Explore: A Canadian Geographic podcast

“It is a raccoon city that exists in the city of Toronto.” Raccoons cracking raccoon-proof compost bins, coyotes finding refuge in city neighbourhoods, and giant Pacific octopuses making homes in discarded refrigerators. These are just a few examples of wildlife adapting to urban life in extraordinary ways, while challenging our ideas about where nature belongs.On this episode of Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast, host David McGuffin welcomes epidemiologist and bestselling author Dr. Dan Werb to discuss his latest book, Our Wild Familiars: How Animals Are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World.From Toronto’s back alleys to Seattle’s industrial waters and Saudi Arabia's garbage dumps, Werb investigates the ingenuity of animals living alongside us. He explains how raccoons learn — and spread new skills through overlapping social networks — why urban coyotes are becoming bolder, and the remarkable observations of baboons incorporating dogs into their communities.McGuffin and Werb discuss the “great urban shift”: how habitat loss, climate change and plentiful resources are drawing wildlife into cities. They also explore why treating cities as ecosystems matters for conservation and how the health of our wild neighbours is connected to our own.About our guestDan Werb is a Toronto-based epidemiologist and award-winning author. His previous book, The Invisible Siege, won the 2022 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Our Wild Familiars is shortlisted for the same prize.Listen nextExplore more conversations with fellow 2026 Writers’ Trust shortlisted authors:Episode 134: Trina Moyles on Black Bear.Episode 91: Julian Brave NoiseCat for We Survived the Night: An Indigenous Reckoning. He discusses his Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane and the legacy of residential schools.Support explorationBid on polar cruises, excursions with explorers, signed books and more in the RCGS Silent Auction, running until November 8 at rcgsauction.com. Proceeds support the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s education, scientific and exploration programs.Explore is hosted by David McGuffin and produced by David McGuffin and Explore Podcast Productions in partnership with Canadian Geographic.Canadian Geographic: Alexandra Pope, editor-in-chiefMadigan Cotterill, digital and travel editorCaroline Workman, digital marketing managerFollow Explore wherever you listen, and help others discover the podcast by leaving a rating and review.

“Emerging out of this darkness suddenly was the bow of Quest.”— John GeigerNearly 400 metres beneath the Labrador Sea, John Geiger watched Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last ship emerge from the darkness. Two years after leading the expedition that discovered Quest, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society CEO returned aboard the research submersible Alvin to see the wreck with his own eyes.In this episode of Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast, Geiger joins host David McGuffin to discuss that extraordinary encounter and his new book, Quest: Shackleton’s Last Ship and the End of the Heroic Age. It reveals a surprising Canadian chapter in Shackleton’s life: his plans to explore Canada’s Arctic, his efforts to secure backing in Ottawa, and his thoughts of making Canada his home.Geiger takes us inside the rivalry between Shackleton and Canadian-born explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, whose competing ambitions divided Ottawa’s political and bureaucratic circles. When Canadian support fell through, Shackleton turned south instead—aboard a ship ill-suited to the Southern Ocean, on the expedition that would become his last.We also explore Quest’s remarkable working life after Shackleton, the expedition’s visit to Robert Falcon Scott’s last ship, Terra Nova, and how new technology is helping preserve both wrecks digitally. Along the way, Geiger reflects on Shackleton’s exceptional leadership and the power of exploration to bring Canadian history and geography to life.About our guestJohn Geiger is CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Canadian Geographic Enterprises, an internationally bestselling author and a member of the Order of Canada. His books include Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, co-written with Owen Beattie, and The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible, which examines the mysterious presence people sometimes experience in life-threatening situations—including Shackleton during his crossing of South Georgia. His latest book is Quest: Shackleton’s Last Ship and the End of the Heroic Age.Revisit episodes 85 and 86 of Explore for the story of the 2024 expedition that discovered Quest, featuring John Geiger and expedition members David Mearns and Antoine Normandin.Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast is hosted by David McGuffin and produced by Explore Podcast Productions for Canadian Geographic.Next Listen: - Episode 85: Finding Sir Ernest Shackleton's lost ship with John Geiger - Episode 86: How the Quest was found Canadian GeographicEditor-in-chief: Alexandra PopeDigital and travel editor: Madigan CotterillDigital marketing manager: Caroline WorkmanEnjoying Explore? Follow the podcast and leave a rating or review wherever you listen.

