theborderline.ca

The Hogtown Allstars is a band of not-so-new blues players making its’ Sault Ste. Marie debut.

Built with some of the most experienced players in the global blues music industry, the Hogtown Allstars is headed by Downchild Blues Band alumni Chuck Jackson, Pat Carey, Gary Kendall, Jim Casson and Tyler Yarema with Maple Blues Band alumni Teddy Leonard and Howard Moore. Individually and with these bands, the members of Hogtown Allstars have won more than 20 Maple Blues Awards, 5 Juno Awards and numerous international blues and jazz music awards. Inductees into both the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Blues Museum Hall of Fame in addition to a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Maple Blues Awards, Downchild Blues Band is one of the planet’s foremost, most fêted, longest-running blues outfits – but add to this members of legendary bands Fathead, Powder Blues, The Cameo Blues Band, David Vest & The Willing Victims, The Swingin Blackjacks, Braithwaite & Whiteley, Johnny Rawls, The Robin Banks Blues Band, The Mighty Duck Blues Band and Lance Anderson’s The Last Waltz – and you’ve got a BLUES SUPERGROUP that cannot be underestimated.

Originally conceived in 2013, the Hogtown Allstars started as an opportunity for a collaborative outlet for Toronto-based musicians who have spent decades dedicated to the blues as an art form that defines their careers.

Date:11 September 2025 .

In ‘Living Beyond The Shadow’, a compelling and poignant story unfolds. This book chronicles the life of Diane Sims, a writer originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario who now makes Stratford, Ontario her home. After a lifetime battling multiple sclerosis, ovarian cancer, and a deteriorating bowel, the author has now chosen to end her life’s journey through Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). In this deeply personal, often provocative narrative, Sims takes her readers on a remarkable journey, one that commences with the initial MS diagnosis. Undeterred by often serious medical setbacks, Sims embarked on what would become a final journalism career. Sims’ portfolio included five captivating books before she decided to tell her life story without constraint. This memoir is not just a reflection on illness and mortality. It is equally a celebration of resilience, passion, and the indomitable human spirit.

A Publisher’s Note (Bryan Davies, Tagona Press, Sault Ste Marie) –

Diane Sims is brave beyond words. A simple, assertive sentiment that cannot do full justice to a fine memoir and an even better person. There is no small irony in the fact that our Sault Ste Marie-based publishing house is bringing Diane’s life story full circle. The Sault was where Diane was born, lived, and attended high school. Lifelong friendships were forged in this city. It is here Diane first encountered the grim, relentless shadow that has assumed a variety of sinister forms for nearly 50 years. Serious disease means that often intense pain and significant physical limitations have been Diane’s constant companions. There would be no shame ever in giving in to such overwhelming forces or deciding that life would be lived on the shadow’s terms. After all, we are only human.

And yet – it is Diane’s essential humanity that propels her story forward. She has never lost her joy of living. I am proud to have helped Diane craft this fine memoir, one that will stand as a testament to what ‘being human’ really means. At the same time, I am grateful for the opportunity to know such a uniquely gifted person. Diane gradually subdued and then vanquished the shadow by living life on her terms – and this book is proof.

“There’s a crack in everything, to quote Leonard Cohen, and for me, for now, the light of creativity continues to get in.”

Date:9 September 2025 .

HEADF1RST released Road Trippin’ in 2025, a collection of nine original tunes penned by the five members of the Sault Ste. Marie based rock group. The songs blend influences from rock’n’roll to metal and grunge with a decidedly guitar driven power. With the new material HEADF1RST made a business decision to alter their creative process and engaged Unsalted Audio, and recording producer Bill Priddle, for their second band effort, this time a full length offering. The music explores darker themes of mental health and broken relationships, but staying true to their band ethos of having a good time and cranking the energy up high.

Dedicated players to the craft of songwriting and seeking a career as a touring group, Road Trippin’ arrived on the heels of their debut four-song 2023 EP, Head Trauma, recorded at Mission Control Studios with Dustin Jones.

Vocals & Bass: Claire Jeffery
Vocals & Guitar & Bass: Red Jettison
Lead Guitar: Rainey Rancourt
Rhythm Guitar: Liam Dinsmore
Drums: Anthony “MooseJaw” Boudreau

Recorded at Unsalted Audio
Engineering by Dustin Goodall
Produced by Bill Priddle

Running time: 55 minutes.

