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The AIH Transcript For July 21, 2021

[hosts]Susan Bonner, Chris Howden[/hosts]

SUSAN BONNER: Hi, I'm Susan Bonner, sitting in for Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is “As It Happens”.

[music: theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

SB: Under fire. A member of Little Grand Rapids First Nation in Manitoba tells us the government must do more to protect communities like his from the threat of wildfire that looms larger every year.

CH: Biting commentary. On the surface, the new push to re-brand shark attacks as "negative shark encounters" may seem silly -- but we reach one expert who argues if you go a little deeper the idea should give us something to chew on.

SB: Without missing a beat. The son of the late jazz drummer Jerry Granelli says his father had mixed feelings about playing on the beloved "Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack — but when he returned to the music decades later, it gave him "such joy."

CH: watching the parks fly. The Alberta government may have suspended plans to de-list what it claimed were 164 "under-utilized" parks — but our guest hasn't suspended his plans to visit every one of them, on a very long bicycle trip.

SB: Shock to the system. A Montreal transit worker is grateful for the defibrillators installed earlier this year in Metro stations -- after an emergency forced him to press one into use.

CH: And the fertiliser hits the fan. A Facebook group for gardeners is more about seed's than seediness, but nevertheless is flagged by an overzealous A.I. monitor for using the word “hoe”.

CH: “As It Happens”, the Wednesday edition. Radio that's afraid that A.I. doesn't know its assessment from a hoe in the ground.

[music: theme]

Part 1: Manitoba Wildfire Evacuations, Jerry Granelli obit

Manitoba Wildfire Evacuations

Guest: Blair Owen

CH: Today, nearly 900 wildfires are burning across Canada. And thousands of evacuees are sleeping in beds that are not their own. In British Columbia, a state of emergency came into effect this morning. National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said more troops would be deployed to provide assistance -- in addition to Air Force personnel that have already arrived.

SOUNDCLIP

HARJIT SAJJAN: because the situation has significantly changed, and the increased wildfires, what the... we had a request from... from the province for personnel on the ground. So our program personnel will be supporting the actual firefighting support. So this is like putting out the... mopping up the... the fires afterwards. But also, they can provide other support as long as they're supervised by the well-trained firefighters in the area. So they can do a variety of things. But the 350 personnel will provide a significant support for... for... for the area.

CH: Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, speaking to CBC Vancouver. An additional 120 Canadian Armed Forces personnel are also headed to Manitoba -- after residents of four First Nations in the east of the province were evacuated due to wildfires and encroaching smoke. Blair Owen is a Councillor with the evacuated Little Grand Rapids First Nation. We reached him in Selkirk, Manitoba.

SB: Councillor Owen, how are you and other members of the Little Grand Rapids First Nation holding up today?

BLAIR OWENS: I think everybody is, you know, doing the best they can given the circumstances that we're in right now. You know, people are worried. People are wondering what's going on. You know, I think there's a lot of anxiety and questions out there.

SB: How many people from your community have been evacuated, and... and where have they gone?

BO: So, it's I'm going to say probably like 98 per cent of the community has been evacuated. And everyone's been evacuated to Winnipeg. Actually, the Red Cross has been helping with the evacuation, and they've been fantastic. You know, they've... you know, they've been very helpful throughout this whole situation. You know, our members are scattered all over at different hotels in Winnipeg. But, you know, it's just the situation we're in right now.

SB: What about the people who didn't leave? You said it's a small number, but what are they dealing with? What are they coping with?

BO: Well, I guess like I had an update this morning, you know, the smoke... the smoke is bad again today. We lost power overnight. But, you know, they're you know, we were prepared for this. You know, people were stocking up on fuel, essentials of generators. So, you know, they're... they're doing the best they can given the situation.

SB: Can you tell me how bad things were in Little Grand Rapids before you were forced to leave?

BO: For a Little Grand Rapids, it's the smoke. The smoke is what's the problem. The surrounding area, like the whole east side of Lake Winnipeg, that's, you know, our whole east side of Lake Winnipeg is on fire right now. And it's... you know, these... these fires have just been left to... to grow. And, you know, it's... it's causing, you know, anxiety, frustration. You know, me, I can say for myself, like, you know why... like, why are these fires being allowed to burn? You know, I was talking with, you know, our local resource department, and I'm being told, you know, there's no resources available to fight... to fight these fires.

