theborderline.ca

LIVEWIRE BLUES POWER is powered by the support of Long & McQuade, 647 MacDonald Ave, Sault Ste. Marie, ON

POT LUCK BLUES

Robert Johnson – Come Into My Kitchen

LIVEWIRE BLUES POWER with dj Danny Mott

The blues tradition began in North America, coming out of the very soul of the earth. Blood, sweat and tears enriched the fertile ground that formed the roots that fed the soul of the people. It exuded itself through the music, we are the blues.

Having grown up on the borderline of the USA, and picking up that great late night blues radio, coming clear from Detroit and Chicago, we grew up accustomed to blues power. It was coming from everywhere. It makes for a vast reservoir of musical knowledge and experience to draw from.

Livewire Blues Power plays classic recordings from the all-time blues greats, as well as blues from around the world rooted in the tradition, and Livewire Blues Power also introduces the music of the Soo’s blues artists to blues fans everywhere.

“IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE BLUES, YA GOTTA HOLE IN YER SOUL”

About Your Host

DANNY MOTT was born in England and raised in Canada. Danny has been involved in myriad recordings and in various countries, most notably in Jamaica and Cuba.

Danny’s music is released under the moniker, “Mocombo” where he acts as composer, producer, engineer and musician. Mocombo is a versatile band project that shifts effortlessly between world music, traditional blues, Cuban jazz and blues rock.

Danny has a rich academic background in music that includes various diplomas, degrees and certificates. Danny’s studies include; Classical guitar from the Algoma Conservatory of Music; Composition, performance, music history, music business and retailing from Humber College of Applied Arts; North Indian Hindustani classical music at the Academy Of Eastern Fine Arts; Adult teaching techniques for music at Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology; Music education at the University of Victoria; Studio recording from the Institute of Recording and Arts; Music theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music; Music and anthropology at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Dean’s Honour List; Religious traditions of Islam at the University of Waterloo.

Danny’s music performance and work history are also impressive. As a tour promoter, acts like Gordon Lightfoot and Ravi Shankar; as a music teacher at Nelson Music in B.C.; Music Marketing Director and music technician at Saved By Technology in Toronto, with a client list including the Rolling Stones, Rush, Barenaked Ladies, Jane Siberry, and many more; Marketing and Sales Director for On Publications Inc., a national distribution of music print medium company; Marketing Director for Roy Creations International in Montreal, for the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

Danny has orchestrated several projects, including a film in the Cuban language, with the participation of Cuba’s National Dance Company.

Danny’s project, Mocombo, has issued seven outstanding CDs: Odyssey, Zubie Zubie, Dreamscape, Flophouse Daddy, Flophouse Daddy Returns (Boldly Going Nowhere), Global 360 and Mocombo in Habana Project (2 CD set).

“I just want everybody to have a good time, because I’m going out to have a good time. I’m going to go have some fun.”

James Cotton

Danny Mott (with Jimmie Vaughan)

Date:4 September 2026 .

Ray Bonneville has taken a long and imaginative path in a remarkable music career that has taken him all over North America and Europe. Playing in his signature style and voice, Ray’s impressive catalogue reflects a keen eye for interesting characters and the common struggles we all face in everyday life.

Ray was born in Hull, Quebec (now Gatineau, Quebec), in a family that spoke solely French. His father found work in Boston, Massachusetts, and the family relocated to the USA where Bonneville, about to become a teenager, was placed into public school without knowing a bit of English. There, Bonneville fell behind in school, but took to music in a big way after a friend showed him how to play guitar. In his late teens Bonneville signed up for the United States Marine Corps, serving 13 months in the Vietnam War.

Later in the 1970s Bonneville began traveling the country exploring and absorbing musical styles, playing at festivals and small clubs across the United States, and opening for the likes of B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Dr. John. He also learned how to fly a plane and through much of the 1980s supplemented his income by working as a flight instructor in New Orleans and Boston and then as a bush pilot in Quebec.

It was only in 1993, in his mid 40s, that Ray finally recorded his first album, On The Main. He has since released nine albums in total and has gained critical and popular acclaim everywhere. Ray’s single, On The Blind Side, was released in the summer of 2022 with an album soon to follow.

