The GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – Losing A Lung : Fire In The Boreal Forest

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

s2.e2.GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – LOSING A LUNG : FIRE IN THE BOREAL FOREST The great forests of the Great Lakes are being remade by fire, with huge implications for the water and warming cycle.

Dean Sayers is an elder of the Batchewana First Nation, he story tells of fire and the mighty thunderbird protecting the Great Lakes watershed. From her home in Duluth, Minnesota, Lanue is Sarah Krueger reinvented by her music, going electric and still keeping it honest. Joanie McGuffin, conservationist of the Lake Superior Watershed, enlightens with a talk on natural v. man-made fires. And music by Ansley Simpson.

s2.e2. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music & Art Credits

Painting by Thomas Sinclair

Title – Big Five Water
Artist – Ray Bonneville

Title – Flame
Artist – Melody Moffatt

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

Title – Kwe (Turning Into Thunderbird)
Album – She Fell From The Sky
Artist – Ansley Simpson

Title – Bawating
Artist / Composer – Guy Smith

Title – Northern Air
Album – Northern Air
Artist/Composer – Sarah Krueger

Title – Grace
Album – Dancing With Phantoms
Artist/Composer – Sarah Krueger

Title – Still Come Around
Album – Fire In My Mind
Artist/Composer – Lanue

Title – Wars Intro
Album – Lanue
Artist/Composer – Lanue

Title – Fire In My Mind
Album – Fire In My Mind
Artist/Composer – Lanue

Title – What’s It Gonna Be
Album – Fire In My Mind
Artist/Composer – Lanue

Title – Something Sacred
Album – Lanue
Artist/Composer – Lanue

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

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: ansleysimpson.com

Visit: guysmith.ca

Visit: lanuemusic.com

Visit: superiorconservancy.org

Visit: facebook.com/tomtom.sinclair

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.