SB: So you use the words they're being allowed to burn. You think there's been a decision not to try to fight these fires?

BO: That's my personal, you know, opinion. Because I'm being told there's not enough aircraft or firefighters to be sent to deal with these fires. And I know a few years back, the provincial government decided to go and, you know, privatize our entire water bomber fleet for the province. And then so, you know, this... is what happens when you do that?

SB: There are 120 Canadian armed forces personnel headed to Manitoba to help with these fires. Does that bring you any comfort?

BO: That... you know, a little bit. But, you know, maybe, you know, how come we didn't do this two to three weeks ago? You know, why does the situation have to deteriorate to this? Like, my... my community, Little Grand Rapids, they've gone through this three years ago where we had to evacuate. Now, here we are again doing it. There needs to be a conversation with all parties like what can we do to mitigate so this doesn't happen as frequently? You know, have the resources available when we know firefighting season is coming. But let's be, you know, be on standby, be prepared, not wait till things deteriorate where we have to evacuate our communities. And it's not just Little Grand Rapids that's been evacuated like, you know, there's, you know, our neighbour to the north of us, Pauingassi First Nation, has been evacuated now. Bloodvein First Nation is being evacuated. Berens River First Nation is being evacuated. Like, if we know that we're going to have a dry season, let's put the resources in place, so we don't have to evacuate our communities,

SB: There are hundreds of wildfires burning right across this country right now. As you point out, your community is... is one of many First Nations in Manitoba and in Ontario that have been forced to evacuate. What do you make of the scale of this problem this summer?

BO: Well, maybe, you know, maybe this is climate change. You know, is this what climate change is going to look like? Is this what our future is going to look like? You know, it's... you know, it's... you know, we need to have these conversations. You know, we can't just sit and wait for something to happen, and then, you know, this is the course of action that has to be taken. Let's just evacuate everyone. Like, we need to be having these... these conversations. I believe that's, you know, my opinion.

SB: Why are the conversations not happening in your view? You say, you know, your community was damaged by wildfires in 2018. And in 2019, there was an evacuation because of smoke. So why didn't the conversations happen then?

BO: You know, that's a very good question. And I'm glad you asked it. It could just be, you know, everyone's just used to being... you know, all parties involved are just used to being, you know, reactive rather than proactive. You know, and then as soon as, you know, you start talking about money, you know, that's where the conversation usually stops. So, you know, again, it's, you know, what would... would be better to have, you know, a plan in place, so we don't have to do... have these massive evacuations or tell our populations let's just be on constant standby to evacuate when there's a natural disaster? The smoke right now, for instance, is, you know, it's covering all of western Canada. You know, are we evacuating our cities? No. So why should we have to evacuate our First Nations communities? Why do we have to let this situation deteriorate to that?

SB: How do you see the next few weeks unfolding for you and other members of your community?

BO: You know, it's going to be day-to-day right now. You know, I can't... I can't really say. You know, it's just... let's just hope we have rain come and, you know, can get these fires under control and, you know, have our members return home so they can, you know, have their normal lives resume. But again, you know, that's going to, you know, it's going to be a day-to-day thing until we get these fires under control.

SB: Well, we hope that happens for you soon, Counsellor. And thank you for your time today.

BO: Thank you for having me.

SB: Goodbye.

BO: Bye.

CH: Blair Owen is a councillor with the Little Grand Rapids First Nation. Residents have been moved to safety, along with residents of the Pauingassi, Berens River and Bloodvein First Nations in Manitoba. Mr. Owen spoke to us from Selkirk. And you can find more on that story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih. In neighbouring Ontario, the Cat Lake and North Spirit Lake First Nations began moving residents today -- joining three other Nations already under evacuation orders. And Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said that means too many communities are competing for limited resources.

SOUNDCLIP

ALVIN FIDDLER: I think it's just, you know, everyone's ability to access resources that are needed right now to, for example, to fight the fires themselves, but also to help communities that are in the process of... of evacuating to make sure that the families have access to the resources that they need to be safe wherever they may end up. And not just getting a bed, but also the full... or the wraparound supports that are needed to support those families wherever they are. Whether it's childcare, health, mental health and other supports that will be required, you know, in the different host states right across... right across the province.