“We knew we had something that was ours and unique and different, and we figured we better shout it out loud.” - Alan DoyleFor 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 band’s unexpected role as ambassadors for Newfoundland, and the resilience behind their enduring anthem, “Ordinary Day.” He also shares what decades of touring have taught him about Canada — and why St. John’s remains his favourite place to be.Full of humour and affection, this conversation explores how the places we come from shape the stories we tell.About our guest: Alan Doyle is a singer, songwriter, actor and author from Petty Harbour, N.L. Best known as a founding member of Great Big Sea, his books include Where I Belong, A Newfoundlander in Canada and The Smiling Land.Check out: Our conversation with The Guess Who’s Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings, featuring more unforgettable stories from a life in Canadian music.Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast is hosted by David McGuffin and produced by Explore Podcast Productions in partnership with Canadian Geographic.Canadian Geographic:Editor-in-chief: Alexandra PopeDigital and travel editor: Madigan CotterillDigital marketing manager: Caroline WorkmanEnjoying Explore? Follow the podcast and leave a rating or review wherever you listen.

“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 slope. She tried noise, rubber bullets and even a helicopter to drive them away, but nothing worked. Eventually, she began to question what she thought she knew about bears.Moyles joins Explore host David McGuffin to discuss how she learned to share the landscape with the bears and what years of observing them revealed about their behaviour. They explore the challenges of living alongside black bears as towns and cities expand into their habitats, as well as the practical choices that can help prevent conflict.Black Bear also tells the story of Moyles’s relationship with her late brother, Brendan, who chose a life working in Alberta’s oil fields. She reflects on the distance that grew between them, their efforts to reconnect, and why writing about him became inseparable from writing about the bears.Black Bear is a 2026 finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.Trina Moyles is a bestselling author, environmental journalist and a frequent contributor to Canadian Geographic magazine. Her first memoir, Lookout, won a National Outdoor Book Award and the inaugural Memoir Award at the Alberta Literary Awards. In 2022, she received the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award. She lives in a cosy Yurt outside Whitehorse.Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast is hosted by David McGuffin and produced by David McGuffin and Graham McGuffin of ExploreProductions.ca in partnership with Canadian Geographic.Canadian GeographicEditor-in-chief: Alexandra PopeDigital and travel editor: Madigan CotterillDigital marketing manager: Caroline WorkmanFor more stories of adventure, science, history and exploration, visit canadiangeographic.caRead more from Trina Moyles;Excerpt from Black Bear: A story of siblinghood and survival Caribou people: The story of conserving the Porcupine caribou herd is a story about working together (Canadian Geographic, 2026)Monitoring migration through the Nisutlin River Delta National Wildlife Area (Canadian Geographic, 2026)Born for this: Unravelling the disappearance of Dall sheep (Canadian Geographic, 2026)The good bear: Co-existence on Yukon’s Klukshu River (Canadian Geographic, 2025)

“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 bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss, Man Seeks God, The Geography of Genius, The Socrates Express and Ben & Me. The Geography of Bliss was adapted into a 2023 Peacock television series featuring The Office star Rainn Wilson. Weiner also co-hosts Toronto Pearson Airport’s podcast, Y We Travel, with Canadian journalist Erica Vella.In this conversation, Weiner and host David McGuffin trace his wanderlust back to the day he ran away from home at five years old. They look back on when it was still possible to be truly “out of pocket,” and consider how smartphones have changed not only travel but our relationship with place.Weiner explains why his journeys are always purposeful — ways of exploring ideas rather than simply accumulating destinations. He shares lessons from an unexpectedly transcendent pizza in an Arctic Finland gas station, reflects on experiencing awe amid the immense dunes of Oman’s Empty Quarter and makes the case for travelling more slowly, with enough time for serendipity.The conversation ends at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, straddling the border between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont. There, Eric watched Shakespeare from a seat in the U.S. while the actors performed onstage in Canada — a powerful reminder that borders can be both artificial and very real.Explore: A Canadian Geographic Podcast is hosted by David McGuffin.Produced by David McGuffin and ExploreProductions.ca in partnership with Canadian Geographic.Canadian Geographic:Editor-in-chief: Alexandra PopeDigital and travel editor: Madigan CotterillDigital marketing manager: Caroline WorkmanFor more stories of adventure, science, history, and exploration, visit canadiangeographic.ca