Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

Jamie Jackson sits down with renowned roast battle icon Tyler Morrison to talk  all things comedy & Canada’s  entertainment landscape: what it really takes to chase a dream, put yourself out there, & make people laugh. 

The conversation dives into  economic & cultural obstacles for Canadian artists, riffing on Luc Rinaldi’s Walrus article with Skye Wallace: 📰 "The Death of the Middle-Class Musician".

Canadian musicians are squeezed by low streaming revenue, touring costs, & a lack of sustainable support, threatening the very survival of full-time artistry: What kind of country do we want for our creatives? What happens when the middle class in music, and in comedy, disappears?

They touch on rising costs in sports, local media, polarization, & the rise of politically incorrect comedy while keeping  laughs rolling, packed with anecdotes & moments of reflection. Whether a die-hard comedy fan, an up-and-comer or just wondering what happened to your rock ‘n’ roll dreams—this is for you. 🎸🎧

Reach Tyler @tylermorrison123 OR  https://cottagecomedy.com/

⏱️ Chapters

00:00—Tyler Morrison & the Comedy Scene
05:59—Substance Use, Community, & Rural Realities
11:43—Polarization
17:23—Challenges for Artists
19:30—Entertainment in 2025
22:40—Streaming Services/Modern Cinema
24:27—Music Streaming & the Artist’s Raw Deal
26:42—Songwriting & Authenticity in Art
28:25—Cost of Sports
32:27—Decline of Local Media
34:24—Accountability & Cancel Culture
38:21—Comedy: Then & Now
40:21—Changing Reception of Jokes: Rise of Politically Incorrect Comedy
52:24—Russell Peters: Viral
55:46—The Comedy Boom: Canadian Frustration
58:22—Comedy after COVID
01:01:30—Local Support & Word-of-Mouth
01:08:40—Canadian Artistry
01:09:53—Social Media & Promotion
01:16:54—Stories in an Age of Noise
01:21:23—Identity, Humour & Canadian Culture
01:22:43—The Tragically Hip
01:27:05—Roasting, Respect, & the Knife’s Edge
01:37:16—Advice for Aspiring Comedians & Writing Jokes
01:46:56—Digital Comedy: Changing Stages & Power 
01:54:50—The Future

Keywords

stand-up, comedy, roasts,  social media, Tyler Morrison, John Moses, Tom O'Donnell, Cottage Comedy, Main Offenders, Fight Stories, Scott Thompson, Just For Laughs, Yuk Yuks, Big Wreck, Skye Wallace, Canadian Music, Mark Gagnon, Ron Josol, Andrew Schulz, polarization,

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

❄️ QUICK OVERVIEW:

Stone ramparts, swirling snow, and two dying generals—Wolfe & Montcalm—set the stage for a contest that redrew the continent. From the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) to the failed rebellions of 1837, we trace how maps inked in blood became the blueprint for a stubborn, still-unfinished country.

🫵 KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Empires Collide: The Seven Years’ War was the world’s first global war; Québec was its pivot point. New France & Britain hash it out. Plains of Abraham. (not Lincoln.)
   
   
2. Maps ≠ Meaning: When flags change, cultures don’t disappear—they go underground and wait. A nation is not a country. The notion of nation-state as modern country is introduced-- an organic concept of personal & collective identity as tied to the land --> "A house is not a home."
   
   
3. Failure → Fuel: The crushed uprisings of 1837 planted the seed of Canadian self-government. Mackenzie King - Loyalists - Alliances
   
   
4. Grit Lives On: Canada isn’t a finished painting; it’s a fire that needs tending—by us. Making connections to things seemingly long ago as we move toward understanding Canada in 2025 and beyond: Canada 2.0: Our Reformation

🗺️ CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 — Frost, cannon smoke & the big questions
 7:48 — Plains of Abraham: twenty minutes that toppled New France
18:22 — Treaty of Paris, living ghosts & stubborn habitants
23:40 — Papineau, Mackenzie & the printers’ revolt (1837)
32:55 — Fire → Frost: a spirit forged in endurance
40:10 — Outro reflection & listener challenge

🔍 REFLECTION QUESTION

What do you believe in deeply enough to fight for, and what happens to a dream when its map is erased?

Share your answer in the comments or tag us #CanadianGritPodcast. We read every post!

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY: Canadian Grit: North of Ordinary: A Community of Resilience & Real Stories

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1347732846339874

🚀 CALL TO ACTION

• Subscribe / Rate / Review — it’s the flint that keeps this fire burning.
• Share the episode with one history-curious friend.
• Support the show (gear upgrades & archival deep dives) → https://CanadianGrit.ca/support

🌀 Watch / Listen:

• YouTube (animated wave-map intro) →

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

Check out Canadian Grit's First-Ever Official Interview! Also available on our BRAND NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH VIDEO! 🏴‍☠️

🌀YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erOPxMEIDFY

 

🌀Primed for Charity HomePage <--CLICK

All audio episodes now there, too-- animated editions to come later. ❤️‍🔥

Here's an ingenius *FREE* grassroots mission YOU CAN HELP in under 15 seconds if you have Amazon Prime: $3 "sub"  to Richard's charity.