Visit: raybonneville.com

“Everything in New Orleans is a good idea.”

Date:1 September 2026 .

In Peggy was Right, Patricia Zehr artfully demonstrates how a combination of hard won, high level professional knowledge and writing ability can elevate a novel to great heights. Zehr’s 43 year Canadian healthcare career (first as a registered nurse, and then practicing as an obstetrics – gynecology specialist) provides Peggy was Right with its medical science rigor. Zehr draws on her personal experience working in one of the most challenging of all modern healthcare disciplines to tell the story of Peggy, a young, idealistic Ontario nurse who deliberately chooses to seek employment in Texas – a state with one of the highest US maternal mortality rates. Texas is also a reproductive rights battleground. Conservative state legislators immediately embraced the US Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v Wade. Texas abortion bans and other restrictive reproductive health measures soon followed.

Peggy’s decision and her story opens with a harrowing prologue set in Texas, August 2023. Delilah, a Black, working class single woman supports her granddaughter, Becky, through a crisis that sets the stage for Zehr’s broader exploration of healthcare issues, personal struggles, and often profound racial inequality. Peggy was Right places ethically and politically conflicted American society in its crosshairs, where Zehr illustrates how the so-called North American ‘abortion debate’ is unfolding in ways where hope, human rights, physical and emotional pain, personal dignity, and (ultimately) resilience continually reshape the story.

Peggy was Right is a must-read for anyone who has navigated the turbulent waters of healthcare, felt the sting of systemic indifference, or fought for the right to make choices about their own body. It speaks to healthcare professionals and advocates, women’s rights activists, and general readers alike, offering a narrative rich with empathy, insight, and the courage to confront uncomfortable truths.

Peggy was Right is Zehr’s first novel. It is her second book, a work that follows her lively and well-crafted personal memoir, The Beatles, Babies, and Broken Bodies (2022).

______

Pat remains a health-and-wellness crusader and is actively involved as a healthcare advocate. Her aim is  to be part of the solution by helping friends, family, and others navigate the healthcare system. Pat passionately believes in and supports healthcare workers, noting, “The bottom line is if we don’t have healthy nurses, doctors, paramedics, and good working conditions, we won’t have quality patient care. We have to protect frontline workers and stop trying to do more with less.”

“The bottom line is if we don’t have healthy nurses, doctors, paramedics, and good working conditions, we won’t have quality patient care. We have to protect frontline workers and stop trying to do more with less.”

Date:1 September 2026 .

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

s5.e11 . GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – Tkaronto To Toronto

On Lake Ontario there is a bay where trees stood in the waters and gave fruit to schooling fishes and gathering peoples and it was called Tkaronto and its spirit lives in the water and land of today’s Toronto.

Dr. Duke Redbird, Elder and Advisor to various public and private organizations, brings his breadth of cultural knowledge to shed light on the people and lands of the gathering place once known as Tkaronto.

Brian A. Puppa, Executive Director, Legacy Project Systems Design Engineer & Bioregional Weaver, an independent systems, education and innovation group drawing on sciences and Indigenous knowledge.

Danny Marks, Toronto-born musician, broadcaster, and storyteller, tours us through his hometown history, its resilience, diversity and the music that celebrates the spirit of the inhabitants on this Lake Ontario city.

Featured Music: Pine Family Singers. Jay Douglas. Cariboo Horses. Edward Bear. Danny Marks.
Music beds: Ryan Waldron. Sultans Of String. Matt Sellick. Danny Marks. Blackburn Brothers. Otis Redding.
Theme music: Ray Bonneville. Rusty McCarthy.

