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The GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – WATER AT WHAT PRICE?

Adrian V 21 December 2025 2238 128 4


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

s3.e6. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – Water At What Price?

Fresh water for drinking, swimming and fishing is at risk when the relationship with the Great Lakes environment is determined by short term strategies, politics, and the profit margins.

State Senator Stephanie Chang is a champion for the Water Affordability Act in Michigan as a long-time community organizer in Detroit with a strong, unwavering voice for access and justice.
James Gordon created the full-length play Emergency Climate Musical to entertain listeners and inform the public of his experience in politics, environmental activism and as a singer/songwriter.
Jane Elder authored Wilderness, Water and Rust: A Journey Towards Great Lakes Resilience pondering the value about life in the region and how caring for its ecosystems help us imagine better futures.


Featured Music: Great Lake Swimmers. Lee Murdoch. Many Eagle Set Sun Dance Song.
Music beds: Andree-Ann Deschenes. The North Shore.
Theme: Ray Bonneville & Rusty McCarthy.
Correspondent Report: Lisa Tucker

Painting ‘The Fisherman’ by John Hornstein

s3.e6. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist – Ray Bonneville

Title – The Power Of The Land (Orchestral Version)
Album – Refuge
Artist – Sultans Of String with Duke Redbird and Twin Flames

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

Title – River’s Edge
Album – Lost Channels
Artist – Great Lake Swimmers

Title – Tanguinho
Album – Wanderings
Artist – Andree-Ann Deschenes

Title – Andan​ç​as I
Album – Wanderings
Artist – Andree-Ann Deschenes

Title – Andan​ç​as II
Album – Wanderings
Artist – Andree-Ann Deschenes

Title – We’re Going To Pump Out Lake Erie
Album – What About The Water
Artist – Lee Murdoch

Title – In The Dying Days Of The Empire Of Oil
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – How?
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – We’re The 99
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – Keep Them Stupid Stupid
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – The Moon Looks Like It’s Crying
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – We’re On The Same Side
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – The System Isn’t Broken It Was Made That Way
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – Water Is Rising
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist/ Composer – James Gordon

Title – Kelvinator
Album – Emergency Climate Musical
Artist / Composer – James Gordon

Title – Huron
Album – Great Lakes
Artist – The North Shore

Title – Ontario
Album – Great Lakes
Artist – The North Shore

Title – Michigan
Album – Great Lakes
Artist – The North Shore

Title – Erie
Album – Great Lakes
Artist – The North Shore

Title – Superior
Album – Great Lakes
Artist – The North Shore

Title – Many Eagle Set Sun Dance Song
Album – Plains Chippewa/Metis Music
Artist – Francis Eagle Heart Cree, Boy Joe Fayant, and Leo J. Wilkie
Keeper Of The Song – Elder Francis Eagle Heart Cree

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: facebook.com/JoanneRobertsonStudio

Visit: earth.google.com/web/data

Visit: iantamblyn.com

Visit: diannewhelan.com

Visit: donrossonline.com

Visit: greatlakesgreatread.org/the-water-walker-joanne-robertson

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

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.

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