[4] The McGuffins are noted primarily for their popular paddle sports instructional books on canoeing and kayaking,[5] and their documentary film based on their research about the Group of Seven artists.
In 2003, they were the recipients of the Premier's Award and the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal[7] for wilderness preservation and environmental education achievements for their province and their country.
[8] Their college education propelled them into their career through skill sets such as wilderness expeditions, writing, outdoor clothing and equipment design.
[10] Shortly after getting married in April 1983, the McGuffins went on the world's longest honeymoon: a two-year canoe trip across Canada from the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the Arctic Ocean.
Upon returning from the wilderness, they were inundated with requests to give presentations, talks and interviews about their trip, including one from Peter Gzowski, a well-known Canadian broadcaster and writer.
[11][12][13][14] In 1986, McGuffins continued their self-propelled exploration of Canada when they embarked on a 7,500 mile (12,000 km) bicycling journey from Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories to L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.
Challenges faced included frostbite in the -40-degree weather on the Ice Road, avoiding grizzly bear encounters on the Dempster, enduring severe knee pain on 1500 miles of bone-jarring, unpaved roads, sheltering from hail storms on the prairies, having close encounters with log hauling trucks in British Columbia and northern Ontario, and surviving frigid late autumn weather in Newfoundland off the Strait of Belle Isle.
It is renowned by mariners for its late autumn storms that can create seas more challenging than the open ocean as immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot’s song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The McGuffins three-month-long, 1,200 mile canoe trip route from Algonquin Park to Lake Superior was based in part on the work of Dr. Peter Quinby and the Ancient Forest Exploration & Research Organization.
The route linked key parks, major rivers and connected many of the remaining ancient forests to demonstrate the ecological and recreational values.
This route also followed the same rivers and lakes travelled and written about by the most famous conservationist of the 1930s—an Englishman, Archie Belaney, who lived in a reimagined life as an Indian named Grey Owl.
Before setting off on the journey, the McGuffins garnered the support of MSAT, Apple, Canon, Kodak and Nissan to enable unique virtual participation from the wilderness.
Monte Hummel, WWF Canada President wrote in the Forward "In the end Lands for Life produced a "Living Legacy" of 378 new or expanded parks ….
[23] In 2009, the McGuffins published Quetico: Into The Wild with Chrismar Publications to celebrate the Centennial anniversary of Ontario’s second oldest provincial park.
The organization's members include the David Suzuki Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Science North, the City of Sault Ste.
LSWC's land acquisitions in Northern Ontario to protect wilderness areas for the future generations include preserves located in Prince Township, on Goulais Bay, and off the coast of Cape Gargantua, Lake Superior Provincial Park.
They have travelled on foot and by canoe into Algonquin, Georgian Bay, Algoma and the Lake Superior North Shore seeking the exact sites immortalized in their paintings made a century ago.
In partnership with American Friends of Canadian Land Trusts, the Gargantua 20-islands Preserve off the coast of Lake Superior Provincial Park remain an integral part of a pristine, undeveloped coastline.