Painting: Jazz Lives Here by Kathleen McGuire

s5.e10. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist / Composer – Ray Bonneville

Title – In The Sweet By And By
Album – The Pine Family Singers
Artist – The Pine Family Singers
Composer – S. Fillmore Bennett

Title – I Love Toronto
Album – Confession
Artist / Composer – Jay Douglas

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

Title – The Rez feat. Crystal Shawanda
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

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

Title – Highway Of Tears
Album – Walking Through The Fire
Artist / Composer – Sultans Of String

Title – Toronto, Toronto
Album – Songs For Mal
Artist / Composer – Cariboo Horses

Title – You Can’t Deny It
Album – Eclipse
Artist / Composer – Edward Bear

Title – Drink From The Fountain
Album – Watching The Sky
Artist / Composer – Matt Sellick

Title – In The Rain
Album – Watching The Sky
Artist / Composer – Matt Sellick

Title – On A Moonless Night
Album – Watching The Sky
Artist / Composer – Matt Sellick

Title – Sirius
Album – Watching The Sky
Artist / Composer – Matt Sellick

Title – Toronto My Hometown
Artist / Composer – Danny Marks

Title – Lights Out
Artist / Composer – Danny Marks
Album – Cities In Blue

Title – Reggae Lane
Album – Lover’s Paradise
Artist / Composer – Jay Douglas

Title – Bobby’s Blues
Artist / Composer – Blackburn Brothers
Album – SoulFunkn’BLUES

Title – For Your Precious Love
Artist – Otis Redding
Composer – Arthur Brooks, Richard Brooks, Jerry Butler

Title – Man On The Radio
Artist / Composer – Danny Marks

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: jaydouglasmusic.com

Visit: dukeredbird.ca

Visit: sultansofstring.com

Visit: cariboohorses.com

Visit: legacyproject.org

Visit: mattsellick.com

Visit: blackburnbrothersmusic.com

Visit: dannym.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:29 August 2026 .

LIVEWIRE BLUES POWER is powered by the support of Long & McQuade, 647 MacDonald Ave, Sault Ste. Marie, ON

RANDY FOREMAN

Woman At The Bar
Being Broke
Sailor’s Song
Bordertown
My Paradise
Never Look Back
Concrete Hideaway
Forever Never Ends
Out Of The Blue
Troubled Mind Blues
Sailor’s Song (Remastered)
Summer Memories
Easy Way To Hard Times
Close To Me Again
Another Big Job
Sunny Morning
Concrete Hideaway (encore)

The blues tradition began in North America, coming out of the very soul of the earth. Blood, sweat and tears enriched the fertile ground that formed the roots that fed the soul of the people. It exuded itself through the music, we are the blues.

Having grown up on the borderline of the USA, and picking up that great late night blues radio, coming clear from Detroit and Chicago, we grew up accustomed to blues power. It was coming from everywhere. It makes for a vast reservoir of musical knowledge and experience to draw from.

Livewire Blues Power plays classic recordings from the all-time blues greats, as well as blues from around the world rooted in the tradition, and Livewire Blues Power also introduces the music of the Soo’s blues artists to blues fans everywhere.

“IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE BLUES, YA GOTTA HOLE IN YER SOUL”

DANNY MOTT was born in England and raised in Canada. Danny has been involved in myriad recordings and in various countries, most notably in Jamaica and Cuba.

Danny’s music is released under the moniker, “Mocombo” where he acts as composer, producer, engineer and musician. Mocombo is a versatile band project that shifts effortlessly between world music, traditional blues, Cuban jazz and blues rock.

Danny has a rich academic background in music that includes various diplomas, degrees and certificates. Danny’s studies include; Classical guitar from the Algoma Conservatory of Music; Composition, performance, music history, music business and retailing from Humber College of Applied Arts; North Indian Hindustani classical music at the Academy Of Eastern Fine Arts; Adult teaching techniques for music at Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology; Music education at the University of Victoria; Studio recording from the Institute of Recording and Arts; Music theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music; Music and anthropology at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Dean’s Honour List; Religious traditions of Islam at the University of Waterloo.

Danny’s music performance and work history are also impressive. As a tour promoter, acts like Gordon Lightfoot and Ravi Shankar; as a music teacher at Nelson Music in B.C.; Music Marketing Director and music technician at Saved By Technology in Toronto, with a client list including the Rolling Stones, Rush, Barenaked Ladies, Jane Siberry, and many more; Marketing and Sales Director for On Publications Inc., a national distribution of music print medium company; Marketing Director for Roy Creations International in Montreal, for the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

Danny has orchestrated several projects, including a film in the Cuban language, with the participation of Cuba’s National Dance Company.

