Laura Reeves

Laura grew up just north of Winnipeg where she spent a lot of her free time roaming fields and forests, and hanging out at the local provincial park. After her second year into a Botany degree at the University of Manitoba, she got her dream summer job of working as a prairie technician on the Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve, a now ~24,000-acre Preserve in southeastern Manitoba. She instantly fell in love with the landscape and community and continued working as the botanist for the Preserve for 18 years.

During that time, she participated in many prescribed fires alongside the Manitoba Naturalists Society (now Nature Manitoba), the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Minnesota, which would often bring personnel and equipment across the border to help with the burns.

In 2012, Laura started her own business, Prairie Shore Botanicals, through which she runs classes and plant walks focused on local plant uses, provides environmental consulting services, and operates a native prairie and woodland plant nursery.

Laura and her husband, Tony, own 240 acres of mixed prairie and woodlands adjacent to the Preserve, of which 130 acres are under a conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. They have conducted a few, small controlled burns since 2008, but haven't had the resources to achieve the scale of burning necessary to preserve the integrity of the prairie habitats. Until now...