Something Different This Way Comes
Artist Residency by Heather McLeod
Something Different This Way Comes began when my children asked me: what is being done to solve
the climate crisis? What solutions can we see in action here in Thunder Bay? My answers were so
hollow, so shockingly empty of science and context and actual information, that my researcher,
journalist and storytelling soul was sparked into action. I fell deep into climate anxiety, sleepless and
spinning. Then I started getting up when the anxiety woke me and appeasing it with research. I built a
library of hope. Until I was teetering on top of heaps of information and ideas, and realized it was time
to give it all a voice.
The podcast's first joy for me was as an excuse to pick up the phone and call people whose expertise and
insight I thirsted for, seeking comfort in all that has been done I had not heard about, and inspiration for
what more we might do here. It felt so good to exercise my interviewing skills again. I picked up my
guitar and improvised a few lines to be a theme song, the odd hook to act as segue. That felt good too,
an old friend too long out of my arms. I kicked my kids out of their bedroom and draped their bunkbeds
in blankets to be my recording studio. Season One: The Lay of This Land launched last Spring with an
episode a week through May and June. I returned in October with Season Two: What Good Looks Like,
adding an original song to each episode and making more room for my own voice. Season Three:
Imagining the Kindness Economy launched in April 2023 at www.SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca
and podcast providers everywhere.
the climate crisis? What solutions can we see in action here in Thunder Bay? My answers were so
hollow, so shockingly empty of science and context and actual information, that my researcher,
journalist and storytelling soul was sparked into action. I fell deep into climate anxiety, sleepless and
spinning. Then I started getting up when the anxiety woke me and appeasing it with research. I built a
library of hope. Until I was teetering on top of heaps of information and ideas, and realized it was time
to give it all a voice.
The podcast's first joy for me was as an excuse to pick up the phone and call people whose expertise and
insight I thirsted for, seeking comfort in all that has been done I had not heard about, and inspiration for
what more we might do here. It felt so good to exercise my interviewing skills again. I picked up my
guitar and improvised a few lines to be a theme song, the odd hook to act as segue. That felt good too,
an old friend too long out of my arms. I kicked my kids out of their bedroom and draped their bunkbeds
in blankets to be my recording studio. Season One: The Lay of This Land launched last Spring with an
episode a week through May and June. I returned in October with Season Two: What Good Looks Like,
adding an original song to each episode and making more room for my own voice. Season Three:
Imagining the Kindness Economy launched in April 2023 at www.SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca
and podcast providers everywhere.
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Each episode is a discovery and an encouragement. I leap around in my heaps of information to connect context, precedents and science. I think deeply about questions I want to ask and whom to ask them of, then lean in close to listen and respond. Climate Change makes a village of our planet - all relying on the same air, soil, water and weather. And in this village of a planet one person can feel small and unremarkable. The seeds of this crisis are social and psychological - what values and assumptions we build our systems on, what we hope for and imagine. But all that we have built we can renovate and reimagine. We have such potential - as individuals and with our communities. This podcast is a spinning of that wooly potential into a string to lead us through this labyrinth of changes imposed and chosen. Something different this way comes - let's reach into this opportunity to make differences we welcome.
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Listen
These shows and more, come from www.SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca
Please use this menu to help you decide which episode you wish to serve yourself today.
