• Alanna Mitchell takes a pilgrimage home to the grasslands and reflects on the importance of vanishing prairie ecosystems 
• Award-winning author Heather O'Neill recalls her past and recent adventures around the McGill University campus 
• Students on Ice President Geoff Green on his experience as an expedition leader and how he built the organization
• Exploring the must-sees and hidden gems of PEI by bike 

It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones. At noon the total sun pours on your single head; at sunrise or sunset you throw a shadow a hundred yards long. It was not prairie dwellers who invented the indifferent universe or impotent man. Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but not unnoticed. This is a land to mark the sparrow’s fall. —Wallace Stegner, Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier

More than anything else, the prairies of North America are psychological territory. They carry layers of narrative, memory, loss. I grew up on them, in Regina. The prairies are my place. 

They are misunderstood. People who don’t live on them tend to envision amber waves of grain. They don’t know the original prairies that draw me in, the lichen-crusted, sun-bleached, sere grasslands tufted with sagebrush that long for the bison’s kiss.

European colonizers, accustomed to greenery and trees, saw a wasteland except where they saw a potential breadbasket. John Palliser, who travelled the prairies in the 1850s to inform the British government of the area’s potential, famously declared much of it to be unsuitable for settlement of any kind.  

The McGill campus always stood out to me, growing up in Montreal. It was so noticeable, the way it opened up through these big gates into what seemed to be this strange, Victorian world. I would think, “When I grow up, I’m going to study English literature there.” When I became a student at McGill, the campus was a sort of bubble in the city that was so magical. I love that as soon as you get there, there’s this river of young people and conversation and laughter. I remember being a student and thinking, “I want to be an old lady and still come here with my books and be surrounded by young people.” I always had this dream that McGill would bequeath me one of the large old houses on campus, so I could just live there and read. I mostly grew up in tiny little apartments, so the houses there are so marvellous to me.

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 fisherman cottages and stunted trees and rocky shores and tidal pools.

sweeping lush fields of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, and as a great destination for food lovers. A short drive from Charlottetown we stop at the picturesque village of Victoria-by-the-sea before making our way to the Mi’kmaq Culture Centre, to learn more about the arts, culture and traditions cultural engagement. Our cycling adventure begins near the Green Gables. We will travel along the coastline, discovering small communities, artisan stores, local cafes, heritage buildings, abandoned rail stations and endless sandy beaches at handlebar level. Complementing this unforgettable multi-day bike trip to one of the country’s best destinations for foodies, the tour will end with a farm tour and top culinary experience at Chef Michael Smith’s legendary country inn.

Meet your ambassador

Check out these other upcoming trips:

- Annapurna Sanctuary Photography trek with Javier Frutos
- Ultimate British Columbia with Brian Hodgson
- Salish Sea Expeditionwith Emily Choy