Including time for audience questions and discussion.
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Immersive field stories about difficult places, unexpected evidence, and the questions that survive the expedition.
Explore the programsThe presentation
Bring the audience to the edge of the unknown.
Michael Girard's presentations combine original expedition photographs, field films, historical sources, and firsthand accounts. The goal is not simply to show where the team went, but to let an audience follow the question through preparation, uncertainty, discovery, and the evidence that returned.
Programs are designed for curious general audiences while retaining the substance needed for experienced explorers, historians, researchers, and technical groups.
For deeper context, additional field material, or longer conversation.
Adapted to the venue, audience, and event format.
Current programs
Three ways into the field.
Each presentation stands alone and can be adjusted for a general audience or for groups with a particular interest in exploration, history, geology, technology, or research.
01A Late Pleistocene Karst Archive
Sistema Calera
A descent into a Mexican cave system whose flooded passages preserve an extraordinary record of Ice Age animals. New evidence may change how the site is understood.
- Cave exploration
- Underwater discovery
- Paleontology
- Human evidence
02Robots in Caves and Flooded Mines
Beyond the Sump
How compact underwater vehicles carry cameras and light beyond flooded boundaries, and what years of testing in mines and caves reveal about risk, evidence, failure, and the limits of technology.
- ROV exploration
- Field engineering
- Risk and judgment
- Discovery
03Caves, Mines and Forgotten Histories
Stories in Stone
Old maps, local legends, overlooked openings, and the physical traces left behind. An investigation of how historical stories are tested in the New England landscape. Fieldwork sometimes confirms, corrects, or complicates those stories.
- Hidden history
- Historical research
- Caves and mines
- Folklore and evidence
For curious audiences
Stories that travel well.
Programs can be shaped around the knowledge, interests, and age range of the people in the room.
MuseumsLibrariesHistorical societiesSchoolsUniversitiesOutdoor organizationsProfessional groupsGeneral audiences
Presentation style
Evidence without losing the adventure.
Michael speaks from direct involvement in the work, but the expedition is never presented as a simple procession of accomplishments. Audiences see the failed leads, practical problems, changing interpretations, and moments when the field evidence overturned what the team expected to find.
“The story becomes meaningful when the audience understands what we could not know before we entered.”
Selected venues
- The Explorers ClubNew York City
- Boston GrottoMIT
- Connecticut Mineral ClubConnecticut
NSS Video Salon
Best of Show honors · 2023 & 2024
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Speaking inquiries can include the audience, venue, preferred program, proposed date, and whether the presentation will be in person or virtual.
Speaking inquiries