CH: Alvin Fiddler is the Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. He's calling on Ontario to join B.C. in declaring a state of emergency over wildfires.

[music: ambient]

Montreal Metro Defibrillators

CH: In case there was any doubt that the defibrillators were a good idea, this should take care of that. Earlier this year, the Société de transport de Montréal installed life-saving devices in all of its Metro stations-- six years after a coroner's report called for it to do so. And as far as James Charles is concerned, it's not a moment too soon. Mr. Charles is an operations chief with the STM. At the end of May, his timely use of a defibrillator saved the life of a man in distress at the Côte-Vertue Metro station:

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES CHARLES: Some person came outside running and telling me, do you guys have a defibrillator? And I'm like, yes, give me one second. I knew there was something wrong. So I just ran to the office inside. I was not aware of where the defibrillator was because it was just like a few weeks before that the STM had deployed all the defibrillators to the different stations. I just knew that there was one at the Metro for sure. So I just ran downstairs, and I asked where it was and it was right there. I ran back up and I just followed what it said. There was someone doing CPR already. And I asked them, do you feel a pulse? And they said, they don't feel a pulse, really. I said, just continue what you're doing. And then I just read what it said. Remove the shirt, place the electrodes one here and one there, move everybody away and just press the button. So I just pressed the button. And that was the magic of it [laughing] , you know, pretty much. Maybe three or four minutes after, the fire department came. And then after two or three other minutes, the ambulances came. They were, like, very happy that we did CPR and the shots. What's important is to have a heart, to be prepared and to know how and that can save lives. It happened to me, but it happens so many times to every other people that are saving lives. But I'm just happy today that I'm on the spotlight. Besides that, I just did my job, you know? We should have defibrillators in buses. We should have them at all the Metro stations. The police officers should have. At schools they should have defibrillators. I think it's a great thing. It should be like basic knowledge to have everybody know how to use that because this is something that could save lives at the end of the day, you know. So it would be great to be prepared all the time because if I was not ready and I had never experienced it before, I wouldn't have been able to do anything at that time.

CH: James Charles is an operations chief at the Société de transport de Montréal. He told his story to CBC reporter Rowen Kennedy.

[music: “Christmas Time is here” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio/smooth jazz]

Jerry Granelli obit

Guest: J. Anthony Granelli

CH: A song that a lot of us probably have on our annual holiday playlists from the soundtrack of a "Charlie Brown Christmas", that's the Vince Guaraldi Trio with Christmas Time is here. The man playing the drums there is Jerry Greenley. The American-born, Nova Scotia-based musician, died yesterday in Halifax. He was 80. Mr. Grinnell's six-decade-long drumming career went way beyond that famous Christmas album. He played with the likes of Miles Davis, Sly Stone and the Grateful Dead, and his group, Lights Sound Dimension, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for being pioneers of the psychedelic scene. Last year, Jerry Grenelle spoke with the CBC's Mary Link about how long it took him to find his voice and how he never stopped perfecting it.

SOUNDCLIP

JERRY GRANELLI: Now, people hear a record, and I'm delighted that they know it's me. You know, think about it. If you put a seed in the ground, it takes a lot of water before you get a tree. So why should you wake up one day and find your voice?

MARY LINK: Yeah.

JG: You have to find your voice, and you have to sound like somebody else. I could be the best Jerry Granelli, the most honest Jerry Granelli in the world. And that's... I have to be happy with that. At the same time, always torturing myself, striving to get better, striving for perfection. But that's my own work.

ML: Are you still striving for perfection right now at 80? And because you still practice all the time --

JG: Yeah, last week, you know, I had to keep from setting fire to my drums. [ML laughs] It was just so... really terrible. Really terrible.

ML: You mean... you mean... oh, I thought you meant musically, you were just frustrated, and you wanted to set fire to your drums?

JG: [laughing] Yeah, really. I was down, and I was like, OK, I'm going down. Everybody who knows me, they go, what are you doing? I said I'm going down to face my drums. I haven't touched them for a week-and-a-half, two weeks.

ML: And your drums are…

JG: In the basement, yeah.

ML: In the basement in your condo.

JG: And so I went down there, and I started to do these simple, just technical things. I'm 80. So now, I just want... I'm never going to be like, you know, I can listen to a record when I'm 24 and I go --

ML: Right.

