We celebrated a successful first season for the RCGS Resolute

Since its inaugural voyage for One Ocean Expeditions in November 2018, the Royal Canadian Geographical Ship Resolute has kept up a busy sailing schedule, most recently transiting the Panama Canal. In honour of the ship’s successful first season, and in celebration of the strong partnership between the RCGS and One Ocean Expeditions, OOE managing director Andrew Prossin presented Geiger with a framed photograph of the Resolute in what could probably be termed its natural habitat: surrounded by enormous icebergs in Antarctica.

Roberta Bondar gave us an out-of-this-world gift

In 1992, when Dr. Roberta Bondar became the first Canadian woman and the first neurologist to go to space, missions were short. She spent just nine days in orbit, but during that time, she got a good look at Earth from above — and knew that she wanted to see it from the ground, too.

Now in “the Earth exploration phase of being an astronaut,” the Honorary Vice-President of the RCGS has made it her mission to share Canada with the world, “and let them know it’s not just about our passport and our Tilley hats: it’s about the energy that we have and it’s about the new ways we have of looking at things. It’s about our natural heritage, it’s about our cultural heritage. It’s about how we have growing pains the way other people have, but we deal with them in a much more respectful and dignified way, and going forward, that will be the template of how we grow this wonderful country.”

To celebrate the Society’s global impact through its expeditions and outreach, Bondar presented Geiger with a crew mission patch that flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-42, the first International Microgravity Laboratory Mission (IML-1) from January 22 to 30, 1992, as well as her “very limited edition” personal crew patch.

.@RCGS_SGRC honorary vp @RobertaBondar addresses guests @ official opening of the Society’s new HQ @50SussexEvents #Hello50Sussex pic.twitter.com/qi5Sd7yt9H

— Aaron Kylie (@aaronkylie) May 13, 2019

Wade Davis made us all contemplate what it means to be Canadian

After listening to the remarks by Trebek and Bondar, Davis took the podium and wondered aloud what it is that provokes “such deep humility” in Canadians — then posited that in fact, it’s Canada’s geography. It’s “the weight of the North that hovers over our national imagination and defines the essence of the national soul.” It’s the fact that for much of our history there were more lakes than people in this land. It’s the reality that even as we’ve become an increasingly urban people, we’re never far removed from the wilderness — as evidenced by the black bears that occasionally wander into Vancouver’s suburbs to catch spawning salmon in neighbourhood creeks.

“To be Canadian is to know the wild,” Davis said. “It’s to know how to paddle a canoe, it’s to dream of having a cottage on the edge of the wilderness, it’s to be able to tell your children the names of the plants and describe the behaviour of animals.”

As Canada becomes an ever more pluralistic society, Davis said, the RCGS in its new home is well-positioned to be the place where Canadians come to discover their country — “the place where, in a completely non-partisan way, whoever does rule this capital city of ours can come and know that this, even more so than Parliament Hill, is actually the sacred heart of Canada.”

Related: Welcome to 50 Sussex, Canada’s Centre for Geography and Exploration