115 Letter from Karla Boluk
Personal Reflection
I will begin by saying that I am Canadian and an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, in Canada. I spent 10 years oversees studying in New Zealand, engaging in field work in South Africa, and I took up two, two-year international appointments in Sweden and then the UK. I started my appointment at the University of Waterloo in 2014. I am also, a partner and mother of two girls (Grace (4) and Adelaide (2)), a daughter and sister to my older brother and sister who both live close by.
Growing Interest in Tourism
I grew up in a small city about an hour away from Toronto. As a child, I was obsessed with synchronized swimming and naturally like many other children who idolize athletes, I had the ambition of going to the Olympics. Competing allowed me the opportunity to travel quite a bit within Canada. I prioritized choosing a university for its academic programming in tourism. Unfortunately, this meant there was no synchronized swimming team; however shortly after I arrived, I was approached by some members of the community who asked me to start a team; and I did. I created a synchronized swimming team in my first year of my undergrad, while simultaneously swimming on the varsity swim team. I became the team captain and coached several recreational and competitive synchro teams within and outside of the university.
Both of my parents were teachers, so my siblings and I enjoyed having them around full time on holidays and during the summer months. We spent time as a family travelling in Canada when my parents were free from work related responsibilities. We travelled with our family pop-up trailer around Ontario, neighbouring provinces, and some parts of the US. I recall my mom encouraging me to journal, allowing me to reflect on some of places we had visited, what I had learned about the places and peoples we visited, and create a save space for a few memories or mementos collected along the way. We also holidayed at our family cottage in south eastern Ontario. These experiences are likely what sparked my enthusiasm to pursue a tourism degree. I recall noticing differences year after year to the cottage communities I visited, particularly with the increasing volume of people visiting the small towns and crowding on the beaches.
My initial summer job was at a convenient store and meat market not far from our family cottage. It was at that time I started to gain some firsthand understanding about some of the growing resentment toward the infiltration of American visitors renting and/or buying cottages in the area, driving real estate and rental prices up. Further, I witnessed growing frustrations expressed by locals regarding the increased volume of visitors; contributing to congestion and wait times for services. Since returning to Canada after being overseas for a decade, my work has been driven by an interest in revisiting some of the tourism districts in which I spent a great deal of time