JG: I'm not going back there.

ML: Well, there's a huge physicality to it. Yeah.

JG: Yeah. So I can keep myself in really good shape and be pretty amazing as an 80-year-old guy doing what I'm doing. But it... and it's part of it is it's the connection between me and the instruments. Marella once told me when you put a drumstick in your hand, your hand no longer ends there. It comes out at the end of the drumstick now. When you hit the drum, you are now connected to the drum. So it's all one loop. So I couldn't find that. It was too stiff. It was too hard. It wasn't even. I didn't have control of the instrument. I couldn't make love to it. [chuckling] It wouldn't give me a sound. It was torturous.

CH: That was the late Jerry Granelli. J. Anthony Granelli is Jerry's son and a musician himself. We reached him in New York.

SB: J., I'm so sorry for your loss.

J. ANTHONY GRANELLI: Thank you.

SB: What's it like for you... what is it like for you to hear your dad speaking about drumming like that?

JAG: On one level, so extraordinary because, you know, what he's saying is not just, of course, about drumming, but it's about, you know, music or art in general, and really even beyond that, really about how we live our lives. On the other level, he's my dad, you know, [laughing] and... and he just died. And so hearing his voice is [sighs] on one hand, so reassuring and a voice I've heard literally my entire life. But on the other hand, such a poignant reminder, you know, that he... that's the only way I'm going to hear it now. You know, I talked to him almost every day, probably for the last 35 years or something.

SB: Yeah. And hearing him talk not just about anything but about his great passion.

JAG: Yeah.

SB: Talking about everything from wanting to make love to his drum, [JAG chuckles] to wanting to burn his drums.

JAG: Yeah.

SB: How hard did he work at being the best?

JAG: You know, he was really a child prodigy. He had an immense natural talent for it, what... however, you want to codify whatever that is. And then a father and family structure that drove him to be better. And an inner, you know, just a deep inner desire to somehow master this thing. And, of course, as we all know, there is no real there there. You know, there's no place you get to where you're good enough. The people who feel they're good enough are not the people like my father. [laughing] You know, I witnessed it my entire life. He never stopped. He always was playing. It was just the language of our household. You know, that kind of desire to be that good at something is kind of awe-Inspiring to witness, you know? And on the other side of it, you know, as a kid, when I was a little kid, it wasn't always great either because he was doing something else. He was on the road, or he was playing, or he was practicing, or, you know, it's something that the families of those great artists, maybe we don't always get to say how hard it is being the family of a great artist. But --

SB: Do you think he knew that?

JAG: I think he knew it to a degree. Again, like any great artist, he was compelled to do what he had... he had to do it. You know what I mean? It wasn't a choice, really. He was happier doing that [chuckling] than anything else. And having had the great fortune to, you know, be able to play music with him for years and years and years and make records with him and tour with him extensively over years and years and years, you know, I count myself as so blessed because I was able to enjoy that thing with him, whereas I don't know for my siblings that that's so true.

SB: What was it like learning from your dad, having him as a teacher? Because he loved to teach, didn't he?

JAG: He did. He loved to teach. It's a trait, actually, that sort of runs through our family. I think he is... having been around a lot of music teachers and teachers of various things. He was one of, if not the most gifted teacher I had ever been around. Like, a truly inspirational person, a truly insightful person. He could uncover the thing that you needed to work on in a matter of seconds. [laughing] It was uncanny. Yeah, he... but he also had amazingly exacting standards. He demanded a lot. On the other hand, he also did that with great compassion. It was never for meanness or pettiness or wanting to put you down to make himself feel better. And you could feel that. You felt safe even though you're being pushed to beyond what you thought was possible. And in most of the time, it actually... he was right.

SB: I want to ask you about the now famed Charlie Brown Christmas music in 1965. [both chuckles] He was part of the Vince Guaraldi Trio, and he recorded that. What can you tell us about his relationship with that album over the decades?

JAG: I think it was complicated. I believe that they... each of the musicians made 68 dollars for that recording. There are even album crediting the errors where he wasn't credited on the album jacket for a long time until Fantasy finally corrected it. You know, shortly thereafter that time, you know, his tenure with Vince ended, and he went on to other things, and really even left the sort of straight-ahead jazz world completely for a number of years. I think it was hard. I think it was really hard. But on the other side of it, when he came back to it, when he made peace with it and was then able to go perform it for people, it gave him such joy. He was awed by how much people loved that record because he didn't know.

