here full-time in 2016 upon retirement. He feels that our island has a unique ecology and geology that benefits from a compatible trail system, enabling a rich variety of exploration opportunities. Upon moving to Gabriola, Hugh quickly came to realize that the Gabriola Land and Trails Trust (GaLTT) most closely matched his values and retirement goals. He initially became involved with Trails work, including vegetation trimming and trail building. This evolved into beginning to realize the necessity of invasives species control and joining GaLTT’s invasives removal efforts. These volunteer efforts matured into being elected by the GaLTT membership to become a Board director in 2021. Over the past few years he has been an active member on several of GaLTT’s committees and subcommittees including: Accessibility, Conservation, Executive, Finance, Invasives, and Trails. Hugh is currently GaLTT’s President. He feels that frequent education and communication with the whole Gabriola community will enable us all to retain an enhanced natural environment for the future.

Joshua Sohn

Joshua grew up in Ontario and moved to Vancouver in 1988. He raised his family in East Van and they spent summer holidays exploring various Gulf Islands. Joshua and his partner, Heather, bought their home on Gabriola in 2017. After practising immigration law for over 25 years, Joshua retired and they moved to Gabriola full-time in 2020. The GaLTT winter walks helped introduce them to new trails on Gabriola and they continue to enjoy walking the many island trails and beaches. Joshua has been volunteering with GaLTT’s invasives removal work parties as well as Gabriola Shore-Keepers.

Alison Thomas

Alison came to BC from the UK in the 1990s, teaching sociology for 25 years first at the University of Victoria and then at Douglas College in the Lower Mainland. In 2010 she and her husband Nigel started exploring the idea of retiring to one of the Gulf Islands and once they discovered Gabriola and its wonderful network of walking trails the decision to settle here was an easy one. Though they bought their Gabriola home in 2013 they didn’t move here until 2018 and Alison spent several years commuting back to the Lower Mainland weekly to teach part-time, before retiring at the end of 2020. Having already started taking part in invasives work parties, in 2021 she joined both the Invasives Species and Community Engagement committees, becoming Chair of the former in 2022. Her decision to commit time to GaLTT reflects her lifelong passion for the great outdoors and her awareness of the need to protect and preserve the natural environment of this beautiful island.

Cathie Traill

Cathie and her husband, Rob, moved to Gabriola in the fall of 2023 from the Sunshine Coast and were fortunate to purchase a property adjacent to a GaLTT Trails Licence. One of the many things that attracted Cathie and Rob to Gabriola was the extensive trail network and one of the first things they did upon moving here was to support GaLTT with a five-year family membership. It was on the Wednesday Walks that Cathie met Hugh and Lou Skinner and when asked by Lou, Cathie joined the Community Engagement Committee. Since joining the Community Engagement Committee, Cathie has volunteered at Invasives, Trails and the Saturday Market table. Upon learning about invasive species Cathie and her husband have worked on removing invasives from their property and are looking at options to re-naturalize a portion of their land. Cathie’s interests include cooking, reading and walking Gabriola’s trails with her husband and their two dogs.