Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast

Award-winning journalist and best-selling author, Roy MacGregor discusses the history of the canoe and how it continues to capture the imaginations of people across Canada and beyond

Canoeing legend Wally Schaber talks about his lifelong love of the Dumoine River, the last of the wild rivers in the Ottawa river watershed

As NASA and the world’s space agencies prepare to return to the moon, geologist Dr. Gordon "Oz" Osinsky helps train potential lunar explorers in remote northern Labrador on what they could find there

Connie Walker discusses her late father’s experience of abuse as a First Nations child at St Michael's Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan

During the pandemic, it’s safe to say most of us spent some time self-isolating, but not quite in the way our guest today did. Polar explorer and RCGS Fellow Sunniva Sorby spent over a year and a half, including two long winters, in an uninsulated 1930 trapper’s hut on the Arctic island of Svalbard, which is halfway to the North Pole from northern Norway. Along with her Norwegian colleague, Hilde Falun Strom, they set a record with their all-women project, called Hearts in the Ice, for their time spent in their isolated outpost while doing scientific research for NASA, the Norwegian Polar Institute and the British Columbia Technical Institute, among others. Their work focused on bringing attention to the massive impact climate change is having on our polar regions. And now they are about to do another Hearts in the Ice project, this time at Cambridge Bay in Canada’s High Arctic. Born in Norway and raised in Canada, Sunniva Sorby has spent decades carrying out expeditions in the Arctic and especially the

This episode is about the incredible journey of a group of new Canadians. Former child soldiers who fought in Sudan during Africa's bloodiest civil war were shipped off to Cuba and finally found refuge in Canada — many of them in Brooks, Alta. Our guest is Canadian anthropologist and author Carol Berger, who spent 20 years gathering the stories of former child soldiers in South Sudan, East Africa, Canada and beyond, for her new book The Child Soldiers of Africa's Red Army. Two million people died in Sudan’s Civil War from 1983 to 2005, a conflict that eventually led to the creation of a new nation, South Sudan. The tens of thousands of child soldiers made to fight in that war came to be known as the “Lost Boys.” As we discuss in this conversation, they were never really “lost,” but rather stolen by the same leaders who are now heading up the government of South Sudan, and who continue to press children into the conflicts that have flared up since. As well as being an anthropologist and author, during th

I'm thrilled to have Christian Stenner, one of Canada’s leading cave explorers and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, as our guest on this episode of Explore. It's the International Year of Caves and Karst, which is why we wanted to have Christian on the podcast now. But given the mind boggling stories he has, the tight squeezes he's been through, he's definitely welcome anytime. As one of Canada’s top cavers, Christian has been part of many of the most important cave expeditions in this country, and beyond, over the past decade. These include the exploration of Bisaro Anima in British Columbia, where he and his team proved it was the deepest cave anywhere in Canada or the U.S. He has also led expeditions in the Castleguard cave, Canada’s longest, and inside active volcanoes in the U.S. Pacific Northwest like Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier. And those experiences led to him becoming one of the first grantees of the Society’s Trebek Initiative in 2021. He’ll be using those resour

We’re thrilled to have Ray Zahab back on the podcast. He was our very first guest back in 2019. Give that one a listen if you want a great overview of his amazing career as an extreme athlete and expedition leader travelling to some of the hottest, coldest, most remote parts of our planet. His latest expedition, a traverse of Ellesmere Island on foot and by ski in the depths of the Arctic winter, fits right into that mould. What I love about this conversation is not just hearing what he saw and about the immense challenges he faced along with his partner Kevin Vallely and their team, but also his decision-making process in calling a temporary halt to that expedition in the face of far worse-than-expected winter conditions. And, how that decision making process has changed in his 20-plus years taking on these extreme kinds of journeys.

When Moose Jaw, Sask. comedy duo “Leroy and Leroy” began posting their short video hot-takes on Instagram and TikTok in 2021, their hope was to get up to 10,000 followers. Just over a year later, their quirky videos highlighting the odd sites and signs found along Canada’s roadways now have hundreds of thousands of followers and over 12 million views on TikTok alone. In the process they’ve helped bring some much needed comic relief to the world, while road-tripping back and forth across Canada, signing off with their signature catch phrase: “There’s Always Something to Do!” In this interview, David and “Leroy in front of the camera” talk about the duo’s origins, the creation of that catchphrase, the legend of Brandon (Leroy and Leroy’s Pete Best), the moment they knew they’d taken off, Leroy’s fashion sense and where they’re headed next (look out mid-west America!).

