During interviews, Geiger proved adept at working in references to Harper's Arctic sovereignty initiative.

“I think the legacy of the Franklin Expedition, you’re right, in part, is to assert the presence of Canada in the Arctic,” Geiger told the Globe and Mail. “I mean, we are inheritors of this Golden Era of British exploration. But I think the current government has been very wise to pay attention to the north. There’s tremendous economic, you know, future in the north. There’s a lot of resources. There’s a lot of activity up there.”

Affan Chowdhry, the interviewer, put it to Geiger that “there is a political element and agenda to this.”

Geiger agreed, but shrugged it off as cynicism.

“I’ve spoken to the prime minister about this,” Geiger added. “His interest in this is absolutely sincere. You know, he’s a student of the north. He loves that part of the country. He travels, as you know, extensively, more than any Canadian political leader has in our history. Is that a bad thing? Is it a bad thing to have political leadership that is interested in a part of the country that represents very much the economic future and, in some respects, the cultural future of our country? I don’t think so.”

Geiger said in an email that he had no contact with anyone in the PMO about what he should say in media interviews.

"I was not given any instructions or talking points by anyone about what to say — and what not to say — during interviews or about scheduling and otherwise coordinating media opportunities regarding the discovery of Erebus," he said.

Geiger also discussed his part in the discovery with the Globe, this time adding a fresh detail to his anecdote about a moment of prayer "when we were there."



“You have a passion for the Franklin Expedition,” Chowdhry told Geiger. “You’ve co-written a book about the expedition. Describe that moment when you realized, ‘That’s it!’"

“You know,” Geiger replied with a shrug, “I was euphoric, obviously. I was extremely excited. Very happy. You know there was a toast proposed very shortly thereafter. But I was also haunted by it, a little bit, as I have always been by the expedition, by the fact that 129 men died.

"And, you know, when we were there,” he continued, “I had the Anglican Book of Common Prayer with me and I cited a prayer for those lost at sea as well. And I reflected on the fact that there may well be human remains on that ship.”

BuzzFeed Canada asked Geiger about the timing and details of the prayer he cited after learning of the discovery, and when he participated in a toast to the find. He did not offer a date or describe who was with him, and instead cited details about other toasts and prayers.

"A toast was made at the start of the expedition, when many of the partners were together, people like Jim Balsillie, Ryan Harris, and Admiral John Newton, as well as the Prime Minister," he said. "I’ve participated in one or two since the discovery. Regarding prayers, John Newton led one at the start of the expedition. I did have the prayer book with me, and when we were in Victoria Strait a couple of us recited the prayer for those lost at sea."

When CTV’s Don Martin asked how the discovery had unfolded, Geiger omitted the prayer anecdote he told CP and others.

“Suddenly there was a moment when, I wasn’t in the room, but two of the archaeologists were doing this tedious work, and suddenly realized there was a ship in front of them,” he said. Geiger neglected to mention he wasn’t on the same boat, or even in the same body of water.

The media tour continued with CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks. Host Bob McDonald introduced Geiger as “one of the people who led the successful expedition” and said it was carried out “all under the flag of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.”

Geiger correctly said that he was on One Ocean Voyager, but added that sea ice forced the full expedition’s flotilla south of Victoria Strait, which in his case wasn’t true.

“All the vessels had to head into the so-called southern search area,” Geiger told McDonald. “So really, the very bottom of Victoria Strait, and then to the south of that, in Queen Maud Gulf. So really, the major area that we had been, you know, assigned to search has not been searched. And instead, we were kind of bumped to the south.”

To the Parks Canada–led team that did find Erebus, it sounded like Geiger was trying to claim that he was there.

“It’s rewriting history,” said one senior member of the expedition.

Contracts and other documents obtained by BuzzFeed Canada do not outline a role for Geiger or the RCGS to act as lead spokespersons for the expedition. The contract related to the expedition specifically says, “In dealing with the media, the Parties shall not speak for one another unless previously agreed to in writing through an established and jointly-developed media protocol.”

Parks Canada also secured the right “to approve all products and messages related to this project to ensure accuracy.”



Geiger said in an email that the RCGS's role "has been to celebrate the discovery, and the role played by Parks Canada with the support of public and private partners, and to share the story with Canadians."

As examples, he pointed to a special issue of Canadian Geographic magazine, his upcoming book, and the recognition of Parks Canada's Ryan Harris as "one of Canada’s top 100 explorers."

In terms of the expedition itself, the RCGS was contracted to provide a "research platform" for equipment such as the robotic sub.

"As CEO, I’m very proud of our organization’s supporting role," he said.

The role continued in October when Harper told the House of Commons that the wreck had been identified as Erebus. In preparation for the announcement, two senior Parks Canada divers were told to get ready to fly to Montreal and Toronto to brief reporters. They were ordered to stand down at the last minute, a federal source said. Once again, Geiger handled the media with a written statement and interviews.

Few of those involved in the expedition would go on record about their frustrations with what they felt was Geiger’s mistelling of the discovery, and his efforts to convey core Harper government messages during interviews. One exception is Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of Research in Motion, now known as BlackBerry, who was a leader of the Franklin search effort.

Balsillie watched in frustration as Geiger placed himself and the RCGS at the centre of the discovery. The final straw came when in April 2015 Balsillie watched the aforementioned documentary about the expedition on CBC’s The Nature of Things. It was co-produced by Lion Television, the U.K. film company that Geiger and the RCGS brought in as a partner. (Gordon Henderson, president of the Canadian co-producers 90th Parallel Productions, which revised Lion’s first cut of the documentary on a tight deadline, told BuzzFeed Canada that Geiger exercised no control over the film’s content.)

Three weeks after it aired, on April 30, Balsillie wrote a formal letter of complaint to Minister Aglukkaq and copied it to the PMO. Balsillie said he was “troubled that Canadian history is not being presented accurately and I have expressed my concerns to [Geiger] in the past.”

He added:

While I don’t want to speculate about the motivation of RCGS and its partners in creating an alternative narrative for themselves and their role in the Victoria Strait partnership I am concerned that official communication outputs, such as this documentary, contain versions of the search that are misleading to the Canadian public.

Balsillie said that he was warned that his outspoken objection could have serious personal ramifications.

“Most people were supportive of me in sending the letter, but a couple of civil servants cautioned me that if I pushed too hard, the PMO could ‘destroy me and my friends,'” he said. “The notion that I could be intimidated by boys in shorts for questioning the accuracy of RCGS’s narrative is laughable.”

Balsillie said he never received a reply until the letter was made public. (Read his letter here.)

Meanwhile, as Balsillie and others fumed over how the find was being misrepresented to the public, Harper and Geiger began to exchange medals in recognition for each other’s work.