SB: Yeah!

JAG: You know?

SB: It triggers such nostalgic feelings for some people.

JAG: Yeah!

SB: And joy is an interesting word.

JAG: Yeah.

SB: What about you? How do you feel about it?

JAG: It's a very weird thing to walk in for, you know, a month a year to walk into any store, elevator, restaurants, airports, train station [laughing] and hear your father playing drums. I mean, I'm used to it because I've done it my entire life, but it is very surreal. Like everybody else, I love that music. It's incredible music. And his playing on it is incredible. And I've learned to appreciate, you know, his artistry in that context more and more over the years. You know, it's a legacy. It's something that I can point to and say, you know, look, my dad built that. You know, I... it's... I'm incredibly proud of him for being part of it. And it gives me such great feeling that he was able to come back to it in the last bunch of years and get such joy from it.

SB: Is... is there a specific memory of your dad that you're thinking of today?

JAG: [deep sigh] You know, I just... there are just so, you know, so, so many that in this situation that come flooding back to me. And in the musical context, we were on... on tour a couple... a few summers ago with for this record "Dance Hall" that we did. We were playing in Montreal on the big outdoor stage. And there was sort of people, as far as you could see. [laughing] And we were having a great time. As I had done many, many times, I always stood on his high hat side of the drum set on the, you know, the left side of the drum set if you're on stage. And I had stood there for so many times, I mean, thousands of times. And I looked over at him, and he looked at me, and he had this, you know, look where he was truly happy. And [breaking down] we were there together, you know? And that was just one of those moments I think that we all hopefully have with our parents. It could be fishing or walking through the park or whatever. And as a father, I know that moment of walking with your young child when they reach up and hold your hand, and it's so precious. And that [sigh] was one of those moments, you know? It was a precious moment.

SB: J., thank you so much for sharing your memories of your dad.

JAG: My pleasure. Thank you so much for being interested and asking.

SB: Bye-bye.

JAG: Bye.

CH: J. Anthony Granelli is the son of drummer Jerry Granelli, who has died at the age of 80. He was in New York. And we've posted a picture of father and son to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: classic rock]

Part 2: Negative shark encounters, Alberta Parks cyclist

Negative Shark Encounters

Guest: Toby Daly-Engel

CH: The movie "Jaws" was great for Steven Spielberg's brand. Sharks, not so much. And despite thoughtful nature documentaries and the earworm kids' song "Baby Shark", the predators of the sea still strike fear into the hearts of swimmers and surfers especially when they bite people. Which really doesn't happen that often -- but when it does, with all the blood and the surfboards with teeth marks -- the optics are just terrible. But now, two Australian states have announced they won't be using the term "shark attack" anymore. They'll be calling them "bites", "incidents"... or, simply, "encounters". Toby Daly-Engel is the director of the Florida Tech Shark Conservation Lab. We reached her in Albany, New York.

SB: Toby, what do you make of the Australian decision to rebrand shark attacks?

TOBY DALY-ENGEL: I think it's a really good step in the right direction because for a long time we've known that shark attack, it really depends on people, not on sharks. And so, trying to rebrand these interactions in a way that more accurately represents the event is really good as far as we're concerned. this

SB: This is being mocked quite a bit, especially the suggested terminology, negative shark encounters. Isn't a shark attack sometimes just a shark attack?

TDE: Well, actually, most shark attacks are what we call provoked, meaning they are instigated by humans. And so the notion of a shark attack kind of conjures an attack out of the blue by some sort of mindless, bloodthirsty predator. And in reality, that's not it at all. Most things that get labelled by the media as shark attack are things like people poking sharks underwater, chumming where people are swimming, or doing other things that really create a situation where somebody might be hurt by a shark.

SB: I guess, though, if a shark is biting you, whether it's being called an attack or an interaction isn't really the first thing on your mind.

TDE: Sure. But at the same time, in general, sharks have, in reality, way more to fear from humans than we do from them. Shark attack is monumentally rare. More rare than being bitten by someone from New York, statistically speaking. [SB laughs] Whereas humans are conservatively, this is an underestimate. We're taking at least one hundred million sharks out of the ocean every year. And what we're finding as scientists is that they are growing more slowly. They replace themselves. They reproduce more slowly than we realized. And so many, many shark populations are really in trouble.