• Richard is a local hero 
• From our time together at RMC to community engagement
• LIVE LINKS: WHERE  FUNDS ARE GOING TO HELP PEOPLE AND CATS NOW!!!
• Innovative fundraising: "Primed for Charity": the power of tech for charity: Indigenous youth programs; street missions; no-kill cat shelters, biospheres, environment
• Trust within community: essential for success
• Richard's personal struggles: finding purpose in helping others
• Stream for charity: significant impact & awareness
• Understanding platforms like Twitch can empower individuals to contribute to causes
• Donation transparency fosters trust; encourages more contributions
• Connecting with Indigenous communities is vital for cultural understanding and & support
• Leadership involves recognizing value of community & role of elders.

In this engaging conversation, Jamie interviews Richard Desaluniers, a local hero  in Edmonton dedicated to community service & innovative fundraising. His unique approach using "Twitch" for fundraising emphasizes the power of technology in making real change. The discussion touches  personal struggles, the significance of Indigenous communities, & the role of elders in leadership. To inspire listeners to take action and contribute to their communities.

🫵KEY Takeaways:

• Every action is heroic.
• Community is the heart of change.
• We can change the world together.

Keywords: Agency, Power, Individual empowerment, fundraising, Canada, mental health, Indigenous youth; Indigenous ways of kno

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

🎧 Episode 3.2 – The Boy in the Smoke

🔥 Champlain, Brouage, and the Fire Before the Flame

Before he was a mapmaker, a mediator, or a founder of nations, Samuel de Champlain was a boy — born in smoke, salt, and fire.

In Episode 3.2 of Canadian Grit: North of Ordinary, we return to 16th-century France, where the fortified Atlantic port of Brouage churned with war, ambition, and the scent of cannon smoke. Here, in a village gripped by the Wars of Religion and shaped by the crashing tides of empire, a young Champlain grew up watching his world burn... and quietly dreaming of another way.

This episode pulls back the veil on the early life of a boy who would one day change the course of history. Raised in the chaos of civil war, surrounded by butchers, fromagiers, and soldiers marching to opposing gods, Champlain was forged in a crucible of violence and uncertainty. 

But rather than becoming hardened, he grew curious. 

Observant. 

Strategic. 

And ultimately, hopeful.

Part immersive history, part poetic meditation on place and becoming, Episode 3.2 explores how the boy became the man, and how the man would someday offer a radically different vision for what a “New World” could be.

Champlain wasn’t an accident. He was an outcome.
And his origin story matters now more than ever.

🎧 Listener Prompt:
What did the world you were born into teach you — and what have you chosen to carry forward anyway?

🔍 Keywords:
Samuel de Champlain, Brouage, Religious Wars, French History, Turtle Island, Colonialism, Continuity and Change, Popular History Podcast, Identity, Place, Explorer Mindset, Canadian Grit, Resilience, Adam Shoalts, Hybrid Reality Theory (Jackson, 2025)

🙏 Support the show & join the community:
Instagram: @canadiangritmedia
Facebook: Canadian Grit Page
Facebook Community Group: Join the Discussion

If this story moved you — or reminded you of your own grit — I’d love to hear from you.

Know someone with an untold story? Reach out. Let’s give it voice.

Thank you for being here. It means more than you know.

— Jamie

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

Episode 3.1 – Turtle Island, Interrupted (Redux): Director Champlain’s Cut
🔥 The Dawn of Modern Canada

Before there was Canada, there was Turtle Island — a name, a memory, a map of stories passed from one generation to the next. But what happens when those stories are interrupted?

In this cinematic redux of Episode 3.1, host Jamie Jackson pulls back the curtain on the director’s cut of Canada’s founding — with no colonial filter. From the origin stories of Sky Woman and the Haudenosaunee to Samuel de Champlain’s dream of something more than empire, we voyage deep into the human spirit behind our nation’s founding myths.

This isn’t just history. It’s a confrontation. A reckoning. 

A remix.

From Adam Shoalts’ wild solitude—including passages from his brand new book, Where the Falcon Flies: A 3,400 Kilometre Journey from my Doorstep to the Arctic, to daredevils launching off Niagara Falls — this episode explores what drives explorers, rebels, and revolutionaries to risk everything for something unseen. Featuring reflections on Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle, the erasure of Indigenous languages, and the tension between old world ambition and new world connection, this is an episode that doesn’t just teach — it challenges.

If Episode 1 was the spark, and Episode 2 was the tinder, this is the moment the fire catches. Grab a log, and have a seat. 

You'll be happy you did.

🚨 Listener Prompt:
When was the last time you believed in something so much… you were willing to leap into the unknown?