It’s always fun when one of our RCGS Explorers-in-Residence comes on the podcast; they’re always up to the most fascinating things. That’s especially true of Jill Heinerth. An internationally acclaimed cave diver, bestselling author, and award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jill has been spending the pandemic exploring Canada’s longest underwater cave system, underneath the Ottawa River, just northwest of the nation’s capital and down the road from her house. What she found there is remarkable: “The most dense biomass I've ever seen in a freshwater cave.” Heinerth takes us into those caves to reveal the remarkable life inside. And she previews her forthcoming RCGS-flagged expedition diving around the coast of Newfoundland, which includes the incredible story of Lanier Phillips, an African-American sailor in the Second World War who survived the sinking of his ship off the coast of Newfoundland, got ashore and expected to be lynched by the locals, but instead was rescued and nursed back to health, sparking lif

Severn Cullis-Suzuki, the new Executive Director of the David Suzuki Foundation, has been an environmental activist for almost as long as she can remember. That isn’t surprising when you consider that her father is David Suzuki, Canada’s leading environmentalist and longtime host of CBC’s much-loved show The Nature of Things. Cullis-Suzuki’s moment in the environmental spotlight came early. It was 30 years ago this year when, at the age of 12, she gave world leaders a dressing down about the state of the environment in a speech at the Earth Summit, the first ever UN Climate Change Conference in Rio. We talk about that viral moment in a pre-social media age, and how its echoes are found in the words and actions of today’s young environmental activists, like Greta Thunberg. We also discuss what it’s like to fill her father’s very big shoes at the foundation that carries his name. And, as the RCGS marks the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages, we get into her immersion in Haida culture on Haida Gwaii, off t

“To protect the Arctic is to protect the rest of the world.” So says Lisa Koperqualuk, Vice-President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, in this fascinating episode about the challenges faced by Inuit communities in the Arctic today. Koperqualuk discusses the impacts of climate change in the Arctic, the need to regulate Arctic shipping, the importance of speaking Inuktitut, and her experiences growing up a small village in Nunavik, on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, as the granddaughter of legendary Inuit artist Aisa Koperqualuk. He was a major influence in her life and her career focused on preserving Inuit communities and culture. To this day, she carries his advice to her as she faces down a long list of challenges: “Continue.”

Musician and politician Charlie Angus is our guest this episode, talking about his new book, Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower. It is a fresh look at his Northern Ontario hometown of Cobalt and its silver mining boom in the early 1900s, which he says changed not only Canadian mining, but how mining has been carried out around the globe ever since — and not always for the better. For the lucky, the Cobalt silver rush built fortunes. It turned Toronto from a provincial backwater into a world financial and mining hub. It was a factor in the eventual creation of the National Hockey League, the inspiration for a Broadway play and drew immigrants from countries as far flung as Syria and China. But its legacy is a murky one, which Angus’ book brings into the light. The book also reveals neglected histories of the centuries of Indigenous mining that went on in the north long before European settlers arrived. Charlie Angus is the longtime New Democratic Party MP for Timmins-James B

We’re thrilled to have Perry Bellegarde on the podcast, the new Honorary President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society You likely also know Bellegarde from his time as a transformational National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 2014 to 2021, where he helped push key legislation through parliament, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and the Indigenous Languages Act, just to name a couple. He is a proud member of the Little Black Bear First Nation in Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan. Last year he was named Nation Builder of the Year by the Empire Club for his "record of achievement built over 35 years in First Nations leadership and advocacy for Indigenous rights, human rights, and building bridges within Canada and globally." In this lively and fascinating episode he discusses growing up in Little Black Bear, his time in First Nations politics, the importance of indigenous languages, culture and ceremony, and his new role with RCGS.

