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The Current Transcript for March 29, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

We invited Pope Francis to join us on our journey for truth, reconciliation, healing and justice, and he said I take that as my personal responsibility.

MATT GALLOWAY: Indigenous leaders, elders and youth are in Rome this week meeting with Pope Francis about the Catholic Church's responsibility for residential schools. There are calls for an apology, but also much more. In 30 minutes, the Bishop of Calgary on whether the church will honour demands for compensation and reparations for survivors and their families and a youth delegate, and why many of those survivors aren't entirely convinced of the value of this trip. Also this morning,

SOUNDCLIP

If we live in a world where toads can shoot blood out of their eyes and pelicans have 10 foot wingspans, why not a horde rabbit?

MG: Why not, indeed. The jackalope is the stuff of legend, a prank that has turned into a weird cultural phenomenon. In an hour, the value of a good hoax in a time of bad news and disinformation, and how this mythical creature helped create the path for a very real life cancer vaccine. We begin, though, with the rush to preserve cultural artefacts in the face of war. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Russia's war in Ukraine threatens to destroy its art and history, say curators rushing to save it

Guests: Ihor Poshyvailo, Brian Daniels

MG: Russia's bombing campaign has devastated entire neighbourhoods in some Ukrainian cities, Mariupol has seen the worst of the destruction. Kharkiv and Chernihiv aren't far behind. And as bombs fall, people are risking their lives to save precious pieces of art and culture. Items are being pulled from the walls and shelves of art galleries, museums, libraries and archives carefully packed and snuck out of the war zone. Ihor Poshyvailo is the director of the Maidan Museum in Kiev and co-founder of the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative. It's the group that's helping to get art out of harm's way. He is in Lviv this morning. Ihor, hello.

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Hello.

MG: How are you doing in Lviv? What's the latest there?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: It's more or less safe for them, for example, in Chirnihiv, you have so much to you, but still there are shelling in Lviv as well.

MG: In the midst of that, as I mentioned, you are trying to help save your country's culture. Where did the idea for the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative come from?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: The idea itself was brought in 2014 in February, when the war started. There was a group of museum professionals and representatives of cultural institutions, and at that moment we just planned what to do, how we should respond because in that period there was occupation in Crimea started and later on the eastern regions of Ukraine was occupied. And so there was a small group of people who started working over strategies and tactics, how we should respond in emergency situations. So we did some very important things. We communicated with our colleagues who had experience of such like response. But it was a few months it became clear that culture is not the priority. The military actions were much more in the media and it was the priority wasn't the government. So our initiative in the period was not so was not developed, developed publicly. But we started work working with international institutions. Organisations like [unintelligible] and Sony Institution institutions, and we provided a number of workshops in different regions. But the most important work happened to be right now in Italy. Much we reunited again here in the Lviv, in much safer place and in the Volunteers Hub. So we created this initiative because we understood that this war is not only for the territory. This war is for heritage.

MG: What do you mean by that? That this war is for heritage?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Because the Kremlin regime, the Putin regime justifying the so-called military operation, declared some targets, and amongst them was our history, our historical memory, our cultural identity, the revolution of dignity in particular. He clearly stated that he's mission. The mission of Russian army is to stop the processes initiated by the revolution of dignity. And that means that all those democratisation movements for Ukrainians, independence for rediscovering our history, rediscovering our identity now they are under threat. And that is why we tried to reunite and to respond to or to the battles on the frontline.

MG: Tell me about some of the artworks that you have been able to save in the midst of this war.

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Some collections, some prominent collections from Kharkiv, Chernihiv, [unintelligible] were curators. We do not speak publicly in detail because it can be dangerous. Sure, it can bring in other threats to museums, staff and collections. But in general, we our initiative is not only about saving the collections, but we are trying to save the people, the museum professionals.

MG: when when the pieces themselves are saved out of those very precarious situations, where do they go?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Oh, mostly the collections go do at the moment, safer regions in the western Ukraine. But there are also ideas and there are discussions how to reallocate the collection further to the West because even previously considered considered a regions to be safe are not safe at all. A lot of our colleagues from European countries proposed us to bring collections to them to the safer and much safer storage. And we are in the process.

MG: As I mentioned in the introduction, the the idea, the image that people have is of works of art being taken off of a wall packed up and then taken out of a war zone. Is that how this is unfolding, that you're trying to be as careful as possible? But the real goal is to just get them to safety.

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Yeah, the real goal is how to save our cultural heritage as much as possible. We are speaking about millions of items of collections of museum, governmental or state funded funds. We are speaking about thousands of cultural monuments and cultural sites, historical sites, ecological sites. Now, Ukraine is also hosts seven seven cultural heritage objects, which I conscripted into the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List, and they are also badly endangered. For example, Kyiv St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, [unintelligible] Monastery or the Centre of Kyiv.

MG: Is there anything that you can do? I mean, with individual pieces, you can move them, you can protect them, you can get them out of the country. That's not possible, obviously, with large statues or works of art on churches and historical buildings. So is there anything that you can do to protect those pieces?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Well, yes, of course, the most museums protect their collections within the museums themselves, they try to placate them and to keep to safe a location within the museums. Some of the collections are moved. There are movable objects, they are carefully wrapped up and there are some special shelters created, for example. You can see widely media how we live in the important and famous historical monuments. A religious art objects are being sheltered.

MG: People have seen perhaps that image of of the statue in Odessa that is surrounded by by sandbags, the statue of the Duke.

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Exactly. The buildings are also being protected by plywood, by sacks of sand. So a lot of different precautions are being taken. For example, we have also the World Heritage list. The wooden churches in purposing mountains and a lot of attention paid to them. They are provided with some placed in bushes and some instructions of local religious communities. How to ex- what to do in case of emergencies, in case of a fight fires. So a lot of a lot of actions, a lot of activities are being done at the moment.

MG: What are you hearing from curators in the country about how far they are going, the lengths that they're going to protect their collections?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: 99 percent of museums in Ukraine are not private. They are municipal or governmental, and they need the confirmation and coordination to do any, any any action. And as far as I know, the Ministry of Culture has lost enough capacity to respond quite actively for this. But this needs, and a lot of museum directors are still in a very difficult situation. They would like to protect their collection as much as possible, and it's not only collection but recommendation the archives a lot of other important materials, and it's not easy because the process is too complicated.

