The GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – Anthropocene

The Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour is broadcast on NPR (National Public Radio)

s1.e9.GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – ANTHROPOCENE For better or worse, humans have altered and will shape the future of the Great Lakes. The Anthropocene epoch has arrived.

The scientific global community has planted the “golden spike” at Crawford Lake in Ontario/Six Nations territory as the definitive marker introducing the Anthropocene epoch. Tagona Press publisher Bryan Davies, great-great grandson to George Crawford, shares Crawford family history. Dr. Rochelle Sturtevant is an eco-system ecologist working on invasion biology at Michigan State University and Sea Grant. Jill Heinerth assists the sciences through her art and life as an underwater explorer and cave diver. Music and a culture story by Indigenous roots-folk-rock singer/songwriter David Laronde. And the Phil Mantello Project featuring Bob Yeomans.

s1.e9. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music & Art Credits

Photo Credit – Bryan Davies, Tagona Press

Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist – Ray Bonneville

Title – St. Mary’s River Fantasy
Album – Nocturnes
Artist – Rusty McCarthy

Title – Sidereal Message
Album – Stepping On Silver
Artist – The Phil Mantello Project

Title – Dirt River X-ing
Album – Zombie Zone
Artist/Composer – Trappa Skunk

Title – Toxic Pools
Artist/Composer – Trappa Skunk

Title – Mirror Lake
Album – Symphony No. 1 in D Major
Artist/Composer – Mister Tahti

Title – Dark Woods
Album – Symphony No. 1 in D Major
Artist/Composer – Mister Tahti

Title – Boss Zombie
Artist/Composer – Trappa Skunk

Title – Sacred Springs
Album – Symphony No. 1 in D Major
Artist/Composer – Mister Tahti

Title – Theme for Lake Ontario pt.1
Album – Collective Order Vol. 3
Artist – Collective Order
Composer – Andrew McAnsh

Title – Theme for Lake Ontario pt.2
Album – Collective Order Vol. 3
Artist – Collective Order
Composer – Andrew McAnsh

Title – The End of All Rivers
Album – Speechless
Artist/Composer – Bruce Cockburn

Title – Sequence
Album – Requiem For a Glacier
Artist – Northern Symphony
Composer – Paul Walde

Title – Northwind Track
Album – Under the Raven’s Wing
Artist – David Laronde

Title – Spirit Journey
Album – Right City Wrong Town
Artist – David Laronde

Title – Show Me A Sign
Album – Under the Raven’s Wing
Artist – David Laronde

Title – Carry Your Smile
Album – I Know I Can Fly
Artist – David Laronde

Title – Carry Your Smile
Album – I Know I Can Fly
Artist – David Laronde

This program produced by GLOW Radio Partners in venture with The Borderline Events Co.

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: paulwalde.com

Visit: davidlarondemusic.com

Great Lakes Odyssey World

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the Great Lakes Odyssey World is a multi-national effort to strengthen and explore our relationship with the natural wonders known as the Great Lakes.

In this part of the project, we have created a multi-part audio series looking at the way the Great Lakes shape our lives, our livelihoods, our health and our culture.

50 years ago, folks in the media and elsewhere were ready to declare the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie “dead.”

The thought so appalled citizens in Canada and the United States, they forced their national governments to act.

Because, of course, the Great Lakes shape the life of both Canada and the United States. And, of course, the Great Lakes are a single system stretching from Duluth to Ottawa and down the St. Lawrence seaway. What happens to any of the Lakes will soon happen to the others.

So, the politicians of 50 years ago negotiated the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, “for the purpose of restoring, protecting and enhancing the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes basin.”

50 years later, we can see the agreement worked. We see more fish, cleaner water, and less pollution. Unlike the early settlers and colonials, who mostly saw the Lakes as a resource to tap, we now recognize, like the First Nations, the Lakes are part of our identity. They shape our relationships, our songs and celebrations of place, the way we eat, how we play, and what we make, or sell, or harvest.

50 years since the wake-up call of a burning river, Great Lakes Odyssey wants to learn how we live and love, hurt and restore the incredible gift which is the Great Lakes.

We will explore Great Lakes art and artistic expression, and meet the artists, writers, musicians who make it. We will also dip into Great Lakes history and lore – and learn from the people who have been here the longest and know it the best: The People of the Three Fires, the Anishinaabek.

On our Odyssey around the Great Lakes, we will also hear from people working to prevent poisonous algal blooms or stop the spread of invasive species. We will meet visionaries undoing decades of development that hardened shorelines, emptied marshes and wetlands, and destroyed critical spawning grounds. We will talk to people working to ensure all beings have access to pure drinking water.

Because none of us can live without pure drinking water.

In this wondrous place we call the Great Lakes, we know we are blessed by these Sweet Water Seas. We claim them as our H.O.M.E.S. as the emotionally accurate mnemonic says. They are Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior, and they are our HOMES.

As long as humans have lived in, and of and through the Lakes, people have told stories about them, sung about them, and gloried in this great gift of the long departed Ice Age. Left by glaciers thousands of years ago, they are the World’s storehouse of fresh water. If they are drained… or ruined… or damaged, they can never be replaced.

So, as we travel around the Great Lakes basin, we want to see how we are doing – what we are doing – how we’re feeling and what we’re learning as we try to live as lovers and restorers – and children and family – of the being whom the Anishinaabek call Nayaano-nibiimaang Gichigamiin, the five freshwater seas.

We hope to galvanize, inspire, and motivate you to strengthen, support and steward the Great Lakes to a beautiful and healthy future.

So please join us on this magical, dare we say “magical mystery tour” of the Great Lakes basin and Great Lakes culture.