Season One: The Lay of This Land
Ben and Sam summer 2020
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Erin Beagle and Roots to Harvest
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Brendan Grant and Marcelle Paulin of Sleepy G Farm in Pass Lake, Ontario
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1: Genesis with Ben and Sam
Talking with my sons about our hopes and dreams for a carbon-balanced Thunder Bay where everyone is safe, secure and equally included. Inspired by the Drawdown Project. |
2. Tips for Change Makers with Erin Beagle
Erin Beagle founded and heads Roots to Harvest / Roots Food ... She shares tips on gathering people together to make good things happen, daring to do what needs doing, and how healing hurts builds community wealth. |
3. Food Futures with Brendan Grant of
Sleepy G Farm How easily Thunder Bay could grow all the food we need, the secret to sustainable food production, and some myth busting. |
Ben in front of steam-era farm machinery in 2021
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Charla Robinson of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce
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Summer Stevenson
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4. The Pen is Mightier - Provincial Election Thoughts
Facing the crisis of autonomy in our economy. Being a Stewart on a living planet (not a passenger on a dying one). Talking to candidates about efficient, effective leadership. |
5. The People in your Neighbourhood - with Charla Robinson
The heroism of truly local commerce: meeting neighbourhood needs with compassion and care. The stage is set for local businesses to boom - spotlighting the opportunity for us all. |
6. Greening City with Summer Stevenson
Thunder Bay could be a leader in addressing the Climate Crisis. A tour of what's been done, what's next and what more could follow. The seeds are planted: gardeners needed. |
Muriel Squires is a quilter and fabric artist in Thunder Bay, Ontario
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Ledah McKellar, Sustainability Coordinator at Lakehead University
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Betty Carpick is a land-based artist, educator and environmentalist
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7. Times Change with Muriel Squires (and Ben, Sam and Arno)
Muriel brings eight decades of perspective to her art, her values, and her expectations. The changes she has weathered brings hope to my family and my heart. Science is wonderful! |
8. Getting to Know Home with Ledah McKellar
Ledah led Lakehead University's year of Climate Action. We talk about being settlers, truth and reconciliation, and finding the courage to have faith in our planetary future. I cry. |
9. Being Ancestors with Betty Carpick (plus season wrap with Ben and Sam)
Betty is an artist who walks her talk, and is so clear and compelling in her hopes for our community and our planet. We are all ancestors - our choices matter. |
Season Two: What Good Looks Like
Following my family through the mustard field en route to the Martin homestead in Cadillac Saskatchewan August 2022
1. Less mowing, more growing: Ground Level Lessons
A trip West through my family's settler past illustrates how systems that aim to win are inferior to those that aim to solve. Real success is sustainable, not colonial or combatitive. And we can do better. |
Phil McGuire on the shore of Lake Superior
2. Save the Mothers & Methane Counterspun Phil McGuire lived his whole live by the mouth of the Sturgeon river. He is a hunter, a berry-picker, an Elder, a fisherman and a gardener. He counsels to save the mothers of all our relations to replenish the wild and rebuild our true wealth and security. |
Volunteering At Grain Elevator Days September 2022
3. Count me in - Capital and income How our economy actually works, how it was built, and what needs to change for it to actually achieve its goals. A lot of context, a bit of Billie Holiday and the Bible, and a vision of shifting our systems from colonial to kind. |
Paul Berger and his library of hope at Lakehead University September 2022
4. The Places You'll Go with Paul Berger
A pragmatic first hand account of hybrid then electric vehicle ownership in Thunder Bay with Paul (a dedicated civic action leader and climate action educator) - leads to a conversation about the four keys to happiness: connection, action, learning and giving. |
Heather, Ben and Sam
5. All Bring Our All - non-binary thinkings
How to be more like water (less like a light switch). We are tempted to use binary thinking to protect ourselves from changes we fear: true & false, right & wrong... the power of non-binary thinking & truly addressing your biases. |
Dr. Martin with Heather and family. Saskatchewan 2022
6. The Paulo Friere Two-Step with Dr. Fay Martin Community development is the only way to get out of the mess we're in. My Mom introduces me to what Paulo Friere and Saul Alinksy can teach about building neighbourhood resilience, community autonomy and fruitful connections. |
Driving the neighbour’s cattle home August 2022
7. Love Love Hive Mind - bite size revolutions
Examples of the Paulo Friere two-step in action around the world and in Thunder Bay. Building our hives, pollinating our fields of influence, and seeding necessary change as both followers and leaders. |
Rob Stewart With the lungs & life blood of the Lake Superior basin in his Lakehead University office
8. Caterpillar Fears & Lake Superior Love with Rod Steward
Rod heals Lake Superior, that is his academic work. He shares the successes achieved and those wanting only for volunteers to make them happen. We contemplate the generosity of water to and through us, and I cry in the face of it. |
Ben and Sam behind our house with the wood they helped split and stack to heat our house this winter.
9. Do What You Can Do - solar power, heat pumps and wind
A pragmatic and Northwestern Ontario specific introduction to how to wean building energy use off fossil fuels and the grid, and the funding that might help you finance it. With some equally pragmatic blues. |
With the Six String Nation Guitar April 2007
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10. Season Finale - summary in song
All nine songs composed and recorded for this season, stitched together with a little more precedent, inspiration and ideas to feed both hope and action. |
Bio |
Acknowledgement |
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Heather McLeod is a singer-songwriter with six albums and a few film scores. She was a CBC radio host & is an award winning documentary journalist as well as the author of the children's book Kiss Me! (I'm a Prince!). Heather works full time as Certified Financial Planner. She and her family keep bees, grow food and pasture their neighbour's cows at their home in Thunder Bay. In the early mornings, weekend afternoons and the occasional stolen hour, Heather writes, produces, composes and hosts the podcast Something Different This Way Comes.
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