MG: You've said that this is a war about territory, but it's also about culture. What are you? What are you most worried about if this these works are destroyed? What do you think could be lost?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Ukrainians were dominated by several empires since at least three centuries. And our cultural identity was just in prisons and only since regaining our independence in 1991, we started to rediscover our history, regaining our cultural identity. We just started to feel ourself as Ukrainians. And the Putin's plan, of course, is not only to conquer the territory, just to destroy Ukrainians as a nation. And as a nation and this people as a cultural identity. And of course, a for those centuries when Ukraine has no statehood, all our cultural heritage was the most important factor which kept us as a nation, as a people, as Ukrainian people together, especially in Diaspora. Coming to Canada is a very bright example how in Soviet times, Ukraine's in Canada preserved our culture, cultural heritage traditions which were completely destroyed, also destroyed in Soviet Ukraine. And that is why it is important to preserve all our cultural heritage and intangible intangible as the basis for us, as as one nation, as one people.

MG: I'm really glad to hear about the work that you're doing, but it's really dangerous to stay safe and thank you very much and good luck.

IHOR POSHYVAILO: Thank you so much.

MG: Ihor Poshyvailo is director of the Maidan Museum in Kiev, co-founder as well of the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative. He was in Lviv, Ukraine. Brian Daniels is part of that global effort to preserve Ukraine's cultural artefacts. He's director of research and programmes at the Penn Cultural Heritage Centre and advisor to the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. Brian Daniels, good morning to you.

BRIAN DANIELS: Thank you for having me.

MG: This is a war that is now in its 39th day. People are dying. Millions of people are now refugees. Why? In the midst of that, from your perspective, is it important to save art and cultural artefacts?

BRIAN DANIELS: No. Thank you for that question. It's oftentimes one of the hardest, I think, for the public to understand when we're in the middle of a war zone, why we care about works of art and archives, I ask people to think about it like this. Pretend your house is on fire. And the first thing you're going to do is you're going to get your family out. You're going to make sure that everybody's safe. But the second thing you're going to do is you're going to see if there's anything that you might be able to save very quickly and safely from inside that house. Like family photographs or maybe your mother's wedding dress or some other really important keepsake to your family. And if we think about museums, libraries and archives as the memory and the repository of that memory of a nation and other people, memory workers like Ihor and so many others in Ukraine, right now we're going in and trying to save that memory for the future. And there are lots of groups and individuals who are doing really extraordinary things to help protect human lives. But there's very few people who work on trying to preserve the art and the written history of a nation of a people. And that's what you hear people like you who are trying to do.

MG: What are you and your teams doing to help people like me who are on the ground in Ukraine?

BRIAN DANIELS: So right now, the most important thing that we can do internationally is realise all of the work that has been done in preparation. The international community has been working with Ihor and his colleagues really extensively since 2014, since the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine. In order to actually do the training, do the legwork that was necessary in case this day should ever come. And so right now, there's a lot of effort to try and make sure that Igor and his colleagues in the Harry initiative and other programmes that have cropped up around the country have the resources they need, have the supplies they need. And just trying to make sure that this works. Now what we're also doing, though, is looking in six to nine months down the road, you know, because in the international community, we have to look at what the worst case scenario is. We have to make sure that when we're talking about preserving this kind of artwork that we're able to get and able to get those resources to Ihor and to Harry and to others on a consistent basis. So right now, you might say that we're trying to make sure the Fire House is intact and that we're able to continue the kind of good work should this conflict continue, that we're able to make sure especially that we can get financial resources into the country should the conflict worsen.

MG: This is work that you did as well in Syria and Iraq in terms of helping to preserve cultural artefacts. How does what happened in those countries compared to what you're seeing unfold in Ukraine?

BRIAN DANIELS: Well, I think in two different ways. First, in a very pragmatic level, one of the things that the organisations I work with, you know, really tried to do very much inside Syria was to figure out how to reach the museum curators, conservators, other volunteers working to protect cultural heritage who work hard right at the front lines, who literally were being bombed while we were helping them and trying to figure out how to get resources to them. You know, in the midst of this very difficult situation, especially things like funds, these interventions that you hear about in these conflict zones, the sand bagging the other kind of plywood sheeting, fire extinguishers, they're not costless. They don't cost a huge amount of money. But in a war zone, those lines of liquidity and institutional support often dry up. So in Syria and and slightly differently in Iraq, what we really tried to do is to make sure that our colleagues there felt heard that they were able to reach us. If they had an oddball question that we could help answer that we were able to make sure that funding lines kept open and that they understood that they were part of an international community, very concerned about this. Now the second piece to this, though, is that in Syria that so much of the damage in Syria was caused by Russian bombing of civilian infrastructure. So the kinds of tactics and strategies that we began to see in Syria after 2015 that were really wholesale bombardment of civilian infrastructure, museums and educational facilities, bakeries and so on hospitals. This is very similar to the kinds of bombing that we've started to see in Ukraine's major cities. And I will say that is very concerning, and I know what that means as a as a heritage professional trying to assist colleagues in that situation. And it's not it's not pleasant. It's not just the institution that you're concerned about here. It's also the lives of our colleagues.

MG: Who are said that this is about this war is about territory, but it's also about culture. What are the legal means of accountability for the destruction of culture during a conflict?

BRIAN DANIELS: So there are accountability mechanisms in through the Rome Statute, through the International Criminal Court that specifically prohibit the targeting of cultural institutions and religious institutions as well. The issue for us and the difficulty of accountability is going to be that Russia is not party to the Rome Statute. And so we need some legal forum where there would be accountability for Russian actors who may be involved in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity. There's a legal precedent here going back to the Balkan conflict about the prosecution of individuals who specifically target cultural heritage and other kinds of cultural institutions. And we also have a recent conviction at the ICC of an individual who was involved in the deliberate destruction of historic shrines and mosques in Timbuktu.

MG: We're just about out of time, so just briefly me or talked about how this is, in some ways, the record of a people that is being threatened. From your perspective, what's at stake here?