SB: What kind of a difference do you believe this change of... of terminology could mean for how people view sharks?

TDE: I hope that it sheds light on the fact that sharks have more to fear from us than we do from them. The terminology may sound unnatural or silly to some people, but that's because most people's concept of what is a shark attack is really based on the rarest kind. Sharks are much more careful, much more fragile than people realize.

SB: A spokesperson for a group representing people who have been bitten by sharks told The Washington Post that he's worried about sanitizing shark bites. What would you say to him?

TDE: I would say that shark attacks, in general, are going down per capita, considering you're more likely to get struck by lightning three times than bitten by a shark, considering you're more likely to be killed by a vending machine than a shark, I think that there is very little chance of this type of measure minimizing shark attack. It has a much better chance of kind of helping people to understand that most of what the media calls shark attacks are really not the sharks fault. They're really just due to people.

SB: Maybe we need some horror movies about vending machine attacks and New York City bite attacks.

TDE: I mean, just don't shake them. Like, if you can't get your chips out, just leave them there. [SB chuckles] That's... that's all I can say. I mean, Christmas trees... work Christmas trees, Black Friday shopping, selfies, all of these kill more people than sharks. And not just more people, like vastly more people.

SB: But after movies like "Jaws" and the innate fear that people have about sharks, is rebranding really going to make much of a difference here?

TDE: Well, it's one of the things that we can do. People's attitudes towards sharks and the fact that people have this fear, which is really fear of the unknown. Because, as I mentioned, the odds of getting bitten by a shark, let alone killed by one, are astronomically low. You're more likely to win the lottery. So with that in mind, I think that it's more important, even if it... you know, even if there's some mockery, there's some silliness, regardless of this kind of attention, if it can help people understand the role that sharks play in the ecosystem and how mistaken our ideas are about shark attack, then, yeah, maybe it'll do a little bit of good. Because sharks are feared, there are very few laws protecting them. And yet, we know that these things grow more slowly and reproduce more slowly than just about any animal on Earth. And so, they are incredibly in need of protection. So every little bit can help because there's not a lot of, you know, big movements out there for shark advocacy. There's no such thing as shark-safe tuna, for instance. So I think because there is that fear, it's even more important that institutions speak up on behalf of these animals, which are really, really important to the health of our planet's oceans.

SB: Well, Toby, thank you so much for your time and for telling us about all this.

TDE: Well, thank you. I appreciate your time.

SB: Good bye.

TDE: Bye.

CH: Toby Daly-Engel is the director of the Florida Tech Shark Conservation Lab, a non-profit that studies the ecology and evolution of sharks. She's in Albany, New York.

[music: Jazz]

FOA: Tongass National Forest Protections

CH: For environmental activists, U.S. President Joe Biden's announcement of sweeping protections for Alaska's Tongass National Forest is a major victory. The move will ban road construction across nine-point-three million acres of forest -- and with it, new logging. It's also a important symbolic reversal of one of Donald Trump's most controversial public land decisions. But for Marina Anderson, it's far more personal than all that. It's a policy that will have a massive impact on the land she calls home. Ms. Anderson is the Haida and Tlingit tribal administrator for the Organized Village of Kasaan. Carol spoke with her in November, when then-President Trump stripped the forest of the protections that are now being restored.

SOUNDCLIP

MA: For me, being in the Tongass is being at home because these are my ancestral lands. I have Tlingit roots and my Tlingit people have been here for well over 10,000 years and our people bleed over into what is now Canada with that border. And then my Haida roots, my people came up here before Western contact from actually Canada, from Haida Gwaii. So for me being here, it's being home. For other people to be here, it's this vast, temperate rainforest that is both dangerous and offers safety. It's full of canopies of old growth forest that have an abundant amount of life within them. Everything that provides this extremely lush ecosystem that is green year round.

CO: It's been called America's last climate sanctuary.

MA: Yes. And for North America, it's been known as the lungs of North America.

CO: But at the same time, the Trump administration seems to be going ahead with this, that half the forest the roadless rule will not apply. What does that actually mean? What will that open the Tongass to actually have happen?

