theborderline.ca

In 2024 for this podcast, James Gordon, spoke in depth about his insightful 2020 album and project, Emergency Climate Musical. A long-time environmentalist, social commentator and concerned man of action, James Gordon continues to record and release important messages through great folk songs.

James Gordon’s Emergency Climate Musical – His one-man show is a ninety-minute theatrical investigation of what surely is THE issue in these uncertain times. Filled with compelling songs, videos, images, stories, rants, laughter, tears, audience participation, a creepy puppet and some concrete ways to face this crisis, James promises to entertain, inform, and leave you with homework.
Follow along as he outlines his premise that we need a total political, societal and economic make-over to face the incredible challenge ahead.
He’s got the cred for the job: James moonlit as a Guelph City Councilor for 8 years, where he introduced climate change motions, and he’s a member of the National Climate Leadership Caucus.

Released February 1, 2020. Produced by Evan and James Gordon – with 9 tracks used by permission from Borealis Records, where the songs were first released.

Date:23 April 2026 .

Most of the music we listen to never really gets under our skin. As pleasant and catchy as it may be, it skims along the surface, like a stone skipping across water. Every now and then, if we are really lucky, we encounter an artist like Sandra Bouza who gets right down into our blood and bones. An artist whose voice stops us in our tracks.

It’s not something that happens overnight. Sandra, who was born in Toronto, and spent her childhood flitting back and forth between Canada and Spain, has been preparing for her whole life to arrive where she is right now. Never at home in any one place, she’s always had an outsider’s sense of not quite fitting into her surroundings. Sandra recalls, “When I was growing up, I was always on the fringes of wherever I was. When I was in Canada, I didn’t feel like I was Canadian. When I was in Spain, I didn’t feel like I was Spanish.”

Always a keen observer, Sandra absorbed many of the sights and sounds of her father’s Galician homeland in Northern Spain where she spent nearly half of every other year. Her mother homeschooled her in much more than the academic subjects she was missing while away from her Canadian home. Encouraged to listen closely to songs on the radio as well as records from her mother’s large collection, she received a natural education in music, and has been singing and playing guitar from a very young age.

It was a natural step for Bouza to choose a life in music, and to begin performing professionally in Canada. Right from the start, she worked tirelessly on her craft and walked through every door that opened, but a new element was needed if she was going to take her music where it needed to go. So, after a decade of writing and singing her own songs at home, Sandra’s life took another turn when a planned six-week sojourn to Morocco turned into a three-year long odyssey. Away from her familiar surroundings, Bouza continued to perform and develop her skills until she knew it was time to come home.

Sandra hit the ground running when she returned to Toronto. Within her first year at home, she won the Toronto Blues Talent search and came second in the city’s prestigious Soul Slam. The early promise of ‘Three Years,’ her 2018 Ep, and ‘Falling Away From Me,’ her first full length album that followed in 2020, put everyone on notice that Sandra Bouza was an artist to watch.

Everything came together for Sandra during an artist’s residence on Halls Island where she wrote most of the material for her upcoming album, ’A Sound in the Dark.’ Everyone who’s heard her sing knows that Sandra’s always been a powerful vocalist and a compelling songwriter, but with the new recording, she has truly found her own voice, and the promise of her earlier work has come to full fruition.

“This record is truly me – more me than I have ever been able to give up to this point. With the new songs, I share more of myself than I have ever been able to do before.”

You can hear echoes of Etta James and Carla Thomas in Bouza’s powerful and highly nuanced phrasing. Like Amy Winehouse and Adele, Sandra’s absorbed a lot from listening to the greats from the golden age of R and B, but like them, she has emerged with a style that is all her own. Gifted with a masterful sense of poise and control, few singers can inhabit a vocal like Bouza does.

Sandra has never shied away from the kind of tough subjects that you have to have lived through to sing convincingly about. Sober for several years now, her music continues to touch on personal struggles, but as a person, she has moved onto higher ground.

“I won’t always sing about recovery and getting straight. I used to think that I couldn’t write or perform without a substance to help me get there. But, I don’t think like that anymore. This is me and these are songs of empowerment. I don’t feel the temptation. I know where I am headed. I’m not looking back.”

Running time: 49 minutes.

Date:22 April 2026 .

S3.E7: GROUNDING

Grounding is a natural human being way of keeping balance in one’s life, but under the pressures of everyday life in the 21st century it appears to be a diminishing practice. Grounding delivers astounding benefits with easy techniques. Maria, with Fidgal, and a visit from Arlenta, discuss how to simply reconnect to the energy that lives within the earth and all that are on Earth. Are we ready to hug a tree?

THE NEW NORMAL PODCAST – Maria Iuliano with Fidgal

Maria guides a successful business called Fidgal, named after Maria’s guardian angel. They met when Maria was 5 years old.

Maria is a Peace Therapist, graduated with Honours in Peace and Conflict Studies from Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology. With this knowledge, along with her expertise in the afterlife and her ability to see auras, Maria helps others find and create peace in their lives.