BRIAN DANIELS: I think that Ihor has this absolutely right. The there's a very it's very clear that there's a concerted effort here to try through the public rhetoric of of of Russians like Vladimir Putin to eliminate the kind of democratic gains that Ukraine has made after 1991 and especially after 2014. And what I get very concerned about here is the targeting of the memory workers who have been engaged in that effort, both to preserve the memory of Ukraine, but also try and help enliven the kind of heritage and culture of Ukraine for the world since that time. And I think that that is what we really see here. Being potentially at risk.

MG: Memory workers is a really powerful turn of phrase.

BRIAN DANIELS: Is how I'd like to to think about and talk about the people who are engaged in the space because they really are trying to do the work and the labour of preserving the memory of a people in another nation. And I think it's important for us to recall that and keep that present in our own minds.

MG: We'll be watching this, Brian. It's great to speak with you. Thank you very much.

BRIAN DANIELS: Thank you very much.

MG: Brian Daniels is the director of research and programmes at the Penn Cultural Heritage Centre and advisor to the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. He was in Washington, D.C., this morning. You're CBC. News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

My hope is that the head of the Catholic Church apologise. Churches in Canada have apologised, and the Roman Catholic Church is the only one that hasn't.

MG: A lot of hopes are riding on those meetings between indigenous delegations from Canada and Pope Francis in Rome this week. In six minutes, we'll hear from some members of those delegations about, yes, an apology, but also what could and should follow that apology. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Calls for Catholic Church to take action over abuse and legacy of residential schools

Guests: Bishop Willian McGrattan, Taylor Behn-Tsakoza

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, the story of the horned rabbits that will sing along to campfire songs and only mates during lightning storms on the trail of the Jackalope in just under 30 minutes, but first to Rome and a meeting years in the making.

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MG: When Pope Benedict met with indigenous leaders in 2009, there was hope that he would apologise for the abuses that children endured at residential institutions. He didn't. Once again, indigenous leaders have arrived at the Vatican, calling for the same apology from a different pope. Calgary's Bishop William McGrattan is at the Vatican this week for these meetings. He is the vice president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Bishop McGratton, good morning.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Thank you very much.

MG: From your perspective, what is the intent of this week's meetings in the Vatican?

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Well, Matt, they've been in the planning for just over about two years, and as you probably know, this is the third attempt and we're very grateful that it was able to take place. It's private encounters, three of them with Pope Francis with first the Metis, then the Inuit and then the First Nations. Then this week, on Friday, there will be a general audience, but the private encounters that I've been at already, he has listened intently to representatives who have been survivors of residential schools, youth and elders, and he responded in ways that I think was hopeful for our delegates. He expressed regret and sorrow, but he also said that he wanted to listen and to pray over what he's hearing this week. So in many ways they've had a chance, I think, to speak from the heart and to express in many ways what they've experienced through residential schools and also how that's affected their communities.

MG: Yesterday, after the meeting, the Metis National Council President Cassidy Caron told us that Pope Francis listened as you said, but offered no apology. Do you think he will apologise for the Catholic Church's involvement in residential institutions?

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: I think this week has been a week where he's going to understand the extensiveness of it and especially from what we know to be the direct survivors. And we know that The Pope listens from the heart and we we pray. And I think that he's been already recognising that their words and such words of sorrow and apology would be welcomed by our indigenous communities. So it's our hope that as he listens this week that in many ways, the spirit will move him to express that sorrow in ways that will help with the healing process that they've all spoke about and even Cassidy Caron. You know, the truth and healing and reconciliation and justice are very important for these communities.

MG: And it's your understanding that if that apology were to come, perhaps it would come here in Canada.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Well, he's already expressed his desire, as you know, to come to Canada, and I know that he realises that by coming and being present to the peoples of countries who have experienced such a travesty and sorrow that he often speaks to them and in ways that we know that the Holy Father can and touch their hearts. So I know that this is an expectation and it's one that I think not only the Indigenous, but Canadians and also Catholics are hoping that he can express and to show us the way to to pass of healing.

MG: That expectation includes an apology, but also includes what would follow an apology. There are documents that the Catholic Church holds that could help reveal the names of the children buried in unmarked graves. Will all of those documents, all of those documents be shared with the communities who are looking for answers?

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Well, as you know, I mean, when we're talking about documents, oftentimes we refer to those that were directly related to the running of residential schools. We also know that in and particularly my diocese and others in western Canada, there were certain mission churches and they also have sacramental records and mission records. And we are making those available in ways that communities can begin to understand if loved ones who have passed away are buried in certain cemeteries and that these records that we have are going to be made available. And I can only speak for my own diocese that we're in the process of digitising that and making it more readily available to those families in those communities to help with this healing.

MG: But there are. There's the belief that there are documents that are being held at the Vatican as well. Do you believe that all of the relevant documents should be shared with residential school survivors in this country?

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Well, I know that the Oblates, who have their general [unintelligible] here, have also entered into discussions with the indigenous communities. And during this week, they will be meeting with representatives of the Oblates and they do have archives here, and they also have expressed their openness to work with the communities and the NTCR to make sure that whatever records they have, they would be made available to those communities.

MG: The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, who have said that in the absence of those documents, you can't have a full picture, you can't have a full accounting of what actually happened in those institutions.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: And that's we recognise that. And that's why we want to work with the NTCR, as well as with the indigenous communities to help them understand what records we do have so that they can have access to them. And that's the truth. And what is contained, possibly in those archives and those records will be made available for the purpose of truth and for the purpose of healing.

MG: That's an Op-Ed. The president of the Inuit Tappet. It's kind of Tommy made a specific request of Pope Francis. He asked The Pope to help in getting Father Yohannes Rivoire back to Canada to face charges of sexual abuse of Inuit children. The RCMP issued a warrant for his arrest in 1998. He's currently in France, and France does not extradite French nationals. Do you think that this is something that the Vatican would be willing to help with?

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: I know that President Old Bed when I was there made this specific request to the Holy Father. I also know that he is again talking with the Oblates and they are cooperating and trying to assist him in any way possible to make sure that this priest is brought to justice and President Will Bed Express his request to Pope Francis directly to do what he could. But we also know that there are certain international laws and jurisdictions that come into play. But the Vatican and I believe also the Oblates are committed to make sure that whatever they can do to facilitate this, they will assist President [unintelligible] and the Inuit communities.

MG: This is important because it speaks to the matter of justice and accountability, and not an obit has said that there is a cost to inaction. What do you think that cost is? What do you think the if? If the church does not help in his request, what is the cost of that in action?