MA: What that means is that it will open the Tongass to more natural resource extraction. There's a land management plan, a timber management plan. But this opens it up for when that plan is over, and when they are re-planning, this opens up more acreage. This also will open up areas for roads, for other natural resource extraction. Opening up these areas provides direct access for these timber companies to come in, build roads, log the timber, and then those roads can easily be re-patched for mining companies.

CO: Your community has participated in logging in the past, though. I understand your father was a logger himself. So what's different about this plan than it was in the past?

MA: I think what's really important to take into consideration is the overall history of our people here and where we were at that point in time. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, that was the only opportunity at the time for our people to retain as little land as they were able to retain, it was through that act and through that act, corporations developed. And with corporations, there's the responsibility to the shareholders, of course, to uphold duties of a corporation and provide income. And so they started logging. And another thing that I think about, my father passed away a few years ago, but something I think about a lot is how he told me that he didn't know what these clearcuts would do. He didn't know that these clearcuts were going to be bringing down landslides and that these clearcuts were going to make the habitat for the deer unsuitable and the habitat for humans unsuitable and the habitat for proper regrowth unsuitable. It was a new way of logging at that time. And today, I'm seeing years later the effects of these clearcuts.

CH: Marina Anderson is the Haida and Tlingit tribal administrator for the Organized Village of Kasaan. She spoke with Carol last November, from Prince of Wales Island -- inside the Tongass National Forest. Last week, the Biden administration announced it would restore sweeping protections for the Forest.

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Alberta Parks cyclist

Guest: Sean Nichols

CH: When the Alberta government announced plans to delist 164 "underutilized" parks, it failed to consider Sean Nichols and his over-utilized bike. That delisting has since been put on hold. It seems the government also failed to anticipate public protest, and the publication of numbers that raised some questions about just how under-utilized all those parks really were. But that temporary reprieve hasn't stopped Mr. Nichols from heading out on his bike for a no-parks-barred 3,800-kilometre marathon effort to visit all 164. Sean Nichols lives in Calgary, where he works for the Alberta Wilderness Association. But we reached him in Caroline, Alberta.

SB: Mr. Nichols, how are your legs? How are you holding up?

SEAN NICHOLS: They're actually doing pretty good right now! There have been some days when I've had a lot of uphill, when they've been a bit of... a bit tired. But the last couple of days have been pretty good. So I'm doing really well.

SB: How many parks have you visited? How many kilometres do you still have to go?

SN: I've gone through 51 parks, I believe, maybe 52. It's... it's easy to lose exact count at some point. And the computer on my bike right now says 1,599 kilometres. So I've done almost exactly a thousand miles. I have a little ways to go. There are 164 parks that were on the list, so I'm sitting at about a third of them. I was hoping to get about twice this far, although the reality is that I might not make it as far as I'd hoped. But I would absolutely credit that to... to the parks and to how wonderful they are because there are so many parks that when I got there, I just couldn't bring myself to leave right away. I wanted to actually experience them for a bit longer than I'd... I'd intended. So... so it's been going a little bit more slowly than I planned, but... but that's actually a good thing.

SB: How did you get from the point of hearing these parks were going to be delisted to deciding that, OK, I'm going to make a bicycle visit to each and every one of them?

SN: Mostly because I was looking at a list of the parks that were going to be delisted or defunded or closed and. As I was going through them, as I was just sort of reading down this list, I realized that it's one thing to sort of hear a number, 164 parks. Or it's one thing to see a list of names on a piece of paper, but you don't really get a good feel for what that actually means. And every one of these parks has something special about it. Every one of them, there's something that at some point someone said this place is a good place to camp. This place is a good place for a habitat for wildlife. There is something about this place that means it should be a park. And I wanted to come out and see for myself what all of these things were. For every one of these, what is that special thing that made it a park in the first place?

SB: OK. Can you give me a few of the highlights so far?