It’s hard to think of a person who has written with more passion about Canada, and in as many different mediums, as Dave Bidini. You might know him as the songwriter and frontman of the Rheostatics – that most Canadian of Canadian bands — or for his best-selling books On a Cold Road, The Tropic of Hockey, Keon and Me or Midnight Light, or from his award-winning journalism and documentaries, or for his latest endeavour, the West End Phoenix, a community newspaper he founded in Toronto. The Phoenix is a bold effort to fill the void caused when big newspaper chains started closing down community newspapers. With a focus on great reporting and storytelling, it features guest writers like Margaret Atwood and Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson. The interview also gets into why the Yellowknifer newspaper in the N.W.T. was the inspiration for the Phoenix, and touches on Dave’s deep love of the Toronto Maple Leafs, a special moment with Wendel Clark, and a possible cause of the Leafs’ decades-long Stanley Cup curse.

Today we’re lucky to be talking to Dr. Daniel Pauly, professor of marine biology at the University of British Columbia, the leading expert on the declining state of the world's fisheries and something of a philosopher. Fish is the last wild catch: the last animal food source we hunt and eat en masse from the wild. But Daniel Pauly warns that we are rapidly approaching the end of fish due to industrial fishing methods, government subsidization of corporate fishing operations, and climate change. The French-born marine biologist has dedicated his long and award-winning career to improving the data that’s used to understand global marine stocks, especially in the developing world, where illegal fishing is rampant. This is the principal aim of the Sea Around Us initiative that he helped found at UBC. More accurate data helps better pinpoint where fisheries are collapsing and how best to protect them with ocean reserves, government regulation and a shift from industrial fishing operations back to smaller, tr

With this December marking the 100th anniversary of Agnes Macphail becoming the first woman elected to the Canadian Parliament, Explore welcomes one of the most prominent female political figures of our present day to the podcast. Before stepping back from public life in the fall of 2021, Catherine McKenna was a federal Minister of Industry and Minister of the Environment in the government of Justin Trudeau. She was lead Canadian negotiator and signatory of the Paris Climate Accord, and got federal carbon pricing legislation passed by Parliament. In this engaging and thoughtful conversation, she discusses the joys and challenges of being a woman in politics today, how to make politics more inclusive, what needs to be done to shut down the threats and hate of internet trolls, where things stand with the environment after the Glasgow Climate Conference, and why she is passionate about open- and cold-water swimming.

We're thrilled to welcome Emily Choy, the newest RCGS Explorer-in-Residence, to the Explore Podcast. Based out of McGill University, Emily is an award-winning expert on the impacts of climate change on the Arctic, with a focus on a sea-bird called murres. Emily describes her summers on Coats Island in Hudson's Bay, studying a colony of 30,000 murres that nest high on the island's barren cliffs. Looking like a cross between a penguin and a puffin, these remarkable sea birds can dive up to 100 metres deep while hunting for fish. Emily explains how summer heatwaves are seeing murres die in their nests from heat exhaustion, and how they are being forced to change their diet as their staple food source, Arctic cod, shifts north searching for colder waters. She also describes how her passion for nature was nurtured at her grandparents’ cottage near Lake Simcoe, her time spent studying beluga whales, and why she sees her role as a Black female scientist as an important one, especially in her work in the North.

Viola Desmond was arrested 75 years ago this month for refusing to leave her seat in the “whites only” section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. This brave stand by a Black Nova Scotian against the segregation rules of the day in Nova Scotia would inspire future generations to break down the racist structures that had been suppressing Black people in Canada for centuries. George Elliott Clarke, Canada’s former Poet Laureate, is intimately familiar with that world. His family roots stretch back centuries to the earliest days of Black Nova Scotia, which is the subject of his latest book, Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir. “One of the great things about being Africadian,” Clarke says, “is no matter the oppression, and the racism and the apartheid, what made our communities special is that we had communities, we had land, we had homes, we had neighbours who had the same struggles you had, who could share their resources with you, who shared your faith, and all of a sudden you've got

The UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow is being described as a critical moment in human history, as our ability to reverse global warming reaches a point of no return. Harvey Locke is in Glasgow, leading the charge against biodiversity loss, and linking it firmly to climate change. As a leader of the "Nature Needs Half" movement, Locke and a growing number of experts believe that the way to reverse both climate change and biodiversity loss is to set aside half of the world's natural places, and let nature be nature. Locke explains why this is both possible and necessary, and discusses his own grassroots experiences as the co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. Based in Banff, Alta., Locke has dedicated his life to conserving the world’s wild spaces. He is also the Chair of the Beyond Aichi Targets Task Force and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.