Visit: fidgal.com

“I am grounded with every situation.”

Date:21 April 2026 .

STONE JOURNEY is my decade’s old reflection in print about my diagnosis of stage 3 rectal cancer, the devastation, uncertainty, fear, guilt, hopelessness that came along with it. I grieved for my health as well as the profound sadness my family endured. To make matters worse, four months after diagnosis and during chemotherapy and radiation, I found a lump in my right breast which was another primary not a spread. This began a whole new approach which was terrifying. None of this was in my family’s medical history.

My medical team were instrumental in keeping my feet to the ground, my purpose in life front and centre and my focus on life not death. My family and friends fed my spirit with wholesome emotional support so I could thrive even at the lowest devastating times.” – Patricia Baker

Date:21 April 2026 .

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

s4.e2. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – Great Lakes Beings : The Invaders

Protectors of the Great Lakes natural environment are diligent in their work to restore and preserve the world’s largest system of fresh water, and save the beings that call it home.

Lindsey Haskin, Writer, Director and Producer, of The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery, an honest documentary of the people who fight tenaciously to ensure that the lakes remain a special part of our lives.

Ellen Ruppel Shell, Journalist and Author of Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, With Eels, is a fascinating account of a deeply mysterious creature – the eel – a tale part natural history, part true crime.

David Jude, on faculty at University of Michigan, Great Lakes Research Division and School of Environment and Sustainability, on discovering the detrimental invasive fish species, the round goby, in 1990.

Featured Music: Chillbreakers. Hannah Shira Naiman. Sultans Of String.
Music beds: Mister Tahti. Rusty McCarthy.
Theme music: Ray Bonneville. Rusty McCarthy.

Photo: A. Miehls, GLFC ‘Lamprey On Lake Trout’

s4.e2. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist – Ray Bonneville

Title – Jurassic Park
Album – Red Curlz
Artist/ Composer – Chillbreakers

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

Title – Fishies
Album – Know The Mountain
Artist / Composer – Hannah Shira Naiman

Title – Trailer
Album – The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery
Run time – 1:30

Title – Minuet – Trio
Album – Sonata for Flute & Harp in E minor
Artist / Composer – Mister Tahti

Title – The Rivers, Lakes and Seas Fiddle Medley
Album – Teaching Children
Artist – Chris McKhool

Title – Entangoed
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – My Spanish Fling
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – O Me O Maja
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – Lady Of The Lake
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: chillbreakers.com

Visit: thefishthief.com

Visit: bostoncombookclubdiscussions.splashthat.com

Visit: hannahshiranaiman.com

Visit: sultansofstring.com

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

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.

Date:19 April 2026 .

S3.E6: LOVE

More words have been written, and conversation uttered, on the subject of love than on any other topic in human history. Yet, it remains a perpetual mystery with so many. Maria, with Fidgal, give insight on understanding love at its various levels. Love is a gift that all have received upon entering the learning world. If that is true, then why all the questions? And what are the answers?

THE NEW NORMAL PODCAST – Maria Iuliano with Fidgal

Maria guides a successful business called Fidgal, named after Maria’s guardian angel. They met when Maria was 5 years old.

Maria is a Peace Therapist, graduated with Honours in Peace and Conflict Studies from Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology. With this knowledge, along with her expertise in the afterlife and her ability to see auras, Maria helps others find and create peace in their lives.

Visit: fidgal.com

“We love you and I love me, too.”

Date:14 April 2026 .

A. A. Parr is a writer, artist and entrepreneur who calls both Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto home. She holds a Specialised Honours BFA from York University in Theatre (Devised Ensemble Creation; Playwriting) with a double minor in Psychology and Cultural Studies. She is also the Founder and Managing Editor of Type A Media.

Type A Media is a new small press and indie literary publisher in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, established with an aim to publish fresh, diverse voices in poetry, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, visual arts, cultural thinkpieces, and hybrid creative works from Northern Ontario and beyond.

We prioritise supporting voices from our northern communities because they are underrepresented in the publishing world. While our shared geography has definitely helped inform and inspire these voices, we know it certainly does not – and should not – limit them. We are interested in promoting those works which both celebrate our diversity and explore our shared experiences.

The publishing industry can be a difficult one to access for Canadians in general, but is especially inaccessible for members of northern communities (with most publishers operating out of Toronto, and a few further away on the West Coast). A large part of the problem is one of access: many writers and artists living in the north are held back by issues such as lack of funding, cultural concerns, family obligations, inconvenience of travel, lack of industry connections . . . the list goes on. We’re not able to access a lot of resources found in places like Toronto – even those as simple as having the opportunity to network at a magazine launch or to attend a book fair.

Our northern communities are rich with culture, with untapped talent, with educated and trained writers, artists, creators. With heritage passed down through generations, and with innovators making leaps and bounds with mere ink and paper. The demand exists for work from Indigenous, Black, queer, disabled, gender diverse, feminist, intersectional and otherwise marginalised writers and artists from Northern Ontario to be given a platform. These voices deserve to be amplified, to be given the opportunity to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged and legitimised.

