The first editor was Charles Camsell, since 1915 a fellow of the British Royal Geographical Society, as well as a geologist who had been responsible for mapping large parts of Northern Ontario, Manitoba and the Yukon.

Controversial subjects such as acid rain, clear-cut logging, vanishing wetlands, the pollution of the Great Lakes and energy sources of Canadians have also been covered in print and online.

In 2002, the magazine established the Canadian Environment Awards program in partnership with the government and private companies.

[3] The magazine also distributed free educational resource material to schools across the country that discussed the Alberta Oil Sands.

[4] In March 2018, in light of the American magazine National Geographic, performing a public mea culpa for its history of racist depictions, the editorship of Canadian Geographic publicly announced that it would be performing a similar historical review of its published content to see if it has had similar problems.