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Well, I think, you know, as you say, when any one is, you know, challenged with, you know, demonstrating their commitment and action, you know, it does have to be expressed in tangible ways. And I think this delegation is one we're trying to Seoul to see so that these delegates are able to begin to understand how the church wants to help and assist them as the Canadian bishops, you know, in September, we did commit once again to doing what we know to be the right and moral thing is is to raise and we have committed 30 million and over the next five years to work locally with diocese and regions, to establish committees to identify projects and initiatives of healing for communities, for language and cultural revitalisation. And we are committed to allowing those monies to go directly to those particular types of initiatives.

MG: Well, let me ask you specifically about that, because in 2006, there was an agreement that called for the Catholic Church of Canada to compensate survivors under the Indian Residential Schools settlement agreement they would pay. As you mentioned, $29 million in cash, provide $25 million in church and religious in-kind services, and make best efforts to raise $25 million. Only $4 million of that was raised through this national fundraising campaign. But overall, those commitments were not met, and the church actually went to court to be released from fulfilling them in the face of that. I mean, are we are we led to believe that the Catholic Church can't find the money or the assets to honour those obligations.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Well, I think what we are trying to demonstrate in our commitment towards raising the $30 million and placing it towards what we understand to be the initiative of the Indian residential schools settlement was was to bring about that type of concrete action. And yes, the 25 million US efforts did not succeed and we have learnt from that. And that's why we're taking this particular step and working with indigenous directors and setting up a fund that will allow transparency, but also accountability that the funds are going directly to the communities that require it. And that's why we're hoping that this new structure, which is taking time, but we're doing it in a way that will be, I think, much more successful than what we obviously realise was a failed $25 million campaign.

MG: The Globe and Mail did an analysis that showed that the Catholic Church in Canada has combined assets of something like $4.1 billion. I think people just wonder why the church in the face of that would not honour its settlement would not honour the agreement in 2006 to compensate survivors. Survivors who, as this drags on, are getting older and some are dying before they can receive the compensation that they are owed.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: And I would respond that, you know, we recognise that that failed commitment is now being hopefully restored in this this commitment of 30 million. And this is why we hope that this will be a tangible and accountable sign that the church is committed to this path of reconciliation and that this funds will in a sense be directed to help those who have experienced, you know, the the effects of residential schools and their communities.

MG: Yesterday, after meeting with The Pope, Cassidy Caron, the president of the National Council, said that The Pope repeated truth, justice and healing. And in our conversation yesterday, she was hopeful and optimistic that he will personally commit to those three actions. Do you think that you can have truth, justice and healing without concrete actions that these delegations are asking for the records being handed over pursuing priests who are still alive, who have been accused of sexual assault and worse? Proper compensation, but also an apology.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: And that is what we hear with these delegates are hoping that they can begin to see that these are the beginning steps to, as you said, truth, reconciliation and action. The fact that we have, in the sense. Recognise that records and access to records are important and that the bishops are committed to that. The Oblates as well, that we are committed to raising these funds and directing them towards healing and reconciliation. We offer that is as concrete and tangible signs.

MG: I appreciate speaking with you, and we'll chat again, hopefully as this process unfolds, it is a process, and so I look forward to the opportunity to talk again in the meantime. Bishop McGrattan, thank you.

BISHOP WILLIAM MCGRATTAN: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Calgary's Bishop William McGrattan is at the Vatican this week, he's the vice president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Taylor Behn-Tsakoza has been listening in. She's one of the Assembly of First Nations youth delegates in Rome this week. She'll be meeting with The Pope on Thursday. Taylor, hello to you.

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Good afternoon from Rome.

MG: What do you thinking as you listened to Bishop McGrattan?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Yeah. You know, we've been in Rome for a few days now, and heard from the Inuit and the Metis how their meeting went and after hearing Bishop McGrath, and I'm still very, very wary of, you know, what comes after this trip and yeah, wary.

MG: Tell me more about that and why. I mean, people, this is the question that I ask the bishop, can there be truth, justice and healing without action? What are you wary of?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Yeah, and it's just that that action that's going to come after we all return home to Canada when The Pope visits Canada, hopefully later this year. Um yeah, there's just we, you know, when when we meet with Pope Francis on Thursday, we do have a lot of asked and very curious to see what there actually is going to be and how. And I guess time will tell how committed they are actually to this process of truth, reconciliation, healing.

MG: You have some you have some questions. I can hear it in your voice. I mean, you're being very, very cautious about how you approach this.

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Very, yeah.

MG: What were you, what were you say to Pope Francis on Thursday? You'll be the last person presenting on behalf of the AFN.

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Correct. Yeah, I'm strategically placed to use myself and my co-chair, Rosalie at the end to, you know, to bring that sense of hope, and I really do hope that The Pope hears from myself as an intergenerational survivor and to. I frankly just just own up to what he did into to be committed to achieving all of the tasks that we have, which there are many

MG: what I mean. Give us a couple. What are some of the specific things that you're looking for specifically from The Pope?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: I mean, for myself, I I would be speaking to him about the doctrine of discovery and asking him to, you know, to pressure the Canadian government to renounce that people block by composed the doctrine of discovery, which then, of course, you know, push this assumption that, you know, North America, you should. Canada was open for for the taking. So that's my my biggest ask is for him to, you know, to write a new people bill and to encourage the government to just completely adopt a new bill and scrap the [unintelligible] discovery. But of course, you know, their compensation is a big part of this. And I know Bishop McGrattan talked to you about that 30 million. I think, frankly, that that isn't enough. And and he's been talking a lot about the healing, but you know that that compensation also has to go towards, you know, bringing home those, those children that we are continually finding and paying for the communities to honour them in their ways. And it's just, yeah, those are just a few of many.

MG: How did you respond when you were first asked to join this delegation as a youth representative?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: I definitely I told them I was like, Can you give me a day?

MG: You wanted, you wanted a day.

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Yeah, I and I told them that I was like, can I like email you guys tomorrow? Give you guys a call tomorrow? Just because I was frankly, shocked that I was asked to be the the U.S. delegate and because I knew that it was going to be emotional, I knew that this journey was going to be a tough one and I took off with it. Am I ready to do this alone? You know, ready to speak up and share and share my stories with generational survivors? You know, as the co-chair of the Assembly of First Nations National Youth Council, you know, how am I going to best represent my generation and in these discussions that we'll be having on Thursday?