Danny’s project, Mocombo, has issued seven outstanding CDs: Odyssey, Zubie Zubie, Dreamscape, Flophouse Daddy, Flophouse Daddy Returns (Boldly Going Nowhere), Global 360 and Mocombo in Habana Project (2 CD set).

Danny Mott

“If you can’t get your music to people one way, you have to find another.”

Date:28 August 2026 .

Angela Caputo, a Ward 3 Councillor, tells the story of how Dolly Parton, Sault Ste. Marie, and reading books have all come together.

The City of Sault Ste. Marie launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program, a global initiative designed to foster a love of reading among young children. The program offers free, high-quality books to children from birth to age five, aiming to ignite a lifelong passion for reading and learning. Developing early literacy skills is critical for success in school and building a strong bond with your child that will last a lifetime. This goes beyond just receiving books; it entails investing your time in your child’s growth.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library puts books into the hands and hearts of children across the world. These books are personalized with each child’s name and mailed directly to their home to create a gifting experience that makes books exciting and encourages families to spend time enjoying books together. Best of all, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is available to all children at no cost to the family.

To be eligible for the program, children must meet the following criteria:

Families in Sault Ste. Marie can enroll their children to receive free books by visiting the official registration page.

The success of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in the community relies on the support of local donors. The cost per child is $46 per year and with 3,040 children eligible in Sault Ste. Marie, spots are limited based on the amount of funding received. In its pilot year, it is hoped that additional sponsors or individuals will support the growth of the program so that every child in Sault Ste. Marie has the opportunity to develop a love of reading. To donate visit the Canada Helps donation page.

This initiative is supported by the City of Sault Ste. Marie, the Rotary Club of Sault Ste. Marie, Kiwanis Club of Sault Ste. Marie, the Zonta Club of Sault Ste. Marie and Avery Construction Ltd.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Date:26 August 2026 .

Michael Delfre is the President of the Sault Ste. Marie Museum. The current administrative team is guiding the city’s cultural centrepiece through a transformational vision to showcase the history-soaked city that is Sault Ste. Marie. There are a number of historic pillars the Museum is giving great attention to in its approach to lead the way to invigorate an arts and culture sector in dire need of its rightful recognition. One of those areas is the city’s history of environmental action. There is an incredible story to tell, a story that continues to be written daily, of a beautiful place and a creative people living at the heart of the Great Lakes.

The Sault Ste. Marie Museum in Ontario, Canada was originally built as a post office from 1902 to 1906. The building became a museum in 1982 when it was purchased by the City of Sault Ste. Marie. It is operated by the Sault Ste. Marie & 49th Field Regiment R.C.A. Historical Society.

Running time: 52 minutes.

Date:26 August 2026 .

Trevor A. Bailey thinks it might be about time to put aside old grudges and learn to work together. In the world today, vampires and lycanthropes might be an easier pill to swallow than that one, but that’s why stories are so important. Isabella Castellanos is the beginning of a planned series exploring every little ripple outward from this strange truce and imagining a world where everyone can belong.

When he’s not stretching his imagination with books, comics, and all kinds of stories, Bailey likes puzzles and spending time with his grandson.

Bailey lives in Laird, Ontario with his wife.

Queen Of The Lycans And Vampires

Can the creatures of the night finally learn to share the day?

The cost of the endless fighting between lycan, vampire, and human has been in blood. The death and suffering spread by predator going up against prey has been enough to sate even the thirstiest vampire—until one vampire queen asked, “What if we didn’t have to fight?”

Isabella Castellanos is heir to that legacy; a fragile peace, the first of its kind. The rules of the night have changed, and Queen Isabella hopes to raise her son in a kinder world. But centuries of hatred are hard to shed in a handful of decades, especially for the immortals among us.

When discontent rises and a faction of anarchistic supernaturals longs for a return to the fighting, Isabella must strengthen her alliances, test her body and mind, and learn new ways of living to keep all her people safe. With determined allies, new friends, and one deeply unusual vampire at her side, Isabella will see her delicate alliance, along with the strength and ingenuity of its members, pushed to its limit.

