Musaji was one of 20 youth contestants invited to Ottawa for the weekend-long finals, where they tested their geographical skills on everything from world capitals to volcanoes. He is $3,000 richer for his efforts.

“Everyone did a really good job — it’s definitely a special moment for me but it is also very special for the other top five, and top 20, because they also made it this far,” says the newly crowned national champion Musaji.

The 20 finalists from the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia arrived in Ottawa on Saturday after which their number was whittled down to five for the main event Monday where the finalists dueled during a trivia showdown before a live studio audience.

“The weekend was excellent — being with 20 of some of the best geographic minds — and not only competing together and taking notes alongside them but interacting with them in a very friendly way was one of the best parts of the experience,” says contestant Brendan Alilovic of University of Toronto Schools, who placed second overall.

Before reaching the national stage, the Challenge begins in the homeroom, where students must win both their classroom and schoolwide rounds to advance. The student who succeeds in both, involving multiple-choice questions across various geographic topics, is named their school’s student champion and moves on to the provincial and territorial rounds. From these regional qualifiers, the 20 highest-scoring students are invited to Ottawa for the national final. The fieldwork component was held on the Sunday of the competition and focused on urban geography and design. The finalists explored parts of the city that were kept secret until their arrival.

As they moved through Kiweki Point, Majors Hill Park, and the National War Memorial, they observed and reflected on their findings. They then connected these observations with geographic principles in the fieldwork test, where they analyzed the regions they visited. 

Canadian extreme adventurer and ultra-marathoner Ray Zahab hosted the finale for the second year in a row, and welcomed Armaan Musaji, Brendan Alilovic, Eric Yuan, Jonah Kolta and Ameya Dhayal Shah to the stage. 

As the final five contestants gathered behind their podiums, the lights dimmed and the first round started. The finale included five sets of eight questions, testing the finalists’ knowledge on capital cities, various landmarks along the Trans-Canada highway, borders, Earth’s geological formations and volcanoes around the world. 

The group of middle- to high-school students were asked to accurately recall the countries that make up the four corners of Africa, recognize and name the three-border labyrinth in Europe and identify the time zone boundary between Big Diomede and Little Diomede islands, to name a few.

After a taxing trivia test and a tense tie-breaker for third place — claimed by second-time contestant Eric Yuan of Calgary — a new triad of winners for the 31st Canadian Geographic Challenge exited the Alex Trebek Theatre at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society headquarters. The top three finalists each received a cash prize: $3,000 for the overall winner, $2,000 for second place and $1,000 for third place.

Some finalists can’t recall how they first got into geography, as they were so young, whether it was the second-place winner Alilovic, who gravitated to encyclopedias while quizzing himself on geography and history, or Jonah Kolta, who placed fourth overall and says it was his tendency to memorize street names in Toronto as a kid.

These wizards of worldly knowledge each have their own reasons for valuing the field, whether it’s to better understand people, places and cultures or to travel better informed, their passion and proficiency alike is both inspiring as it is impressive.