Laval St. Germain’s journey to Afghanistan’s highest mountain

Explore: A Canadian Geographic podcast

Laval St. Germain’s journey to Afghanistan’s highest mountain

Today’s conversation with extreme athlete and adventurer Laval St. Germain is fascinating as we journey through Afghanistan to its highest peak, Mt. Noshaq, which stands at 7,492 metres. On the way, St. Germain reveals the current state of a country that was a central focus for Canadians and the world for almost two decades, post-9/11, during the War on Terror.

Afghanistan was home to Canada's longest war, and you hear little about it today, not since the US and NATO pulled out of the country in August 2021. That retreat cleared the way for the extreme Islamist group, the Taliban, to take back control of the country for the first time since being ousted by the US and NATO forces in 2001.

I am fascinated by the place. In 1979, I got my first shortwave radio for Christmas, and I remember the first thing I tuned in to was Radio Moscow reporting that Soviet troops had gone into Afghanistan at the "invitation" of the Afghan government in what would be a long and bloody Soviet defeat. Decades later, in the spring of 2008, as a CBC correspondent, I spent two months embedded with the Canadian military in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I went out on regular patrols with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in armoured vehicles, where every bridge and every culvert crossed was a potential roadside bomb. I went on foot patrol in Kandahar city, visited schools newly opened for the education of girls, and ran for shelter at Kandahar Airfield to avoid incoming Taliban missiles.

I was impressed with what the Canadians were able to do then, maintaining a degree of peace in the Taliban heartland and doing all that with fewer than a thousand combat troops. Still, in that dry, stark, beautiful, mountainous country, that peace and our presence always felt tenuous.

So, what is Afghanistan like now? St. Germain helps peel back some of the layers of that onion as he travels to Mt. Noshaq, talking and travelling with locals from the capital, Kabul, in the centre to the north of the country near the Tajikistan border.

As St. Germain confirms, the Taliban deserves its record as having one of the worst human rights records of any government in the world, largely because of its brutal treatment of women. Hunger also remains an issue, with one in four people needing food aid, according to the UN. And as St. Germain notes, that is not as dire as many had predicted. We also get into the debate about the pluses, minuses and dangers of travelling in a pariah state.

As much as he’s an extreme adventurer, doing amazing things like climbing the highest peaks on all seven continents or rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean, what I love about St. Germain is that he is also a student of history, geography and current events, and he brings all of that to his expeditions.

He's got a great story to tell. Enjoy!