In her Great Island Expedition, RCGS Explorer-in-Residence Jill Heinerth and her team went to raise the voices of lives, ships and an aircraft lost during the Second World War from the waters in and around Newfoundland. When we last had Jill Heinerth on the podcast, one of the stories she shared as she prepared for this diving expedition was about Lanier Phillips, an African-American mess attendant on a U.S. Navy ship that sank off the coast of Newfoundland during the Second World War. Back then, African-Americans like Lanier Philips could only work the lowest jobs in the racially segregated ..read more

"I've done a lot of hard things. At last count, I think I've done 33 or 34 expeditions, and I would say this was the hardest thing I've ever done. Chemo and the monoclonal therapy that I was doing... I was a mess. I would build myself up (between treatments) over the course of a few weeks, where I'd have a seven or ten-day decent period where I would go and do stuff. I was on Baffin Island in February, across the Paalik Valley, a combination of skiing, trekking and snowmobile. Doing it!" When Ray Zahab says something is the hardest thing he’s ever done, you know that ..read more

"On our way back out, we hit all the volcanic gases. It was like the volcano had burped. We had hydrogen sulphide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. We were hoping to not find sulphur dioxide because that's one of those gases that is more indicative of an active magma chamber." RCGS Fellow Christian Stenner joins Explore to talk about his adventures inside Canada's most active volcano. Last year, the Calgary native and one of the world's leading cave explorers was part of the first RCGS Trebek Initiative grantees. That grant helped fund his expedition into the Mt Meage ..read more

“If you want to understand what it means to be fully human, go to Africa.” Mario Rigby’s claim to fame is an impressive one. The RCGS Fellow was the first person to walk from Cape Town to Cairo solo. A Toronto based eco-adventurer, focused on sustainable travel and transport, Rigby covered 12,000 kilometres over two-and-a-half years and had a lifetime’s worth of adventures along the way. He was robbed of most of his money on just his second day out; he was attacked by wild dogs, pinned down under gunfire in a war zone, turned away at borders and detained by police multiple times. But mos ..read more

George Angohiatok grew up as among the last Inuit people to live a fully traditional, nomadic life in the Canadian Arctic. As a child in Nunavut in the 1950s and 60s, he lived with his parents, siblings and grandparents on the land, seal hunting on sea ice in the winters, and returning to land to hunt game and fish in the warmer months. That all came to an end when George was sent to Residential School, and his family was forced by the government into the community of Cambridge Bay. Those days on the land deeply shaped who George is today, and at 67, his mission in life is to teach the sk ..read more

In this second episode of Explore from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, we're passing the mic to two of our star students from our Canadian Geographic Podcast Workshop at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. Tyler Agligoetok and Sinclair Lyall were among local Inuit youth who took part in five days of podcast training and community open houses. In this conversation, Sinclair interviews Tyler about his favourite memories of a recent goose hunt out on the tundra of Victoria Island. They discuss other favourite hunting memories and why Tyler loves feeling that connection to the land. We hope you enj ..read more

"Indigenous People have the knowledge. And if we work together with scientists, we can come up with so much more than what only Inuit know or what scientists know. It's a great tool." - Jeannie Ehaloak, Polar Knowledge Canada, Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. We're thrilled to bring you the first of three episodes from our December visit to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, where we visited with the Inuit community and spent time at the new Canadian High Arctic Research Station there. CHARS, as it's known, is an effort to move the centre of gravity for science and research in Canada a little further north, acco ..read more

"The boreal forest is the largest intact forest left on the planet, it holds a quarter of the world's wetlands. It is a climate regulator." You could argue there is nothing that binds Canada together like our boreal forest. It's defined by vast stands of spruce and seemingly endless lakes and swamps stretching beyond horizons. It runs in an uninterrupted band from British Columbia across the three territories and every province into Atlantic Canada. And it's a hugely important part of efforts to buffer against the impacts of climate change. Our guest Valérie Courtois is currently at the ..read more

For our final episode on board the Polar Prince, sailing Atlantic Canada's Bay of Fundy, we're spending some time under the waves and looking to the skies, as we join a fascinating cross-section of scientists, students and researchers who make up this Students on Ice Ocean conservation expedition.  With the team from New Brunswick's Huntsman Marine Science Centre, we dive into the Fundy waters, gathering samples for baseline databases, crucial to understanding the changing nature of the Bay and the impacts of climate change. They are joined by Laval University's Loic Jacquemont, doi ..read more

For our 50th episode, Explore is taking to the seas! We join a Students on Ice expedition to the Bay of Fundy aboard the Polar Prince, on an Ocean Conservation Expedition led by RCGS Fellow and SOI President Geoff Green.  This is a working expedition with scientists, researchers, commercial fishers, Indigenous youth, students and artists. Over the next few episodes, we’ll ride the Bay of Fundy tides, the highest in the world, exploring the many wonders of this spectacular part of Canada’s Atlantic seaboard. For this episode, we’re on Seal Island, a windswept mix of colourful fish ..read more