Our communities are evolving, but the publishing industry has been slow to keep up. We believe it does not have to be that way, and are committed to being the necessary change for our northern communities, to breaking down those barriers and allowing many more of our voices to have the opportunity to participate in the creation of our cultural legacy.

We know there is great value in raising our voices, in promoting our unique perspectives, our multiple languages, and our many creative skills. We are reminded right now especially of the value of sharing our unique perspectives, and of forging connections based on our underappreciated similarities. Type A Media is here to bring together our community, to empower our citizens to recognise their own unique value, and to share these gifts beyond our community.

So whether you’re an artist or a writer – or a lover of the arts – we exist for you. We are here for you. We support you.

Her poetry series written for and about strangers, “I Wrote You This Poem”, is published weekly on Channillo.com, and she is the author of the poetry chapbook, “What Lasts Beyond the Burning”, from Nightingale & Sparrow Press. Her creative works have been seen on stages, in galleries, and in print throughout North America over the past two decades. In her work, she seeks to explore difficult themes in an attempt to shine a necessary light into our darkest crevices.

For more information on her creative works, please visit her website here: www.aaparr.wixsite.com/ourghosts

“The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.”

Date:14 April 2026 .

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

s4.e1.GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – STEWARDSHIP & PLACE

By living on, around and near the Great Lakes, nature asks of those people to be good stewards, and to make the place they live worthy of the unique magnificence it offers.

Chris McKhool and his band, Sultans Of String, in collaborations with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists across Turtle Island, created an album in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation.

Shannon Thunderbird is a Coast Tsm’syen Elder, Singer/Songwriter, Recording Artist, Actor, Writer and Painter who introduces audiences to the history, culture, and spirituality of Canada’s Indigenous People.

Maureen Stine published a book called Grass Left Standing: A Park Interpreter’s Road Map to Forest Bathing, a restorative sensory exploration practiced with a group of people gathered outside in a natural environment.

Music: Sultans Of String. Spencer Mackenzie. The Fuddles.
Music beds: Rusty McCarthy.
Theme music: Ray Bonneville. Rusty McCarthy.

Art Painting: Ray Fox ‘Turtle’

s4.e1. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist – Ray Bonneville

Title – Voices Echoing
Album – Cold November
Artist/ Composer – Spencer Mackenzie

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

Title – A Beautiful Darkness Feat. Marc Meriläinen / Nadjiwan (Ojibwe)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Tkaronto Reel Feat. Métis Fiddler Quartet (Métis)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

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

Title – Nîmihito (Dance) Feat. Northern Cree (Cree)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Our Mother The Earth Feat. Dr. Duke Redbird (Chippewa/Anishinaabe)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Kǫ́ Feat. Leela Gilday (Dene) & Leanne Taneton (Dene)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Lost And Found Feat. Shannon Thunderbird & Kate Dickson (Ts’msyen)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Chanson de Riel Feat. Métis Fiddler Quartet (Métis)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Black Winged Raven Feat. Shannon Thunderbird (Ts’msyen)
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Lost In Translation
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – Anne’s Dream
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – Walking Her Home
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – Four Horses Dancing
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – Lady Of The Lake
Album – Little Things
Artist / Composer – Rusty McCarthy

Title – The Nature Song
Album – The Fuddles
Artist / Composer – The Fuddles

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: spencermackenzie.ca

Visit: sultansofstring.com/walkingthroughthefire

Visit: shannonthunderbird.com

Visit: natureology.me

Visit: thefuddles.com

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

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.

Date:12 April 2026 .

“…I’ve been living in the back of a camper van playing gigs and chasing this crazy dream. I grew up in a small town on the east coast of Australia called Merimbula. We’re mainly known for Surfing, Oysters and Whale Watching. I started busking at local farmers markets when I was 15 and had a fake ID so I could play some pubs around my area. I set off in a van straight after high school to chase my dreams and surf my way across the country. In that first year I was lucky to win the Byron Bluesfest Busking comp and became Folk Artist of the Year and the National Folk Festival. This led to some incredible adventures to Japan, North America and Europe. I manage myself these days and am at the wheel of this beautiful ship. I have amazing people around the world who have become dear friends over the years and help me on my path. But I’m so so proud to be an artist in control of my own journey.”

He’s a true blue Aussie; a surfer with a connection to the sea that spills out in his performances, even when he’s a long, long way from the beach. 

Running time: 43 minutes.

Date:10 April 2026 .

Getting away for vacation is near the top of the things-I-like-to-do list for a whole lot of people and the Superior View ladies are no exception. The travel-sphere has dramatically changed in the very recent past according to reliable reports, including these first hand accounts from the gang. Not as simple as it once was, today it can be a battle in itself to get on an airplane. But, it’s not all bad, there are great memories.

Date:9 April 2026 .