MG: What do you think your generation is looking for?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Yeah, I you know, of course, we I believe that, you know, my generation, the ones who never did attend research, are really looking for that opportunity to heal. You know, we, although we never attended, we still feel the effects every single day and we we really just want to move forward. We want to, you know, ensure that those who committed crimes, these were crimes, the unmarked graves that we are, you know, that's popping up all over Canada. Those are crimes scenes. You know, we want, we want justice, we want healing and we want to move forward in a good way with Canada and the Catholic Church.

MG: What sort of reaction have you had from members of your community in knowing that you're there and in Rome?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Yeah, I mean, a lot like a lot of positive support, a lot of you know, people are very proud to have a young person from om the North and should be representing them in this delegation. But you know, on the other hand, there are people in my community who question this process of reconciliation in terms of coming to the Vatican, to meet with Pope Francis, which, you know, a lot of those perspectives come from survivors and my family and my community. So I can't, I don't know exactly where they're coming from, but I can try my best to understand and respect that this trip is and isn't needed for some, I guess, but for others it is. So I respect definitely both both sides.

MG: How difficult is that to hear from people who question the value of the trip that you're on? And again, you're going into this very much with your eyes open and being really, really thoughtful about how you're approaching this. But when you hear that from members of your community, what is that like?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Yeah, you know, it's tough. And I think that when I had responded to the ASN that you know I needed that day was because I wasn't- I just kept wondering, like, is this the right step? You know, is it? And I think about like myy aunties who have passed on who are survivors like to think, like, is this something that they needed or that they would have wanted? And ultimately, it came down to, you know, I, you know, as the co-chair of the International Youth Council, is just a youth who is really committed to this process of reconciliation. I knew that this visit and these discussions are really going to benefit my generation and the generations to come.

MG: People may have seen the photo of the beautiful pair of McCulloch's that you brought with you to Rome. What do they represent to you?

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: No, those those my clocks really represent communities. You know, my auntie who a residential school survivors is a [unintelligilbe] and my mom who was the first of my my grandparents children not have to go to residential school. She put them together. And when I was sitting with her, she was, you know, doing the last few stitches. I was asking her about them and she was telling me, you know, like someone had to shoot that was. Someone had to, you know, shoot [unintelligible] someone had to skin it and tan it. And she said, You know, this is your community behind you. And yeah, I'm very, very little bit choked up just thinking, you know, like my community is behind me. And, you know, even the people who are worried about this trip, all of them have ended our discussions, you know, but I am proud of you and for speaking up because it's hard, you know, it's hard to be vulnerable and on this international stage, but I again, you know, I just know that this trip and these discussions are for the benefit of all, you know, the people who then and now and for, you know, those those yet to come.

MG: And those are the people that you'll be thinking about when you have that audience on on Thursday.

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Absolutely.

MG: That's a lot to carry for a young person, but you. You seem so well equipped for this, and it will be really interesting, I hope we have the chance to talk when you come out of that in the days and weeks following, because that will inform the work that you're doing in future. In the meantime, Taylor, thank you very much for speaking with us.

TAYLOR BEHN-TSAKOZA: Thank you, Matt

MG: Taylor Behn-Tsakoza, as one of the youth delegates for the Assembly of First Nations in the trip to the Vatican. She will be the final member of the AFN to address Pope Francis on Thursday. If you are a residential school survivor or you have experienced intergenerational trauma, there is a number you can call to speak with someone. The residential school crisis line is one eight six six nine two five four four one nine. Yesterday, as the delegation left their meeting with Pope Francis, they brought a bit of fiddling to St. Peter's Square. The Fittler's brand of Resort and Alexander Cousteau Rock played first for onlookers and then again as they walked through the square after meeting with The Pope. The Pope's meeting with First Nations delegates and the entire indigenous delegation will continue through the week coming up after your regional update.

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There's a lot of misinformation out there, so for example, you'll hear people say that the Jackalope will harmonise with you by singing the bass part and that that's absurd. The jackalope always harmonise is in trouble, and it's just a pleasure to see you hear that beautiful voice.

MG: Dispelling the myth making and misinformation that has long plagued the poor jackalope. What is a jackalope lies in the entire book. Been written about the jackalope? And how did the Jackalope contribute in some way to the creation of a very real vaccine for a cancer that's coming up in 90 seconds? I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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The majestic jackalope and how it became a folklore legend

Guest: Michael Branch

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. And now for something completely different.

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[Song]

MG: exist at all. It's the Okee Dokee brothers song Jackalope. It's been viewed more than 266 thousand times on YouTube. Seems like a lot of people are jackalope fans. One of them is a professor at the University of Nevada. His name is Michael Branch. He is so enamoured, in fact, with the mysterious creature that he went on a search to learn more about them. He's written a new book called On the Trail of the Jackalope How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped US Cure Cancer. Michael, good morning.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Morning, Matt. Thanks for having me.

MG: That's a lovely song.

MICHAEL BRANCH: That's a lot of fun, and I had an opportunity to interview the OKEYDOKEY brothers about why they love Jackalopes, and that was a fun conversation for

MG: people who aren't familiar with the Jackalope. Can you describe this beast?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Well, the the original Jackalope was a taxidermy hoax mount that was made by a couple of teenagers in rural Wyoming during the nineteen thirties, and they were taking a correspondence course in taxidermy and they got a wild idea one day to try to put together a couple of different animals. And that was where the original Mount came from. But of course, the jackalope in kitchen art and folklore has spread around the country and around the world, but the origin story pins it to depression-era rural Wyoming.

MG: Tell me more about that.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Well, the story goes, and this is the way it was told by the brothers. Doug and Ralph Herrick, who lived just outside a little town, called Douglas Wyoming, and sometime in the nineteen thirties they were out hunting, as many families did, to sort of augment the family table. During the depression, they came home with a Jack Rabbit. They had bag tossed it onto the floor of their shop, where, as the story goes, it slid up against a pair of deer antlers that were on the floor. And that was what caused the idea to pop into their mind in the way Ralph told the story later when he was an old man, was that his brother, Doug had looked at that in that moment and exclaimed, Let's mount that thing. So the brothers decided they were going to create this strange beast, and they put the two together. They sold that first jackalope mount for ten bucks to the guy who owned the local hotel in Douglas, who put it on the wall over his bar as a curiosity. And that was the beginning of a cultural phenomenon that has spread around the globe.