SN: Absolutely. So just a couple of days ago, I was in a park called Burnt Timber Provincial Recreation Area, which is in the mountains. It's on a gravel road. There's no cell phone access there. There's a couple of dozen campsites. And it's just sort of hidden away in the mountains. And it's on a creek. And there's the creek. Many of the rivers in western Alberta are glacial-fed, so they are cold. [laughing] I've been in a few of them! And you sort of get in, and you want to get right out right away. Burnt Timber Creek is really nice and warm because it's not a glacial-fed lake. It comes from sort of a little bit lower down in the mountains. There were fish jumping out. There were little waterfalls trickling down into the... into the creek. And it was such a wonderful place. I'm like, this is absolutely a place I will return to. And another one on the other side of Calgary on... in the more the prairie area is a little place called Bleriot's Ferry, and it is on the Red Deer River, which if people have ever been to Drumheller, they might be familiar with the Badlands and how the river flows down this deep canyon with these badland formations through the Prairies. And there's a ferryboat that crosses the river at one point called Bleriot's Ferry. And there's this little provincial recreation area right there with a lovely campsite right on the side of the river and some trees, which are some nice trees, which are unusual sometimes in that part of the Prairies. And that's another example of a park that I went I am going to come back here someday.

SB: All right. Well, there's got to be some lowlights. Give me a couple.

SN: [laughing] The fly. Right now, the nature of... of... of well, western Canada right now is there's a lot of smoke coming over from the wildfires in B.C. And so, as especially as I'm close to the mountains, as I'm going up the mountains, the immediate effect on me is I'm breathing in a lot of smoke. But it's always a reminder that there are these larger issues, and there are these... these issues that... that are a reminder of why parks and natural spaces are important.

SB: In your travels, have you been to any parks that do seem to be a bit underused?

SN: There are a few. I would say most of them are extremely well used. Some of them have been chocked full, absolutely to the brim. Waiting lines to get into the park, even in some cases. But yes, there have been some... where there has been basically nobody there. Now, there's a couple of things I would say to that. In some cases, that's a bit of a disingenuous argument that was put forth by the government when they announced that they were closing parks because they were underused. Because the recreation angle isn't the only reason why some of these parks are important. They do provide ecosystem function. They do provide habitat for wildlife, or they do protect areas that are integral to our ecosystem. On the other hand, there are a few places where there's a campsite, and there's nobody there. There's nobody using that campsite. And I think if the government had come and been judicious about their plans, if they had said, OK, this park is underused, that was underused, and they'd come up with an actual plan of 10 parks or however many, I don't think they would have seen the response they got.

SB: Well, what's your best message then to Premier Kenney as he considers whether to go ahead and delist and close these parks?

SN: I would certainly urge the government not to readopt the plan to... to... to delist these parks. I would encourage Jason Kenney personally, and certainly, everyone within the Alberta Environment and Parks, to do maybe not exactly the same thing that I've done [SB laughs] on my bicycle. But certainly, to... to... to actually come out to these parks and visit and visit them to visit a good cross-section of these parks, to visit some of the parts that had been slated for closure and actually see for themselves whether or not. It makes any sense to close them? Because I think that for 90 per cent-plus, the answer is a very clear no.

SB: Well, I wish you happy trails. Sean Nichols,

SN: Thank you very much. Likewise to you.

SB: Bye-bye.

SN: Goodbye.

CH: Sean Nichols works for the Alberta Wildlife Association. We reached him on vacation on his way through Caroline, Alberta.

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Wrong Kind Of Hoe

CH: This will seem implausible to anyone with an uncle who posts nothing but deeply obscene golf jokes, but Facebook has community standards. Certain types of content are not, technically, allowed. Including the misogynistic slang term "ho". Some of you just quipped "Bad news for Santa Claus!" First of all, good one. Second of all, this is no laughing matter. It's a gardening matter. A matter involving the Facebook group Western New York Gardeners. 7500 members, a million questions and comments, and the odd offensive remark. Extremely odd, in this case. Someone asked the group about their favourite gardening tool. And someone responded by naming a product that claims to have "changed the game when it comes to hand-weeding". It's called "the push-pull hoe". Well, a lot of Facebook monitoring is done by AI, which doesn't understand context, or gardening. So it flagged that response, saying, "We reviewed this comment and found it goes against our standards for harassment and bullying." Obviously, a soil tool is nothing for Facebook to soil itself over. But the group's moderators tried in vain to get the decision reversed. It wasn't until the Associated Press contacted Facebook that the situation got fixed. It's a shame because gardening is challenge enough. But gardening and cultivating a Facebook group, in the face of overzealous AI? That's a tough row to -- if you'll pardon my language -- hoe.

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July 21, 2021 Episode Transcript

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