Keywords: Indigenous Ways of Knowing; Colonialism; Immersive; History; Continuity and Change; Challenge; Popular History; Culture; Community; Leadership; Martin Luther King Jr.; Reality TV; Hybrid Reality Theory (Jackson, 2025).

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

What if history wasn’t just a series of dates, but a map of the human soul?

In this epic, cinematic journey through time and space, we trace the arc of exploration, ambition, and identity—spanning from Leif Erikson and the Vikings to JFK, the Space Race, the Avro Arrow, and Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. We hop from Étienne Brûlé to the Cold War to today, and all the way back to the traces and roots of our modern and ongoing reckoning with Canada’s evolving story.

We are living at an unbelievable point in human history. This “bridge” episode connects past and present through the powerful currents of continuity and change, progress and peril. 

As we sail the whitecaps of time toward the life of Samuel de Champlain in the next episode, we confront the earliest (known) colonial encounters, the scars and sparks of contact, and evolving forces within Dr. Marshal McLuhan's 'global village'. 

These historical and human forces directly shape us and our communities.

Important figures like Dr. Gabor Maté are also examined to better understand implications of our modern obsession with perfection and (un)originality, and how the anxieties of Western culture have disconnected us from a deeper, more rooted way of being. We explore how reunification of the bodymind through wonder, story, and personal connection can offer us a path forward.

Whether through Adam Shoalts-inspired wilderness trails, or Soviet rocket launches, this episode asks: What does it mean to belong to a land, a legacy, and a people still in formation?

This discussion is north of ordinary.

🧭 Topics Covered

Canadian History, early European exploration, Adam Shoalts, colonial contact with indigenous peoples, Chief Donnacona, indigenous ways of seeing and knowing, mapping and cartography, humanity, the human spirit, technology through time, critical perspectives, Cartier, Cabot, Brûlé, Champlain, JFK, Reagan, Iron Curtain, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Canada, USSR, Russia, United States, politics, Indigenous stories, ways of knowing, space race, Gabor Maté, mental health, resilience, perfectionism, colonial contact

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

Canadian Grit: North of Ordinary

Before Canada had a name, there was only wilderness—vast, unknown, and full of risk. In this powerful two-part episode, host Jamie Jackson takes us on a sweeping journey through time and psyche: from uncharted oceans to the inner maps we carry as human beings navigating uncertainty.

Part history, part myth, part reflection—this episode explores the raw courage it takes to sail into the unknown, whether in the 10th century or today’s hybrid digital world. We reflect on early explorers, the Halifax Explosion, and the enduring legacy of Canadian author Hugh MacLennan, whose words inspired Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip's iconic song Courage.

We unpack identity, regret, resilience, and the universal need to belong—drawing parallels between the age of discovery and our own 21st-century crisis of disconnection. With ambient soundscapes, poetic narration, and real talk about demoralization, burnout, mental health, and the cost of not acting with courage, this episode calls on all of us to remember: we are not machines. We are human. We are Canadians. Together. 

And our story isn’t finished. 

It's just getting started! 

Featuring: Hugh MacLennan, The Tragically Hip, Gabor Maté, Peter Levine, Jackson's "Hybrid Reality Theory" (2025), Canadian history, public education, and the enduring power of grit.

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie

Got a story? Want to reach out? Send us a text!

Canadian Grit: North of Ordinary. Episode 1: The Rope, the Pine, and the Torch

Before there was Canada, there was wilderness—untamed, unknown, and unforgettable. In this premiere episode, host Jamie Jackson, PhD (ABD), weaves history, reflection, poetry, and personal truth into a deeply human journey. From childhood wallpaper dreams to the burnout halls of Ontario public schools, this is a story about grit, memory, and why holding the torch of humanity matters.

You'll hear about early explorers like Champlain, the music and literature that shaped a generation, and the invisible systems we’re all swimming in. More than a podcast about Canadian history—it’s a reflection on identity, resilience, educator well-being, and what it means to care in a world that often forgets to.

Featuring voices from Rush, Springsteen, The Tragically Hip, and Colonel John McCrae, this episode is for educators, misfits, seekers, and humans alike.

Keywords: Canadian history, Champlain, public education, teacher burnout, Ontario schools, resilience, Gabor Maté, Rush, Tragically Hip, trauma, identity, belonging, existentialism, Bruce Springsteen, Paulo Freire, podcast Canada

Support the show

I am so incredibly grateful that you stopped by. Thanks for listening to the show.

I hope you loved it. If you're interested, check me out on socials

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/canadiangritmedia/
OR: @canadiangritmedia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Facebook Discussion and Community Page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573998726741

Remember, my friends: We're in this thing together. It means more than you know. We're just getting started!

If you know of anyone-- or if YOU have an amazing story of grit, or even something to share with the world, why not reach out and let me know?

I'd love to give voice to your stories.

All the very best.

Your good pal,

-Jamie