The Ben Mulroney Show - I'm a lumberjack! A Canadiana classic coming home....

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

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Sounds like a plan. You know, just one thing. What's that? I'm choosing the music. What? And I'm sitting in the backseat. The whole way? The whole way.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay. I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay. I'll sleep all night and I work all day He's a lumberjack and he's okay He sits all night and he works all day This is the Ben Mulroney show I tell you, growing up There was nothing that made me laugh

More than Monty Python There were so many of those songs I'm a lumberjack is right up there There was a what was the other one Finland Finland Finland The country where I want to be eating, jumping and camping Or just watching TV

Finland, Finland, Finland's the place for me. All right, my apologies. So, yes, this is the fact that one of the funniest comedy troops in the world decided to write a song and really lean into Canadiana, scratched an itching me growing up. And when I woke up today and read that there was an auction for the surge, the red. uniforms by the RCMP. And the winner of the auction was the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. I thought, okay, I got to get to the bottom of this story. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome John Geiger. He's the CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Welcome to the show, sir. Thank you for being here. Thanks so much. It's a real pleasure.

Okay, so let's start, as they say, at the beginning. I'm sure you loved Monty Python as well. growing up, but how, then you get your job as the CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. How does your organization find itself bidding for and ultimately winning the auction for these costumes? Well, I mean, Michael Palin is a great geographer. He was the president of the Royal Geographical Society in the UK. And he's actually one of our fellows. And he's a two-time medalist of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. So he's, you know, he's one of our community, really. He's a chair. He's one of your tribe. He absolutely is one of our, he's part of the geography tribe. And, you know, and I know him. He's been over to our headquarters at 50

Sussex Drive in Ottawa. He's, you know, he's done talks for us. He wrote a book on Aribus, the Franklin ship that famously was lost in the Arctic. And he wrote a wonderful biography of that ship that's filled with humor, but also very poignant story, of course. So, you know, he's very much part of our community. And, and when, you know, I wanted, I wanted a piece of him for our building, you know, in perpetuity. And I couldn't believe it when I saw that there was this auction coming up and that we had a chance to bid on his, you know, his plaid shirt, the lumberjack shirt as well as this Terry Gilliam, another member of Monty Python, hit his Mountie uniform in Stets. And so, you know, we went for it. So, so now, so you're going to be displaying

these at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society offices? Is that what it is? Yes, yeah. We call it the Center for Geography and Exploration. It's 50 Sussex Drive in Ottawa. So it's, you know, we host lectures there. We have all sorts of events there. We exhibited recently, James Cameron's submersible that went to the deepest part of the World's Ocean, the Mariana Trench, so the deep sea challenger. We had 25,000 people through the building at that point. So, so yeah, this this will be a display that will be seen by Canadians. And as you say, it's something that I think has touched many Canadians.

And not just, you know, of the day. I mean, obviously the CBC at the time was the first broadcaster outside the UK to, to show my Monty Python's flying circus. So Canada was their international breakthrough. And I think Canada means a lot to Monty Python.

And they did their first ever foreign tour out, you know, out to the UK in Canada. So, you know, there's this great connection with this country. And obviously this song, is, I think, a tribute to Canada and Canadian culture and the Canadian forest industry.

I've got to say, there's something wonderfully unique, well, sadly unique about this, but wonderful that you did it, but sad that more people don't think the way you do about going out there and collecting these things that matter to people. Because one of the things I think we are lacking as a society are these common cultural touchstones. that we can rally around, that we all have our stories about. And this is absolutely one of them to a certain generation. Obviously, there's a younger generation that has not yet seen or experienced or has had the privilege and joy of knowing Monty Python. But, you know, for my generation and the generations prior, this song means something.

