Who is Lois:
Lois is currently our Product Manager and she takes care of sending out our company newsletter. She joined the Great Canadian Travel team in March 2000, starting out as an airfare specialist, then represented Icelandair in Canada, handled Sales & Marketing as well as specializing in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Norway and expedition cruises in the Arctic and Antarctic. She continues to handle travel reservations for a few of her clients.
Lois grew up on a farm near Forrest, MB and moved to Winnipeg to attend university pursuing a phys-ed degree, then obtained a travel diploma from Angus College. Since graduating she worked in the industry as a travel consultant, a reservations agent/fares specialist for Canadian Airlines and in the sales/ticketing office for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
Lois married Yianni in 1993 in a tiny, country chapel in Greece and they have two daughters, Lea and Giorgia. They live in Winnipeg and travel frequently to Greece to visit family and friends there. She and her daughters are ardent Winnipeg Jets fans and cheer on the Toronto Blue Jays, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Winnipeg Goldeyes, Canada’s men’s and women’s volleyball teams and Canadian tennis players. During Euro Cup 2016, Lois became a big fan of the Icelandic soccer team – Afram Island!
One of Lois’ favourite places to travel to is Ireland – even her profile picture is taken there, sitting on the Iron Throne from the Game of Thrones, in a little pub in Northern Ireland. Her maternal grandmother and all her other great-grandparents emigrated from County Antrim, so this is a very special place for her. But, she loves the whole island and all of the incredible experiences it holds, especially its people, its pubs and traditional music and its delicious, locally sourced and organic food.
What are Lois’ TOP 5 travel experiences:
- Climbing Ayers Rock (now called Uluru) at dawn, and looking out over the ancient lands of the Aboriginals of central Australia. Much to the disappointment of one of the people on our group, there was no Coke machine at the top.
- Sailing into the fjords of Torngat National Park in northern Labrador. I had no idea there was anywhere like that in Canada – stunning!
- Visiting the monasteries of Meteora in central Greece, the cliff-side villages of Santorini, the ancient sites of Knossos in Crete, Mycenae and Olympia in the Peloponnese, skiing on Mt. Parnassos in the morning and having lunch in the afternoon beside the sea. Greece is amazing.
- Hiking the Samaria Gorge in Crete and the Milford Track in New Zealand – completely different hikes, but both incredible experiences.
- Backpacking through Europe for almost a year; from Greece in the south to the northern tip of Scotland, Bergen Norway to the beaches of the Algarve in Portugal. A better education than any classroom could ever give!
What is Lois’ closing comment:
“In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But, in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories”.
– Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes: It’s a Magical World
So, go outside and play whenever you can! Life is too short to regret what you could have, would have, should have done!