Gilly Hernández

Gilly Hernández was just a hatchling when her family left the canals of Xochimilco for Canada, leaving her with nothing but passed-down stories and a permanent craving for cool water. Now 32, she’s turned that obsession into a career in freshwater conservation. She’s the person who will spot a camouflaged tree frog everyone else missed, or casually slip into a lake for an hour just to clear her head.

She lives with Emma Sinclair, a local schoolteacher she met at a shoreline cleanup years ago. Their life together is delightfully low-key: weekend hikes, quiet nights on the couch, and frequent, unplanned detours whenever Gilly spots a promising marsh. Emma is used to walks turning into impromptu biology lessons, and she never blinks when Gilly needs to just float face-up in a pond after a rough day.