Well, and I think it means something to younger. My kids, you know, her teenagers and early 20s, they know the song. And, you know, it's on TikTok. You know, these things sort of resonate culturally. And so I think Monty Python, even though, you know, there's, I think, only four of the original troop left. And they're, they've hung up their parrot cage and then, you know, they're done. But, you know, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I am death. Yeah, you know, they, they were just so funny. And, you know, this, as you say, this is something that kind of, I think, made Canadians proud. It's it's it's it's it's it's it's sort of celebrates part of our part of our culture part Canadian important Canadian industry it has the Mountie course um you know it just

poe fun at the machismo of of of uh of that particular industry and the image of at least the popular image of a lumberjack so yeah it's it's a lot of fun you know one of the things that we want to do is help Canadians to feel good about their country it's yeah it's been a stressful year this year. As you say, there's not a lot, it seems like there's been an erosion of what binds us as a country over the last number of years. There's a, there's a pervasive ignorance about our history. There's a, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's, the pieces missing. And our organization through Canadian Geographic magazine works really hard to celebrate, not just the physical geography, but the cultural and, and human geography of the country. And, and, you know,

there are many things that should be unifying us that, you know, many people are just not familiar with. Yeah, and that's why I love this story. I love that your organization did something that I wish more organizations did, which is go find those things that matter and highlight them. You don't have to go out and buy anything, but highlight those parts of our history. And to those who would say, oh, this isn't really Canadian, I would disagree. I would say how we are seen, how we are portrayed around the world is as important as how we portray ourselves. And this is a snapshot of how the world saw us at a particular time. Absolutely right. You know, this summer we presented our gold medal to Joni Mitchell and celebrated, you know, this iconic Canadian. You know,

this is what we do. We were founded in 1929 to celebrate Canada. And it was a response by the sort of intelligency of the country of the day, the leadership of the country of the day, to what they saw was an erosion of a sense of Canadian identity. They saw a national geographic coming up and Americans attempting occasionally to tell a Canadian story not very well. And they wanted a magazine. They wanted an organization that would celebrate Canada, that would make Canada better known to Canadians as well as to the world. And that's what we are. We've been doing it, you know, since 1929. We're coming up on our centennial in a few years. And this is just one, you know, we have Pearson's top hat. We've got, you know, exploration.

artifacts, we've got, you know, all sorts of things in our building that really, you know, try to, when people visit us, try to tell some of those stories. And it can be a lot of fun as this bigger display illustrates. So you've got this in the bag now. Are you working on something new? You know, the funny thing is that people have been popping up with really kind of significant, like for example, Pearson's top hat was just gifted to us by a member of the Pearson family, you know, and he was one of our fellows. Actually, your father was one of our fellows. So we, and a medalist, and so we, you know, we, we want to try to cherish these things. I think, you know, the National Archives has tons of artifacts sitting in warehouses that are

never seen. And, you know, these are things that we will be able to display. And I think people will, you know, this will resonate with a lot of people. There's no question about it. So if people want to come visit, how do they get in the doors at 50 Sussex? Yeah. So it's a working building where our staff is there, but we do events regularly. Coming up, actually, we're hurrying to get this display ready because the global exploration summit is occurring at our building starting on the 12th of September this month. And, you know, explorers from all of the world will be joining us. This is through our partnership with the Explorers Club. So, you know, we're going to have tons of people seeing that these are. Yeah, you'd have to, you'd have to, it'd have to, I got you. John, if people want to learn more about the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, how can they do that? Just visit rcgGS.org or canadiangeographic.ca.c.a. Those are, you know, our publication and the society, and we would appreciate their interest. John Geiger, thank you so much. Congratulations. Well done. Like I said, this is a story. We need more initiative like what you've

just done. And in different ways with different stories and different avenues. But way you chose to do this, I think, is top-notch. Congratulations to you and everyone at the organization. And please come back and talk to us when you got something on the plate that you want to share. I would love that. Thanks, Ben. All right. We're renovating a hotel, expanding our resort, and breathing some life back. into the lake house. Out of here. All while raising a family.

It's messy, it's real, and it's all us. Exciting. I can't tell if that's your exciting face. This isn't just construction. This is our life. Who needs sleep? Building Bomberler. New series Sunday, September 7th.

On Home Network. Stream on Stack TV. I do.