Kara McKenzie is an Atlantic puffin woman born and raised in Newfoundland, and currently living in St. John's, though she'd rather be on the west coast of the island. She's deeply attached to the province in the particular way that permits her to praise it enthusiastically to visitors while complaining about it herself with considerably greater authority. Newfoundland is beautiful, fascinating, culturally rich, and home. The weather is still ridiculous.

Kara works in destination development for Tourism Newfoundland and Labrador, helping communities develop the things that make people want to visit without sanding away everything that made those places interesting in the first place. Her work takes her around the province to small towns, trails, festivals, heritage sites, and coastal communities, where she might spend one day discussing signage and visitor infrastructure and the next trying to explain why putting a giant fiberglass something beside the highway is not necessarily a complete tourism strategy.

She genuinely enjoys the work. Kara loves introducing people to places they might otherwise drive straight past, particularly communities that don't appear on the standard list of Newfoundland attractions. She's interested in local history, food, landscapes, and the peculiar little stories that accumulate around places over generations. Her job also means she knows an unreasonable number of scenic pull-offs, good lunch spots, obscure walking trails, and public washrooms across the island.

Practical, friendly, and quick-witted, Kara has very little patience for people who treat Newfoundland as either an untouched wilderness or one enormous quaint fishing village. She's equally unimpressed by the assumption that being a puffin makes her some sort of provincial mascot. She has heard every puffin joke. She has posed beside every puffin statue. She knows exactly where the giant puffin is. No, she does not want another photograph with it.

Outside work, Kara likes coastal walks, live music, local restaurants, road trips, and getting out around the island when she can do so without having to produce a report afterward. She loves the ocean and hates being cold, two facts that coexist inconveniently in Newfoundland for much of the year. Her wardrobe consequently contains an impressive quantity of layers.

Kara has traveled enough to know that Newfoundland isn't the center of the universe.

She just sees no compelling reason the universe couldn't have arranged things that way. 🐧🌊