The canoe is an enduring symbol of many things in Canada including how to run a successful business. Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company 1820-1850 took the helm of a nearly bankrupt company and turned it back to profitability through what might...
Following the successful completion of Rendezvous with the Wild a national campaign and book to raise awareness about the beauty and fragility of the Boreal Forest centered on ten canoe northern canoe trips, James anchored an evening of stories, slides, and music...
A young man called Angulalik Pedersen, from the western Nunavut Community of Kugluktuk, won a scholarship to attend high school at Upper Canada College in Toronto. A dream that emerged in the south was to one day take a few of his classmates to his home town. James...
Back in 1909 when educational philosopher Thomas James lamented that the "bracing oxygen of effort" had been surreptitiously removed from education and called for "The Moral Equivalent of War" to compel youth to rise to the challenges of the day with character and...
James Raffan first encountered Kirk Wipper and his passion for canoes and collecting at Camp Kandalore as 5-year old camper at Wipper's summer camp for boys called Kandalore. Although their paths diverged for several decades, James got reconnected with Kirk's canoe...
One of the most often quoted poems in the annals of expeditionary learning is Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses wherein an old sailor is looking back on his life and says "All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades forever and...
Many high schools have Career Days which involve inviting people of different occupations and walks of life to do presentations and workshop on their chosen profession. This talk is one James has given many times in many places in Canada and beyond and is often done...
This presentation, developed originally as a keynote for the annual conference of the Canadian Heritage Rivers System, is James's celebration of the river-as-teacher in his own life, growing up on the Speed River in southern Ontario but then moves on to a...
Responding to an invitation from the Geography Department at the University of Guelph to speak about his life as a professional geographer, James prepared this presentation that follows an arc through the teaching, research, speaking, service and writing for books,...
As a Patron of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society's Boreal Program, James participated in the organization and execution of a special project to raise public awareness of the value and fragility of the Boreal Forest. Of ten river trips involving a host of...
After more than thirty years of work and travel in the Arctic, James started heading to Antarctica in with Students on Ice in 2007. This is the story of his venture into the magic and majesty of his first encounter with Austral ice, during a time of great change. ...
Holling Clancy Holling's 1942 classic children's book character, the little carved Indian in a canoe called "Paddle to the Sea," captivated generations of readers, including Canadian filmmaker, Bill Mason, who went on to make a movie about Paddle that became the most...
As James has worked with students of all ages throughout his career—lately with Students on Ice—helping them to build personal knowledge from experience, more and more of those students have expressed a need to develop advocacy skills and this presentation is all...
As a leader in Outdoor and Experiential Education, James has often challenged the status quo, insisting that these forms of education will remain marginal until and unless their proponents willingly and enthusiastically enter the educational main stream. This...
Following his first trip north as a labourer for ESSO in the summer of 1977, building metal buildings in Inuvik, James has spent part of every year somewhere in the Arctic. His recent circumnavigation of the world at the Arctic Circle has added to that experience and...
In 2007 the canoe was named a wonder of Canada in a national poll conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Celebrating that development, James created this presentation and took it across the country. Audiences in cities and towns from Halifax to Victoria...
Originally prepared for a series of keynotes and workshops in Cuba for the Foundation for Nature and Humanity in Havana, this presentation is a semi-biographical story about the importance of environmental education in any curriculum and how this end might be achieved...
One of the most remarkable characters in the pantheon of canoeists is unquestionably Bill Mason, subject of James Raffan's acclaimed best-selling biography, Fire in the Bones. As with all of his projects, James dived into the research with abandon, committed to total...
One of James's passions is journal keeping and this is a presentation for anyone involved in travel or expeditionary learning about the hows and whys of processing experience. Making the distinction between public and personal knowledge, and drawing from his own...
James's research into all of his book topics takes him always into the Archive of the Feet, which means onto the ground and into the experiences of whatever or whomever he is writing about. This was particularly the case as he entered the life of Sir George Simpson,...
As a life-long and award winning experiential educator, James Raffan is a powerful advocate for risk as a central driver of effective education. Using the distinction between public knowledge and personal knowledge, in this engaging keynote—originally prepared for...
Originally prepared for a lecture in the International Polar Year Polar Perspectives Series for at forum for youth from across the Canadian Arctic that was held at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, this is a presentation is a story about climate change as...
Developed for a special all-school Earth Day programs at various Ontario high schools, this presentation is essentially a climate change primer wrapped around a series of stories about Arctic adventures. Photographs of ice, large mammals and Arctic scenes are mixed...
This presentation was originally prepared in conjuction with the writing and creation of an exhibit at the Canadian Canoe Museum of the same name that was developed around the appearance, 27 years after the Temiskaming tragedy, of Père Lallemant, one of the four 22'...