MG: You call the Jackalope the strangest, funniest and most weirdly appealing animal ever invented. Why is it appealing, do you think?

MICHAEL BRANCH: I think part of it is that it's immediately cute and funny, which is not the case with all invented or hybrid animals that sort of speaks to us in an innocent way. But it also sort of functions as a mirror. I mean, everybody I interviewed about the jackalope. My last question in the interview would be, why do you think people love Jack? And over the course of the book, you get this wonderful diversity of responses to that question. For some people, it's that they think it's cute. Others think it's funny. For some folks, it's the pleasure of actually using it as an innocent hoax where you hang it on your wall and you convince the uninitiated that this is a real animal and you string them along as far as you can. And there's good fun in that, too.

MG: You're a professor. How did members of your faculty respond when you told them that you were going to hop in your car and drive around America in search of the jackalope?

MICHAEL BRANCH: [Laughs] That's a great question. I think it didn't surprise anybody around here because first of all, I do lots of writing about the environment of the American West. Secondly, I'm a humour writer, so I'm always interested in things that produce comedy. And third, I do a lot of popular science writing. I'm always interested in how the techniques of storytelling can be used to bring a broader readership into science stories that otherwise might feel too nerdy for them. And for me, this jackalope just was really in my wheelhouse. It felt like all of those things came together. And here's this animal that exists at the weird intersection, the strange nexus of nature and culture, and that just really spoke to me. So I think people who know my work were not surprised at all that I fell in love with the Jackalope.

MG: It also feels like it speaks to the landscape that you live in and around. Tell me about the dessert that you live near.

MICHAEL BRANCH: I live in the western Great Basin desert, the largest, highest elevation, coldest desert in the United States. But it's a very little known place. And in fact, the population density here is so low that in most parts of the state, we meet the 1890 standard for wilderness, which is just a couple of people per square mile. And that's something Canadians can really relate to. You know, the vast spaces of our landscape, and I've always believed that that vastness becomes a kind of fertile territory for the imagination. It becomes harder to imagine your mythic beasts living in a place where there isn't a lot of space. There are other mysteries out there. You know, if we live in a world where you know, toads can shoot blood out of their eyes and pelicans have 10 foot wingspans, why not a horned rabbit?

MG: It's a mythical place, as you say, full of tall tales.

MICHAEL BRANCH: It is. It is the last. Scape is so wild, so incredible, so beautiful, so difficult for people who haven't seen it to conceive that it just seems to sort of naturally inspire stories that are larger than life

MG: is the jackalope a hoax? Is it an urban legend, is it something in between? How do you define what it is?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Well, I mean, as a cultural phenomenon, it's much more expansive. But if we're speaking just of the Jackalope Mount, it is a hoax. But I take pains in the book to make distinctions between a hoax and, say, a con in a con, for example. We want to rip somebody off. We want to get their money or their stuff, and the ideal Khan is one in which it's never exposed. It's a crime, essentially, but a hoax exists to be exposed. It doesn't work unless it's exposed. So to use the jackalope as an example, you know, many, many people who I interviewed said, Oh yeah, I remember when my grandfather used to show me the hoax mount he had in his basement, but I didn't know it was a hoax. He told me all these fabulous stories about it, and it was only later that I got brought into the community of people who knew better. So I love the way a hoax exists to produce pleasure. It exists to create humour. But it also exists to build community because it distinguishes the line between insiders and outsiders. And when you learn the secret, you get to be part of the group that knows better and then you get to help fool the next person. So I think in an era where you know, hoaxes have been associated with a lot of stuff, that's quite terrible. It's important to remember that the hoax has existed for millennia and that it plays a role that has a cultural function. And often that function is to help define in a humorous way these boundaries between communities.

MG: I was going to say, I mean, we'll get back to the Jackalope, but you've hinted at this in sort of a sea of social media misinformation, disinformation, what people call fake news, what's the role of the hoax and what's the place of the hoax?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Yeah, I think the place of the hoax for me is to sort of reclaim the idea that fooling each other for fun and good humour is still something that can produce pleasure. It can still be healthy. I think that, you know, we've kind of almost decided that when we imagine things, we're imagining falsehoods and that those things necessarily hurt other people. But I think, you know, the jackalope reminds us that we often need to operate in the realm of the imagination. There's a reason why every world culture has hybrid and imagined animals in its folklore. It's universal to human culture, and I think one of the reasons it is universal is, you know, we need our monsters, we need our invented animals because we need to believe that there's a world beyond what we struggle with every day when we roll out of bed.

MG: And it's almost convincing enough. I mean, a lot of things can happen if you're sitting in a bar and you've had a few too many drinks. But it's not uncommon for people in a bar after seeing one of these stuffed chocolates hanging on the wall to wonder if such a thing actually exists, right?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Oh, absolutely. And I think that's part of the fun of the jackalope, as compared to many other mythic animals, is that it just appears like it could be credible. In fact, you know, one of the people I interviewed their answer to the question Why do you think people love Jack Loeb's? And I love this answer so much that I used it as a chapter title, she she replied, because it's as real as you want it to be. And I think that really speaks to the way we project our own sort of imaginative desire onto this thing when we see it. But you're absolutely right. I mean, you see a jackalope hanging in a taxidermy shop with a bunch of other stuff. And if you're not already in on the joke, it looks just credible enough that it holds you in that liminal zone. On the one hand, part of your brain tells you that just can't be real and part of your brain tells you that looks like it could be real, and I just love that way in which this animal can hold us imaginatively in that liminal zone where in a sense, the jackalope both is and is not real. And I think I think we need that. I think we need to live in the real world and also in our imaginations.

MG: It's convincing, in part because there's a whole architecture of stories that surround the jackalope, and I want to run through some of them. One is they're very peculiar meeting schedule. Can you tell us about this one?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Yeah, I mean, there's a huge body of folklore around the jackalope, and you get different versions, depending on who you ask. But there is a kind of canonical body of stories about the Jackalope, and that's one that jack loops are so rare because they only mate during lightning storms. And that's an example of a million stories that have carried the Jack Phillips fame forward. There's no way this thing could have been disseminated around the country and around the world with hoax amounts alone. It's it's a narrative. It's storytelling that keeps this beast alive.