Date:8 September 2025 .

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

s3.e1.GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – PALEOCLIMATE

Originating in the ancient past and during the coldest of times, the Great Lakes story begins with the Ice Age. Traveling thousands of years to today, the Odyssey now finds itself navigating uncharted waters.

The Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour searches the paleoclimate story of the Great Lakes basin.
Elizabeth Thomas, Associate Professor at the University of Buffalo specializes in localized paleoclimate dynamics.
Dr. Roberta Bondar, an astronaut scientist like no other, and a photographer extraordinaire, tells a bird migration story with an eye from outer space.
Alex Mason is a Toronto based musician, grappling with Ghosts of The Great Lakes, his 2023 album.

Featured music: Katherine Wheatley. Jay Linden.
Music beds: Joao Miquel, Rusty McCarthy.
Theme: Ray Bonneville.
Photo: Carpet Of Light by Dr. Roberta Bondar

s3.e1. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist – Ray Bonneville

Title – They’re Sending A Crew To The Moon
Album – Ordinary Sunrise
Artist /Composer – Jay Linden

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

Title – Storm Warning
Album – Landed
Artist / Composer – Katherine Wheatley and James Gordon

Title – FM Synth
Artist/Composer – Joao Miguel

Title – Aeolian Flavour
Artist/Composer – Joao Miguel

Title – Yadayada
Artist / Composer – Joao Miguel

Title – Also Sprach Zarathustra
Album – Movie Themes 2001 – A Space Odyssey
Artist/Composer – Richard Strauss

Title – Space Oddity
Album – David Bowie
Artist/Composer – David Bowie

Title – The Final Launch of Discovery
Label – Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Title – The Window
Album – Ghost of The Great Lakes
Artist /Composer – Alex Mason

Title – The Storms of Georgian Bay
Album – Ghost of The Great Lakes
Artist /Composer – Alex Mason

Title – Ghost of The Great Lakes
Album – Ghost of The Great Lakes
Artist /Composer – Alex Mason

Title – Ghost of The Great Lakes
Album – Ghost of The Great Lakes
Artist /Composer – Alex Mason

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: katherinewheatley.com

Visit: alexmason.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-of-the-great-lakes

Visit: glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/ekthomas

Visit: therobertabondarfoundation.org

Visit: jaylinden.bandzoogle.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:6 September 2025 .

Kalle Mattson and Jimmie Chiverelli catch up on a visit at the 10th anniversary of Anchors.

Kalle Mattson has performed both as the leader of an eponymous band and beginning as a solo artist in 2009. Two years later, Kalle Mattson solo had grown into a full band that featured Saulites Rory Lewis, Thean Slabbert, and Jimmie Chiverelli on drums. The band released Anchors the album that year on April 13th, 2011.

Jimmie interview chats with Kalle about creating that album; they bring up some individuals that helped in the process – Blue Rodeo, Howie Beck and Olenka among them – and what Kalle is up to, now ten years down the road with his new group, Summersets.

Contact: kallemattson.com/

 “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”

• Kalle Mattson
• Jimmie Chiverelli

Date:3 September 2025 .

While growing up, Louise Bradford spent every summer camping around Lake Huron and Lake Superior near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. These days, when she’s not writing, you’ll find her exploring beautiful British Columbia.

Louise is the proud author of Wade’s Wiggly Antlers, published by Kids Can Press, and translated into French by Éditions Scholastic. In 2019, Wade’s Wiggly Antlers and Eustache perd son panache were offered in McDonald’s Canada Happy Meals to promote literacy.

“Louise Bradford’s appealing story is accompanied by Christine Battuz’s amusing illustrations that incorporate a variety of techniques including pattern, shape, shadow and colour. These pictures draw the reader in to closely examine the many delightful features of each page. The partnering of the text and the art adds humour and enhances the characterization of Wade and his friends. Bradford’s text may be slightly challenging for the very early reader, but the richness of the words and sentences adds to the charm of the story. This also makes it a great read-aloud.” CM Magazine: Review of Books

Visit: louisebradford.com/

“Did you know that, pound for pound, the moose is the leanest ruminant on Earth? It’s true. Moose are very in tune with their natural surroundings.”