A new dawn is coming, and Isabella intends to be around to see it—vampire or not.

I want to be a vampire. They’re the coolest monsters.

Date:25 August 2026 .

CALVIN LANE
[email protected]

CREATIVE DIRECTOR – CO-FOUNDER – WRITER – CARPENTER

Unfathomable Horrors is a performance art theatre and film company based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Calvin Lane and Grace King are the creative forces driving the prolific quality emanating from Unfathomable Horrors.

Do you use Generative AI?

We do not use any modern, server or company based Generative AI in our work, art, or products.

Our founder, Calvin Lane, is attempting to create a digital recreation of entirely his own work within a private, entirely local neural net. Just to see what happens. Entirely trained on his own writing, drawings, paintings, and thoughts. This is more a dark philosophical experiment than anything.

What’s it like to work with you?

Hell. Abyssal. Unfathomable. Likely getting covered in mass amounts of stage blood and viscera. You make eternal friends forged in the crucible of falsified violence.

In all honesty, while productions are dark we do try and keep things a bit lighter on set when it calls for it. We love the people we work with, and at the end of the day we want everyone to feel safe and welcome, even if they just got their throat ripped open.

GRACE KING
[email protected]

CO-FOUNDER – WRITER – PAINTER

Date:24 August 2026 .

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

s5.e10. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour – In Quest of the Great Lakes Algorithm

The artificial intelligence complex and the age of the algorithm is giving rise to super data centers being built around the Great Lakes and in so doing are presenting new challenges to the water and environment.

Peter White & Joel Syrette, musicians, relate a military intelligence operation where Garden River First Nation natives and WWII volunteers, used their Ojibwe language in radio code to assist the allied effort.

Helena Volzer, Senior Source Water Policy Manager at the Alliance For The Great Lakes, executes policy analysis, advocacy, and project implementation under the Agriculture and Water Restoration sections of the Alliance’s strategy.

Robert Cooper, actor and poet, reads the prologue from ‘2072: The Forgetting’, a work of fiction by writer Thomas E. Leonard imagining a resilient future of the Great Lakes basin overrun by artificial intelligence.

Dr. Duke Redbird, Elder of Saugeen Ojibway Nation on Lake Huron, whose legacy of outstanding contribution to culture, literature, and human rights, stretches far beyond his work in Canada.

Featured Music: Broken Social Scene. Peter White & Joel Syrette. Minuscule. Collective Order.
Music beds: Jeremy Young & Jesse Perlstein.
Theme music: Ray Bonneville. Rusty McCarthy.

Artwork by Casey McGlynn – Elephant In The Room

s5.e10. GREAT LAKES ODYSSEY Radio Hour Music Credits

Title – Big Five Water
Artist / Composer – Ray Bonneville

Title – 1972
Artist – Broken Social Scene
Composer – Kevin Drew & Broken Social Scene
Album – Let’s Try The After (Vol. 1)

Title – Black Water
Album – Wildfire
Artist / Composer – My Father’s Son

Title – Not Around Anymore
Artist – Broken Social Scene
Composer – Kevin Drew & Broken Social Scene
Album – Remember The Humans

Title – Chi Migwetch Ogichidaa
Artist / Composer – Peter White & Joel Syrette

Title – Sing at 3000 Hz (Live)
Artist / Composer – Jeremy Young & Jesse Perlstein
Album – The Robins Sing at 3,000 Hz (Live)

Title – Rising Up
Artist – Minuscule
Composer – Laurel Minnes

Title – Meegwetch
Artist / Composer – Collective Order
Album – Collective Order Vol. 3

Visit: raybonneville.com

Visit: rustyandmaja.com

Visit: brokensocialscene.com

Visit: thepeterwhitewebsite.com

Visit: greatlakes.org

Visit: jeremyyoung.bandcamp.com

Visit: dukeredbird.ca

Visit: minusculemusic.com

Visit: collectiveorderjazz.bandcamp.com/volume-three

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:23 August 2026 .