MG: The Jackalope can sing?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Oh, absolutely. Since the 19th century, jackalobes have been known to sing along with cowboys around the campfire, both in the US and Canada. So if you're ever out camping, you start singing around the campfire. It's very common to hear the jackalope sing along with you.

MG: What does that sound like?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Oh, well, it harmonises. It's quite beautiful. But again, there's a lot of misinformation out there. So for example, you'll hear people say that the Jackalope will harmonise with you by singing the bass part and that that's absurd. The Jackalope always harmonises in trouble, and it's just a pleasure to see hear that beautiful voice coming in from. The sage here in Nevada, you know, the harmonising of the jackalope with us around campfires is, you know, that's one of the great pleasures of being out on the land.

MG: The chocolate milk also arrives at the teat homogenised. Is this correct?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Yes, yes. And that's because of the tremendous leaps that the Jackalope takes, right? And there's a lot of debate about how fast a jackalope runs. But I think I think most of us who've studied this matter would agree that because Jack Rabbit can run about 30 miles per hour and a pronghorn antelope can run about 60. The jackalope runs about 90 miles per hour. I mean, it's a pretty simple mat. You've got 60 plus 30, so you know, 90.

MG: You have a licence to hunt jackalobes?

MICHAEL BRANCH: I do. In the opening chapter of the book, I make a pilgrimage to Douglas, Wyoming, which is the home of the Jackalope, and I interviewed people there, including the mayor of the town, about why jack ups are so important to their community. And the last thing that happens before I leave the town on that pilgrimage is that the town gives me as a gift, a jackalope hunting licence. And that sort of initiates the journey of the book. I now have this licence and I'm going to use it. I'm going to go wherever I have to and hunt jack ups in whatever way I can. I will say that the hoax of the jackalope hunting licence, which is quite funny, that's been going on in Wyoming since the 1940s. This is this is an old gag and there are jackalope hunting licences in other states, and they're all parodies of actual hunting licences and there are a lot of fun.

MG: Part of the gag is just the hunting season itself, which is brief.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Now the hunting season, depending on which licence you're looking at, it will stipulate the day of the year, the time of the day, the elevation of the hunt. But the details will always end up being something that's impossible. The entire point is that you need to go do this thing, and yet somehow you can't.

MG: On this road trip that you make, you need a number of people involved in the Jackalope business, if I can put it that way, including somebody named Frank English who is in South Dakota. Tell me about Frank's operation.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Yeah, I made a pilgrimage to South Dakota and Wyoming to interview the people who I considered the most important jackalope makers, the actual taxidermist in the world, and I had been told that Frank English made an awful lot of jackalopes. I didn't know too much about it, but he was kind enough to welcome me into his home in South Dakota, and we had this wonderful chat and I sort of kept waiting. When are we going to get in the truck and go out to some production facility, some big barn out on the prairie and see how he did his work? And instead we went down the stairs into his basement? And it turns out that Frank and his wife, Diane, in the basement of their suburban home in Rapid City, South Dakota, have made over two hundred thousand jackalope over the last 30 years or so. And Frank has perfected a lot of techniques that are specific to the way he makes jack loops. And by the way, every Jackalope Maker has a kind of fingerprint. But I consider Frank to be the most prolific jackalope maker in the world. The idea that he's done all this in the basement of his suburban home was quite a surprise to me, as you can imagine.

MG: And I mean, part of this involves what's kept in his giant chest freezer, right?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Yeah, I will say I'm not a hunter myself. So this this was a moment right out of a horror film. You know, Frank made the point that, hey, some years pelts are harder to come by some years antlers are more difficult to source. So, you know, I want to make sure I keep a lot of these around in case there is a year where it's difficult to get my material. So come on over here. So we walk to the other side of his basement and he says, Hey, lift up the door on that stand up freezer. And I lifted this up and looked in to see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Jack Rabbit pelts. And it was it was a really interesting moment for me because, you know, I'm the world's greatest jackalope fan. But in that moment, it did occur to me in a new way that so far as the Jackalope Mount Kitchen art is a different matter, of course. But so far as the Jackalope Mount, you know, an animal does die to produce this joke. And so I I try to be honest in the book about my qualms about that. That was a horrible moment, but it made for a great moment to write about also.

MG: You yourself, you made your own jackalope.

MICHAEL BRANCH: I did. It was really interesting that I was essentially done with the manuscript of the book, and I'm a pretty obsessive researcher. So I had gone everywhere, talk to everybody, looked into the jackalope phenomenon from every possible perspective I could. And then it dawned on me that I had left one stone unturned, and that is that I had not tried to make a jackalope myself. So I ended up taking a jackalope making workshop with a bunch of hipsters in the Mission District of San Francisco.

MG: Ans you do, Yeah?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Yeah, as you do well, of course, and it was a wonderful experience. I was I was clearly the worst student in the class as the teacher freely shared with everyone, not only the worst student that day, but he speculated perhaps the worst taxidermy student ever. My jackalope was horrible, but it was a lot of fun to make. It was fun to do with other people, and it also brought me to a new realisation that this is a craft that requires a lot of creativity, but also a lot of skill, a lot of precision. And as I look back to the Jack Phillips that had been made by the hair back in the day and by their descendants who are still jackalope makers in Wyoming, I had a new appreciation for for the craft of producing this thing that essentially is at the headwaters of a joke that has entertained lots of people around the world.

MG: What did you name your jackalope?

MICHAEL BRANCH: I made my jackalope at a shop called Paxton Gate, and so as if it were a fine wine, I wanted to give it a name of origin. So I named him Paxton, and he's quite awful. But he presides over my writing studio, and he's his haunting and inspirational at the same time.

MG: One of the things that you point out in the book is that there is a long tradition of trickster rabbits.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Sure. Yeah. Then I'll add that that horned rabbits exist within the folklore of many cultures around the world. I think that my research into what I came to call the global jackalope was one of the most interesting parts of the project. There are trickster rabbits and horned rabbits in African folktales, in indigenous folktales throughout the Americas, in Asia, in a number of traditions in China and Korea and Japan. There are horned rabbits that exist in these cultures mythical rabbits who are boundary crossers who are tricksters. And I've even located in three Buddhist sutures. Of course, these are ancient texts, thousands of years old. The Buddha himself uses the horned rabbit as a teaching tool. So this was really something that opened my eyes was that the American jackalope is really a kind of cousin to horned rabbits that exist within the mythologies, the folk mythologies of people around the world.