Date:2 September 2025 .

Kevin Holmes. Golf Course Architect

Sault Ste. Marie native Kevin Holmes is a Principal at The MBTW Group. His responsibilities include managing the Landscape Architectural aspects of projects including community landscapes, commercial properties, parks, sports fields and open spaces and golf course developments.

Kevin Holmes, B. Landscape Architecture is a Senior Golf Course Architect with the MBTW Group / W Architect Inc. in Toronto. He has 25 years’ experience designing and renovating golf courses throughout Ontario, with his most notable project to date being the award-winning Crimson Ridge Golf Course in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Other Ontario designs include Watson’s Glen GC in Pickering, Carruther’s Creek GC in Ajax, Black Horse G&CC in Kincardine, the Island Springs Golf Resort on St. Joseph Island and Redcrest at Cardinal GC in Newmarket. His portfolio also includes renovations to Huron Oaks GC in Sarnia and expansions at King’s Bay G&CC and Tillsonburg G&CC.

Mr. Holmes holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Hon.) from the University of Guelph. During his final year he studied at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he focused on traditional golf course design, travelling extensively throughout the U.K.

Running time: 46 minutes.

Visit: https://mbtw.com/

Date:29 August 2025 .

Host Lisa Tucker wrenches a few laughs out of Tom Mills, author of “Sex Is A Four-Letter Word And Other Misconceptions,” as they discuss his career as a writer.

Mills acquired several university degrees and diplomas in English and Journalism, and with no useful vocational skills to speak of, he went to work as a journalist. Well-traveled with many stops at newspaper jobs around the country, he settled in the Sault in 1980.

Mills began writing his Humour Me columns and opinion pieces while working for the Sault Star. He continues with both humour and perspective on a freelance basis since leaving there in 2009. The Ontario Newspaper Awards has recognized Mills’ writing as a 2-time winner in the humour category.

Mills now resides on an inland lake a few kilometres north of the city, where he spends entirely too much time trying to finish an addition to his house and looking for mislaid eyeglasses, all while lamenting his lack of useful vocational skills.

Reach Tom here: https://www.facebook.com/tom.mills.501

“Mass media and internet offer up a horn of trendy.”

• Tom Mills staff mugshot

Date:26 August 2025 .

The National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame inducted Gene Ubriaco on Dec. 10, 2021

From his James Street westend beginnings to his long-time home outside Chicago, the Gene Ubriaco story always includes hockey, lotsa hockey. But there is so much, much more with “Ubie.” We hear about friendship to food to family, and the story – as only Ubie can tell a story – is set to the music that Gene loves. We get a master class from a consummate professional.

Born Eugene Stephen Ubriaco in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Gene has been involved in professional hockey since the 50s. Ubie reached the NHL as a player, and then again as a coach. He broke into the NHL in its ’67-’68 expansion season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and then some 20 years later became their head coach in 1988. Along the way Ubie has had several stops, mostly in cities around the USA, but also including the head coach position of Italy’s 1992 Olympic program, while also working everything from marketing jobs to director of hockey operations, exhibiting a distinct flair for promoting his organizations. Since 1994, Ubie has worked in several front office capacities for the Chicago Wolves of the AHL.

Gene is the published artist of a book of pencil colour drawings, that depict his childhood days growing up in the Soo’s fabled westend.

facebook.com/gene.ubriaco.5

Date:25 August 2025 .

Mica Bay (Part 2)

‘On November 14th, 1849 came a knock on the company door.”

From the song Mica Bay, on his 2010 album, Voices From The Gathering Place, Peter White with fellow musician and Anishinaabe friend Joel M. Syrette discuss the historical event. In November 1849, a force of Anishinaabeg and Métis warriors, led by Chiefs Oshawano, Shingwaukonse and Nebenaigoching, forced the Quebec and Lake Superior Mining Association to stop operating at Mica Bay on Lake Superior approximately 100 km northwest of Sault Ste. Marie. The subsequent closure of the mine and the reaction of the Canada West authorities are known as the Mica Bay Incident.

Running time: 53 minutes.

Date:24 August 2025 .