Mariners and ships at sea are part of author Elle Andra-Warner's personal history. Her Estonian-born great uncle, Konstantin Andreus, was a mariner (meremees) who was awarded medals for bravery and heroism at sea. Her father, Jüri Jürivee, also sailed the seas, first with the Estonian Merchant Marine (pre-1940) and after the Second World War as an officer with the British Merchant Marine on the ship ÄKSI. As a young child, Elle remembers going with her mother, Regina, to English ports to meet her father, and also occasionally sailing on the ÄKSI.

Born in a post-war Estonian displaced persons camp in Europe, Elle lived for a time in England, then came to Canada with her parents in the 1950s, settling on the Lake Superior shoreline in Port Arthur, Ontario (now part of the city of Thunder Bay). The sounds and sights of lake freighters - like the Edmund Fitzgerald - were an everyday part of her Canadian childhood.

A graduate of Lakehead University, Elle is the author of three books for Altitude Publishing's Amazing Stories series: The Mounties: Tales of Danger and Adventure from the Early Days;Robert Service: A Great Canadian Poet's Romance with the North; and Hudson's Bay Company: The Rollicking Saga of Canada's Fur Traders. She is also a travel journalist/photographer, a freelance feature writer, and a seminar speaker.

Elle resides in Thunder Bay with her husband, Glenn, and daughter Cindi, but travels often to Alberta and British Columbia to visit her other two daughters, Tania and Tami.