MG: The Jackalope also turns up in classic horror movies. This is a little bit from the curse of the jackalope.

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In a world where people go on vacation, they came for a weekend of fun. They thought it would be a trip they would never forget. They were right.

[Screams]

A team of jackalope hunting specialists, a helpless tiger. A group of Girl Scouts, the ultimate tale of man versus beast who will survive. There's a jack. Look out these woods. He's eating people. This terrifying stuff. No, not I should mention a blockbuster film, I don't I don't remember hearing much about record box office for the Curse of the Jackalope.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Oh, I can't stop laughing. You know, that film was made by a wonderful, eccentric indie filmmaker who lives in rural Georgia. His name is Dave Watkins, and I interview him in the book. And by day, he works at his family's lumber yard and at night, and on the weekends. He makes these wonderful comic horror films that are essentially parodies, and many of them are about Jack Phillips and sort of his inspiration. So, yeah. Dave himself will tell you that the curse of the Jackalope. He later referred to it as the lowest grossing horror film in the history of cinema. And actually, he doubled down on that really hilarious film with a mock documentary he called The Return of the Jackalope, in which all of the stars from the first film are reunited to celebrate the fact that this is the lowest grossing film ever made. So the people who are part of this kind of jackalope constellation or Diaspora, there's people everywhere who connect with this beast in different ways. But they tend to be people who are really creative, really smart, really strange and really funny.

MG: So I will admit I'm reading this book and I'm enjoying it. It's rolling along, laughing away, and then suddenly things take a pretty dramatic turn when a scientist's kind of enters the story. His name is Richard Shope, who's Richard Chope?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Richard Chope was a virologist. He was from Iowa, but he spent most of his career at the Rockefeller Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. And although this is a story that's not often told, Shope was actually the person who figured out what had caused the global flu pandemic of 1918. It took him 15-16 years to do it. But he was a brilliant virologist, and I became interested in the fact that Shope was interested in a quote unquote horde rabbits. And there are rabbits that do exist in nature that develop these very odd growths on their heads. Typically then Shope had heard about this from hunters in the Midwest, and he thought, You know, I wonder what's causing these growth, so I wonder if it could be a virus. It's nineteen thirty two is when he begins that research and, you know, without getting too nerdy about it, I'll sort of cut to the key point, which is that the horns, the growths that exist on these rabbits are caused by a papillomavirus that would later be named after Shope, and his research demonstrated that a cancer in a mammal can be caused by a virus. At the time, the scientific community thought this was an absurd idea. We now know that globally, about 10 percent of cancer deaths are attributable to viruses, so this was a huge breakthrough.

MG: How is that? I mean, I think people will hear that papillomavirus and think of HPV and the vaccines that are offered and given to teens, young people across North America and around the world. How is his research used to prevent those types of cancer?

MICHAEL BRANCH: Essentially, once he had proved a virus induced cancer in a mammal soap shared his research with a number of other researchers. It was really a collaborative research environment at the time. The research that was taken forward from Richard showpiece original research in the thirties ended up resulting in Nobel prises for several other researchers. And ultimately, if you connect the dots far enough out resulted in the invention of the HPV vaccine, which is the safest, most effective anti-cancer vaccine we've ever come up with. And it's really a powerful story to think that millions of lives are being saved every year by the HPV vaccine, which essentially wouldn't exist without horned rabbits. 90 percent of HPV caused cancers can be prevented by the vaccine, which is safe and effective. And if we just trace that vaccine back through medical history, we end up at the lab bench of Richard Shope in nineteen thirty two studying horned rabbits.

MG: Could you have possibly imagined when you started falling into the hole of horned rabbits and this mythical beast that you see hanging on the side of a bar wall that you would get into that world, that world of science and research and cancer vaccines?

MICHAEL BRANCH: No, the the extent to which I learnt things I didn't anticipate is vast and humbling. But but that's the pleasure of an obsession. If we find something that we love that we care about and we really want to learn its story. We almost always find that behind that story or other stories and other people who tell stories about it.

MG: Why do we need this now? Do you think I was thinking of the fact that there is a steady stream of awful news that's coming out and to read this book was a beautiful diversion from the world that so many of us are living in. Why do you think we need this, this hoax, this myth now?

MICHAEL BRANCH: I think you're right, Matt, it's a difficult time. There's plenty to worry about and plenty to grieve over. But I think that we absolutely need the life of the imagination that we need to be able to find ourselves inhabiting worlds other than the one we see every day that we have to grapple with. And I love the way the Jackalope sort of operates as a messenger across these worlds, from the real to the imaginary. And I think, by the way, as a human writer, I would add that, you know, laughter is an important tool of survival. It's a mechanism for enduring what is often a very painful life. But I also would add that, you know, my take on the science part of the book is that this is a happy virus story, and we have spent the last couple of years with largely a sad virus story. You know, this is a tale of a virus that that, through its study, has ended up saving so many people's lives. So we still lose three hundred and fifty thousand people a year to cervical cancer, which is almost entirely preventable with the HPV vaccine. So at the end of the day, the book is not a vaccine polemic. We have plenty of those and they don't tend to work. But I do hope that one thing people will take away from this is the story of the jackalope extends to your health and your family's health.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you about this book. Michael, thank you so much.

MICHAEL BRANCH: Thanks, Matt. It has been such a pleasure, and thanks to you and your staff for having me with you.

MG: Take good care of you to take care. Michael Branch's new book is called On the Trail of the Jackalope How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped US Cure Cancer, As he says, because we all need, in some ways, the life of the imagination, we would love to hear your fantastical animal stories, perhaps about Jackalope, perhaps about other strange and unusual animals that you have encountered. Do you have an animal legend that looms large in your own family folklore, even if you have to make it up? Let us know. Send us an email thecurrent@cbc.ca or on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. And that is The Current for this Tuesday. Who's up next on CBC Radio One? We'll leave you with a little bit more jackalope inspiration. This from the Okee Dokee brothers and their tune Jackalope. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see tomorrow.

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[Song]

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Tuesday March 29, 2022 Transcript

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