Episodes

“We knew we had something that was ours and unique and different, and we figured we better shout it out loud.” - Alan Doyle For Alan Doyle, travelling the world has only strengthened the pull of home. Along the way, he takes us back to his childhood in Petty Harbour, where music filled the family home, cutting cod tongues earned him spending money, and singing Anne Murray songs bought him a later bedtime. Doyle reflects on Great Big Sea’s beginnings in the shadow of the cod moratorium, the ba...

“I knew about bears in this abstract theoretical way, but I didn’t really know what it meant to live closely with them.” What happens when a mother black bear refuses to leave the hillside beneath your fire tower? For bestselling author Trina Moyles, the answer became the heart of Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival. While working at a fire tower in northern Alberta, Moyles found herself living in a black bear corridor, where a resident mother and her cubs returned to the nearby sl...

“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 ...

“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 ...

"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...

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 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 Ex...

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 epis...

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 ...

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...

"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 ve...

“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 Antarctic...

“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...

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 lo...

"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 Ata...

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 Ex...

Ahead of her the new documentary The Berg, underwater explorer and RCGS Explorer-in-Residence Jill Heinerth reflects on diving beneath icebergs, working with James Cameron, and the science of exploration

“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 paramilita...

For the first time in more than 50 years, humans are returning to the moon, and Canada is playing a central role

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 i...

“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...

A look inside the Hudson’s Bay Company Royal Charter, now returning to public spotlight, and its enduring role in Canada’s colonial past and Indigenous displacement

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 bat...