by Natasha Lair
Last updated: 7:50 AM ET, Tue September 9, 2025
For guests sailing with Adventure Canada, few voices are as memorable as Dave Paddon’s.
The Labrador-born performer, known for his quick wit, spoken-word recitations, and encyclopedic knowledge of the North, has spent years bringing the stories of his home to life on deck and in the lounge of expedition ships.
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Paddon’s gift is not simply in telling tales, but in connecting travellers to the spirit of Labrador – its humour, its hardship, and its resilience. Whether through original recitations or retellings of local lore, he offers visitors a chance to understand a region often defined by rugged landscapes but shaped even more by the people who call it home.
That instinct to preserve and share stories extends beyond his performances. His latest project, Nurse Fortescue & Doctor Paddon, grew out of a lifetime surrounded by history: letters, journals, and memories that chart the extraordinary lives of his parents, Tony and Sheila.
Tony served as a naval doctor during the Second World War before dedicating his career to medicine in Labrador, later becoming the province’s Lieutenant Governor. Sheila trained as a nurse during the Blitz in England before joining the Grenfell Mission, where she and Tony met. Together, they built a life of service in one of Canada’s most remote corners.
“My parents lived lives scarcely comprehensible in the modern era,” Paddon writes. “The sense of being part of something which was bigger than oneself and which required one to consider the greater good seems at sharp odds with what we have today.”
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Family-owned and operated for nearly 40 years, Adventure Canada is a Canadian small-ship expedition cruise company that has built its reputation on exactly this kind of storytelling and cultural connection.
Its expeditions carry guests aboard an ice-strengthened vessel to some of the world’s most remote places – the Canadian Arctic, the fjords of Greenland, and the isles of the North Atlantic – with a team of scientists, historians, cultural stewards, artists, and musicians.
Paddon is part of that team, using humour and history to help travellers engage directly with the people and traditions of the North.
Onboard, however, it’s his voice – equal parts humourist, historian, and poet – that resonates most with guests. In an age when travel often races from one highlight to the next, Paddon slows the pace, reminding travellers that the North is as much about listening as it is about seeing.
For more information on Adventure Canada’s expeditions, including its Greenland & Wild Labrador: A Torngat Mountains Adventure that Dave Paddon frequently joins, visit AdventureCanada.com.
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