From his early beginnings in radio to soaring success in television, George Stroumboulopoulos is a force in Canadian journalism. With the spirit of an explorer and the heart of a humanitarian, Stroumboulopoulos’s career has taken him from Syria to the Arctic. The broadcaster now uses his platform to amplify diverse voices and champion causes through his ambassadorship with the United Nations World Food Programme. Here, Stroumboulopoulos reflects on his upbringing, his influences and what it means to live a life of adventure.

On getting out there

My introduction to adventuring started the old-school way: I strapped a bunch of bags on the back of a motorcycle. I started to ride across the continent by myself. It was my love of motorcycling that really put me out in the world in that respect. I grew up watching those late ’60s libertarian USA biker movies. From my earliest memories, I just wanted freedom. I think in independent movies at that time, freedom was often represented by bikers and then ultimately Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda [in the movie Easy Rider], so they became enormous influences to me. 

On his Toronto upbringing

My mother is everything. She was a teenager when she had me — she was 19. We grew up in these really interesting neighbourhoods on the west side of Toronto, the kinds of neighbourhoods you would read about in newspapers and not for good reasons. My mother had three jobs. Kindness and selflessness is a really important part of my mother’s identity. That definitely landed on my sister and me. The other thing I saw from my mother was work ethic. Part of the reason I’m durable is because my mother taught me when I was very young.

On the meaning of ‘explorer’

To me, it is about history, because you get to a place and you don’t try to plant your flag on it; you [try] to understand what happened there. I like the idea of introducing people to the incredible experiences that people have had on this planet. Being an explorer is about feeding your curiosity. It’s the fact that we are all learning about what this world is, where we come from, what it could be — and honestly, just how majestic the natural world is. 

On our role in the universe

There is no brain on this planet that can understand the infiniteness of this [existence]. I’m more interested in the poetry applied to the infinities of this world as opposed to the science, because I’m not gonna live long enough to know that. I don’t care about it. I’m just this tiny little thing. If there is life on another planet, which there has to be, and if that life is sentient, it doesn’t even know we exist, and they’re pondering the same things. And how beautiful is the not knowing? I love that so much.