Erik Bjarnason is a career firefighter with the North Vancouver City Fire Department, a long-time member of North Shore Rescue and an avid mountaineer. He has climbed mountains in Africa, Europe, Asia, North America and South America, completed a month-long dogsled trip in the Arctic to the magnetic North Pole and explored the entire length of the Amazon from the highest point in Bolivia to the Atlantic Ocean. He has been on expeditions to five of the Seven Summits (including Everest, which he did after he lost his fingers on Mount Logan). He lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia.