Explore: A Canadian Geographic podcast

“One of the main reasons we travel is to be different, hopefully better, versions of ourselves.”

For Eric Weiner, travel has always been a way to pursue the big questions: What makes us happy, creative, wise, and fully alive? 

He has spent much of his career exploring the intersection of place and big ideas. A former NPR foreign correspondent, he reported from more than 30 countries before turning his attention to philosophical travel: journeys in search of happiness, faith, creativity, wisdom and awe.

He is the New York Times...

“To be in a relationship with a place is a very complex and beautiful dynamic.”

Bestselling author, explorer and master storyteller James Raffan returns to Explore to discuss his new book, Echo Maker: Craig Macdonald and the Lives That Produced One of Canada’s Most Significant Historical Maps.

The book tells the remarkable story of Craig Macdonald, a quiet and determined ethno-geographer who spent decades travelling through the Temagami region of northern Ontario and learning from Teme-Augama Anishnabai elders. Through hundreds of conversations and journeys by canoe, snowshoe and dogsled, Macdonald documented traditional place...

"In my mind, when I want to relax, I take myself back to the Wind River."

Tetlit Gwich'in means people of the headwaters, and Bobbi Rose Koe is on a mission to live up to her people's name.

Born and raised in the Tetlit Gwich'in community of Fort McPherson, on the Peel River north of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, Koe spent her childhood with her grandparents, who regularly took her hunting and fishing out on the land. When she reached her mid-20s, she translated those skills into gui...

Raised on Newfoundland’s west coast, Jenn Thornhill Verma grew up immersed in the life and lore of fishing communities and the rhythms of the North Atlantic. She is the author of the bestselling book Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, a contributor to Canadian Geographic, and a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where she recently reported a series for the Globe and Mail on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

In this episode of Explore, Thornhill Verma and podcast host David McGuffin discuss the legacy of the cod fi...

Raised on Newfoundland’s west coast, Jenn Thornhill Verma grew up immersed in the life and lore of fishing communities and the rhythms of the North Atlantic. She is the author of the bestselling book Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, a contributor to Canadian Geographic, and a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where she recently reported a series for the Globe and Mail on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

In this episode of Explore, Thornhill Verma and podcast host David McGuffin discuss the legacy of the cod fi...

What does a ship that sank a century ago off the Florida Keys have to do with the birth of the Royal Canadian Navy?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Before there was a Royal Canadian Navy, there was the HMCS Canada, a steel-hulled vessel that trained Canada's first naval officers, escorted First World War convoys, survived the Halifax Explosion, and helped lay the foundations of a young nation's naval service. Yet despite its remarkable legacy, most Canadians have never heard of it.

In this episode...

What do endless prairie highways, a runaway tour bus, a hockey stick used as cruise control, and one of the greatest Canadian rock bands of all time have in common?

Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman have the stories.

From overpacked motel rooms on the road, to their tour bus almost going off a cliff in B.C., to witnessing polar bear attacks in Churchill, to revealing the real inspiration behind hits like American Woman and Undun, Bachman and Cummings share unforgettable stories from more than six decades of music, friendship, and l...

In this episode of Explore, host David McGuffin sits down with lawyer, conservationist, former senior aide to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and one of Canada's most accomplished Arctic paddlers, Ted Johnson.

For more than two decades, Johnson and a remarkable group of friends, including diplomats, journalists, cabinet ministers, and occasionally Pierre Trudeau himself, set out each summer to canoe some of the most remote rivers in northern Canada. 

From the Hood and Coppermine rivers to little-known rivers on Banks Island and Ellesmere Island, Johnson shares stories of first descents, close calls, v...

"There's a humility in this kind of travel. You don't pretend to adapt the world to you. You adapt to the world." — Bruno Forest

In the summer of 2025, Bruno Forest and his team of five others pushed their canoes into the waters of the Saguenay Fjord, setting out on an extraordinary 1,200-kilometre journey, paddling from Tadoussac on the St. Lawrence River to Waskaganish on James Bay.

But this wasn't simply a wilderness expedition.

Travelling in hand-built cedar canvas canoes by Forest and veteran artisans, he and his crew retraced a...

“There’s something really profound in being in such a vast landscape with nobody else around… You feel like such a diminutive thing in the landscape, really insignificant. Putting you in your place in the world.” - Louise K. Blight

In this episode of Explore, host David McGuffin sits down with Louise K. Blight for a live conversation recorded at the Ottawa International Writers Festival about her new book, Where the Earth Meets the Sky.

Drawing on her time studying Adélie penguins in Antarctica in the early 2000s, Blight reflects on life a...

“Even in the most peaceful village, you’re surrounded by fresh graves… and you know the war is still there.”

What does it mean to explore a country at war?

In this episode of Explore, host David McGuffin speaks with Laval St. Germain, a Canadian explorer who has just returned from a journey deep into the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine. Travelling overland into the country, St. Germain set out to ski the Chornohora Ridge and climb Ukraine’s six highest peaks — what he found was a place of striking contrasts. 

In the h...

The hidden life of Canada’s frozen lakes with Andrew Budziak and Andy Bramburger

What if life isn’t just “out there”, but closer than we think?

For the first time in more than 50 years, humans have left Earth's orbit, marking a significant point in history. And as NASA’s Artemis II mission makes its historic journey around the moon, we explore the thought-provoking question driving this return to space: are we alone?  

From pioneering techniques to study distant worlds to leading bold robot missions to Venus, Toronto-born Sara Seager is helping redefine how (and where) we look for life in the universe. Alongside podcast host David...

"The thing about desert expeditions that really takes you by surprise is how quickly things can go off the rails. It goes from good to bad almost instantly. In those moments, I remind myself: I chose to do this."

We’re excited to be joined again by Ray Zahab, an ultra-endurance athlete, public speaker, author, and RCGS Explorer-in-Residence, among other things. 

In this thrilling episode of Explore, Zahab takes us through his latest expedition across the driest desert on the planet: Chile’s Atacama. Running a marathon a day over 200 kilometres in ex...

Raised on Newfoundland’s west coast, Jenn Thornhill Verma grew up immersed in the life and lore of fishing communities and the rhythms of the North Atlantic. She is the author of the bestselling book Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, a contributor to Canadian Geographic, and a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where she recently reported a series for the Globe and Mail on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

In this episode of Explore, Thornhill Verma and podcast host David McGuffin discuss the legacy of the...

“You see these massive calving fronts breaking off icebergs… you hear it, you feel the vibrations… everything is just absolutely magical.”

In this episode of Explore, podcast host David McGuffin welcomes back legendary underwater explorer Jill Heinerth to talk about her powerful new documentary, The Berg, airing on CBC’s The Nature of Things and streaming on CBC Gem.

For years, Heinerth dreamed of following the full lifecycle of an iceberg — from the calving glaciers of Greenland and around the Davis Strait to Newfoundland’s Iceberg Alley. In The Berg, she traces that jo...

“Always travel with a fish-slapping dance in your bag.”

— Michael Palin

What value does a fish-slapping dance have when travelling in authoritarian countries? Quite a lot, as it turns out…

In this episode of Explore, founding member of Monty Python, acclaimed travel documentarian, author, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Michael Palin joins host David McGuffin to reflect on a lifetime of comedy, curiosity, and crossing borders.

From being detained by paramilitary guards in Venezuela (and saved by Monty Python YouTube clips), to plung...

In this special episode of Explore, Canadian astronaut, engineer, and physician David Saint-Jacques shares a rare and personal perspective on what humanity’s return to the moon means for Canadians and the world.

On December 3, 2018, Saint-Jacques launched to the International Space Station, where he spent 203 days, 15 hours, and 16 minutes before returning to Earth on June 24, 2019. In this conversation, Saint-Jacques reflects on why NASA’s Artemis II mission matters, what the mission is designed to test, and how Canada’s role in lunar exploration signals a new era of international space cooperation. The episode also explores what J...

Award-winning expedition filmmaker and RCGS Fellow Trevor Wallace joins Explore podcast host David McGuffin to talk about exploration, archaeology, and insights into his expeditions around the world. 

In this conversation, Wallace goes into detail about his decades-long career working in Greenland and the Arctic, reflecting on Inuit knowledge systems, sovereignty, and why the North is so often misunderstood — and impossible to forget. He also discusses his latest documentary, Among Thieves, an investigative film that exposes the global black market for looted antiquities, following an undercover trail from remote burial sites to international art markets.

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“So does Christmas eliminate distance.”

Happy holidays from Explore! For this Yuletide episode, we’re dipping into our Canadian Geographic files for the reading of a story written by RCGS founding President and Arctic explorer Charles Camsell who recalls a memorable Christmas he had on the trail to the Klondike in 1897.

In the early 1900s, travelling by canoe and horseback, Camsell mapped hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of Canada’s north for the Geological Survey of Canada. 

Born at Fort Liard, N.W.T., in 1876, his father Juli...

NOTE: This special episode of Explore is being re-released to mark an important moment in Canadian history: the original 1670 Hudson’s Bay Company Royal Charter is being sold at auction. But thanks to a joint purchase by the Thomson and Weston families, the charter will remain in Canada, ensuring this remarkable artifact of colonial history stays in public hands

In 2020, the Hudson’s Bay Company marked its 350th anniversary. At this time, podcast host David McGuffin headed deep into the HBC vault with Amelia Fay, curator of the HBC Collection at the Manitoba Museum. Together, they...

Few Canadians have been closer to the front lines of global climate action than Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former Environment Minister. And this week on Explore, she opens up about what she’s learned from the fight.

Joining podcast host David McGuffin, McKenna discusses her new book Run Like a Girl: A Memoir of Ambition, Resilience, and Fighting for Change. She reflects on how a childhood insult became a personal rallying cry, how competitive swimming shaped her approach to tough political battles and what it actually felt like inside the high-pressure rooms of the Paris clim...

On this episode of Explore, host David McGuffin is joined by Arctic explorer and elementary school teacher Dave Greene. Earlier this year, Greene completed his fourth RCGS-flagged expedition across northern Quebec’s Ungava Peninsula. As the leader of this ski expedition, Greene shares his experience, traversing the harsh landscape alongside teammates Chris Giard and Lee Fraser.

Skiing hundreds of kilometres through -40°Celsius temperatures, the goal of the expedition was to reach the spectacular Pingualuit Crater, a 450-million-year-old meteor impact site. Greene shares stories of extreme cold, frostbite, whiteouts and life above the tree line, as...

In this episode of Explore, podcast host David McGuffin speaks with Canadian climber and expedition leader Shira Biner, who led the first female-plus team to establish a new 600-metre route on Eglinton Tower in the remote fjords of Baffin Island. Biner recounts the 2025 expedition, which was partly funded by The Nat Gillis Adventure Photography Expedition Grant awarded by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

Over 29 days, the team travelled entirely under human power, skiing 150 kilometres across Arctic sea ice with teammates Kelly Fields, Heather Smallpage and Nathalie Afonina to reach the towering granite walls of Eglinton...

“From 1875 to 1975, there were 6,000 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes — one a week for a century. Everyone remembers one: the Edmund Fitzgerald. And that’s because of the song.”

— John U. Bacon, Explore Podcast

This year marks 50 years since the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the most famous shipwreck in Great Lakes history. In this episode of Explore, host David McGuffin welcomes back John U. Bacon, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Halifax Explosion, Cirque du Soleil: The Spark and The Greatest Comeback about the 1972 Canada–Soviet hockey Summit Series.

In this...

" Hubert Darrell is the greatest explorer of all time that no one has ever heard of. The Norwegian great Amundsen, the first to the South Pole and first person to sail through the Northwest Passage successfully, actually met Darrell in the Arctic. He was in awe, and he wrote that with men like Darrell, 'I could go to the moon.'"

In this episode of Explore, RCGS Explorer-in-Residence and bestselling author Adam Shoalts discusses his latest book, Vanished Beyond the Map, which chronicles the life of the nearly forgotten Arctic explorer Hubert Darrell.

“I think in any exploration there’s a nobility of purpose — it’s more than just pounding my chest and saying, ‘Hey, I’m on top of Mount Kilimanjaro.’ It’s about filling a knowledge gap or serving the greater good.” — Richard Wiese, President, The Explorer's Club

Join us for a fascinating conversation with Richard Wiese, world-renowned explorer, Emmy Award-winning host of Born to Explore and the newly re-elected 46th President of The Explorers Club, a role he has held seven times, including as the youngest-ever club president in 2002.

Wiese has spent decades leadin...

Journalist and author Dan Rubinstein joins the Explore Podcast for the second instalment in our annual canoe/paddling series to share the story of his epic three-month, 2,000-kilometre paddleboarding journey, which took him from Ottawa to New York City and back via the Ottawa River, the St. Lawrence River, Lake Champlain, the Hudson River, the Erie Canal and Lake Ontario. Along the way, he explored the idea of blue space—the powerful impact of water on our bodies, minds, and communities. In this conversation, Dan reflects on his new book Waterborne, the physical and spiritual pull of water, and why pa...

“Days on the water have produced in me the intensifying feeling of somehow growing together with the river: not thinking with it, but being thought by it.” - Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive?

This episode of Explore was recorded live in May 2025 at the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

Robert Macfarlane’s latest book asks the question: Is a River Alive? To answer it, the award-winning British author, academic and environmentalist spent four-and-a-half years exploring rivers and their watersheds across four continents. His journeys take him from an Ecuadorian cloud forest, where pr...

Leanne discusses her latest book, The Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead, a genre-defying work that weaves together traditional storytelling, theory, and land-based knowledge. Through various lenses — skiing, eels, beavers, canoes, shorelines — Simpson reflects on the interconnectedness of people, water, and the natural world, and on how we might reimagine our relationships in a time of climate grief and transformation. This live conversation touches on land based learning, Indigenous ethics, and the hopeful possibilities of communal learning, all grounded in Simpson’s unique voice as both an academic and artist. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is an award winning, best-s...

Canada does funny really, really well. So today we're poking that Canadian funny bone in conversation with Luke Gordon Field as he discusses his journey and experiences as Editor in Chief of The Beaverton, a popular Canadian satirical news site. Over 15 years, Field and his team transformed a side project with humble beginnings into an internationally recognized name in satire. Field recounts anecdotes from the early days, including a pivotal moment involving Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield that catapulted the site to fame ("Hadfield comes home to $1.37 million Rogers phone bill"). He talks about the challenges of producing timely satire...

“It's the reason why this Canadian Geographic thing means a lot to me. It’s about people and how they live and how we interact and celebrate how beautiful and natural this life can be.”

We’ve got a new honorary RCGS Fellow on Explore today! George Stroumboulopoulos is one of Canada’s great interviewers and broadcasters. In the span of his 30-plus year career, he has talked with thousands of people from King Charles to Gord Downie, from Maya Angelou to Lady Gaga and so many, many more. For decades he has served as a cultural p...

"It was brutal again. There was a very good chance we wouldn't succeed. And if it's a foregone conclusion that you're going to be successful, is it really an adventure?" - Kevin Vallely

RCGS Explorer-in-Residence Ray Zahab and his exploring partner and RCGS Fellow Kevin Vallely have just completed an extraordinary expedition – skiing 500 kilometres across Ellesmere Island, one of the most remote and unforgiving regions in the Canadian High Arctic. This journey, completed in March and April 2025, marks a triumphant return after their 2022 attempt was cut short by extreme weather and treacherous snow conditions (listen to...

"Buffalo are renewal. We know that — it’s baked into who we are."

This week on Explore, David McGuffin sits down with award-winning filmmaker, scholar, and advocate Tasha Hubbard to discuss her latest documentary, Singing Back the Buffalo.

This powerful film delves into the deep, sacred relationship between buffalo and Indigenous Peoples, highlighting how these iconic animals are more than just symbols of the past — they are key to cultural, spiritual and ecological renewal. Singing Back the Buffalo tells the story of the 2014 Buffalo Treaty, an unprecedented agreement now endorsed by over 8...

In this episode, Explore host David McGuffin is joined by Glynnis Hood, one of the world's leading beaver experts, to mark the 50th anniversary of the beaver as Canada’s national animal. This conversation focuses on this iconic Canadian animals significance in our country’s history. Hood shares her insights into the beaver's resilience, ability to modify landscapes, role as a keystone species, and its substantial impact on its environment. They delve into the beaver's history, from its near extinction to its current resurgence. They highlight the beaver’s role in maintaining biodiversity, regulating water systems, and potentially mitigating climat...

In this special episode of the Explore Podcast, we delve into the current and unique intersection of hockey, politics, and patriotism in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff war against Canada. Featuring an insightful discussion with Roy McGregor, award-winning Canadian journalist and author, this episode explores the politically charged 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, where Canada's triumph over the U.S. in the final helped revive a nation feeling battered by its southern neighbour. 

The conversation touches on where this hockey moment ranks in Canada's history of international triumphs (up there with the '72 Soviet-Canada S...

In this milestone 100th episode of the Explore Podcast, host David McGuffin welcomes back world-renowned cave diver and RCGS Explorer-in-Residence Jill Heinerth. This episode dives into Heinerth’s experiences, including her new, award-winning documentary Diving into the Darkness, her extraordinary career in underwater exploration and the risks and rewards of diving. Heinerth discusses her Antarctic expeditions, her struggle with decompression sickness, and the evolution of her exploration philosophy over the years. The conversation also touches on the challenges of making documentaries in the current media environment, the impact of climate change narratives and the importance of valuing and understanding ou...

In this episode of Explore, we dive deep with Canadian whale biologist Shane Gero, who shares his journey from a landlocked childhood in Ottawa to becoming a leading researcher in whale communication and conservation. Gero discusses how his early fascination with whales began, his fieldwork in Dominica and the intricate social structures of sperm whales. The conversation then delves into Project CETI, which aims to decode the complex language of sperm whales using machine learning while exploring the cultural identity expressed through the whales’ unique codas (a series of clicks). In this conversation, Gero emphasizes the complex cognition of th...

Few people have been to the summit of Mt. Logan, and even fewer people have been to the summit and stayed for more than 24 hours. But for the sake of science, RCGS Fellow and world-leading ice core scientist Alison Criscitiello and her team took 10 days to summit Canada’s highest peak, where they camped for 16 days. 

In her new documentary, For Winter, Criscitiello takes viewers on a gruelling journey to the top of Mt. Logan, where she and her team of six researchers extract the longest ice core ever drilled at a high altitude: 327 metres. The...

Welcome back Explore listeners! We are thrilled to have award-winning photographer and explorer Jillian Brown as our first guest of 2025. Based in Squamish, B.C., Brown has an epic list of adventures. She was the first Canadian to paddle across the continental US, from Oregon to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. Brown was also part of the first crew to paddle down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in a sea kayak, which is not made for whitewater, as she explains. 

As a survivor of trauma and abuse, Brown is a strong and v...