Happy Emancipation Day! Nicola Jane, of Grand River Food Forestry, is currently on the Sankofa 100 Miles to Freedom Tour 2022. Exploring and rediscovering the stories of Freedom Fighters escaping slavery. She is following the Freedom Trail that so many people used escaping from bondage in the United States to Canada. Following the Freedom Trails, Nicola Jane has visited numerous important locations in Southern Ontario. From the Detroit River to the Queen's Bush Settlement to the Mecca Museum in Chatham to Owen Sound Nicola shares her journey rediscovering and sharing the stories of the African diaspora who made the trek for Freedom.
Sankofa 100 Miles to Freedom Tour
Thanks for joining us as we unite humanity through stories of hope, connection, and community in the face of the global pandemy. We are all in this together, and we’re glad you’re here together with us. Thanks for taking a moment to like and subscribe and follow the Pandemy Show on social media (Twitter, Insta, FB, Reddit, and TikTok).
Thanks to Giant Value for letting us know everything is going to be alright, Pieper for the art work, and Becky Nethery for copywriting and website design.
Happy Emancipation Day! Nicola Jane, of Grand River Food Forestry, is currently on the Sankofa 100 Miles to Freedom Tour 2022. Exploring and rediscovering the stories of Freedom Fighters escaping slavery. She is following the Freedom Trail that so many people used escaping from bondage in the United States to Canada. Following the Freedom Trails, Nicola Jane has visited numerous important locations in Southern Ontario. From the Detroit River to the Queen's Bush Settlement to the Mecca Museum in Chatham to Owen Sound Nicola shares her journey rediscovering and sharing the stories of the African diaspora who made the trek for Freedom.
Sankofa 100 Miles to Freedom Tour
Thanks for joining us as we unite humanity through stories of hope, connection, and community in the face of the global pandemy. We are all in this together, and we’re glad you’re here together with us. Thanks for taking a moment to like and subscribe and follow the Pandemy Show on social media (Twitter, Insta, FB, Reddit, and TikTok).
Thanks to Giant Value for letting us know everything is going to be alright, Pieper for the art work, and Becky Nethery for copywriting and website design.
Good day and welcome to the pandemic show stories of the pandemic for people living in the pandemic. No one is alone on the pen. Demi show Thanks for joining us. As we unite humanity through stories of hope, connection, and community in the face of the global pandemic, we are all in this together, and we're glad you're here together with us. Thanks for taking a moment to like subscribe and follow the pandemic show on social media.
Dave:Happy emancipation day, August first, 2022. We're fortunate to have a wonderful guest here today, talking with us and helping us celebrate, the good in the world. The good in the soil, the good in humanity while having a really tough conversation about the negatives here in Canadian history around. How different groups have been treated, black people, indigenous people, non-white people Who are you?
Nicola:Hello? Hello, Dave I'm Nicola Jane Thomas I'm from grand river food forestry. I'm also been an unschooler for the last 16 years, a wife and a friend, a community member,
Dave:Nicola Jane. Thanks so much for joining us here today on the pandemic show stories of the pandemic. For the people of the pandemic. No, one's alone on the pandemic show. And I'd just like to take a moment to say that I am recording this podcast on the traditional territory of the sho an ashy and new trail people on the upper Canada treaty in Blandford Glenham and I am so excited to be talking to a food Forester and you Cola Jane soul to soil.
Nicola:That's right. That's for.
Dave:I first became aware of your work probably a decade ago or more. I mean, everything's a blur kind of with the pandemic. But you were doing food forest projects in Kitchener, Waterloo in the grand river watershed in Southern Ontario, happy emancipation day, And thank you so much for joining us on this special, addition of the pandemic show we've been off for the summer, but we're back to recognize this important new federal holiday in
Nicola:Canada. Yeah, August 1st was, um, was, um, declared, a national holiday last year. So this will actually only be the first year, the first year anniversary, this August 1st, of it being recognized in Canada, which is really a shocker, but here we are 20, 22, just recognizing it now. I'm going to be going to Owen sound where they're, they've celebrated emancipation the longest anywhere in Canada, and they're starting the celebration on the 28th, 29th and the 30th. So I'll be in Owen sound on the Friday, the Saturday and the Sunday. and I believe there'll be some things on the Monday as well.
Dave:And Owen sound is one of the last destinations on the freedom highway. And for. People who don't know emancipation means for getting freed from slavery. sadly there's slavery in the world today and historically in north America, there was slavery. I, I believe it was legalized by the king of France in the 16 hundreds. And it started with, people of African descent and indigenous people.
Nicola:Yeah. And we also have to remember that in Canada, we had 200 years of slavery before, the freedom fighters. Right. And people forget that. for some reason in Canada, it's like, it doesn't exist, but two thirds of those were indigenous people and one third were black people. So part of my journey is to discover that those connections, because clearly. Indigenous and black people have a history together, and that's not written anywhere and I'm having trouble even finding those oral histories. And my indigenous alliances in, in, in Kitchener, Waterloo have also the same questions because, we know that that's true. And if we were in captivity together, we, we must have shared a lot. I'm also, interested in those stories as well. there's a Japanese history here. There's also a seek history. So it's not just, you know, and I'm people will say, you know, we're gonna look at black history during black history month. We don't want a month. We live all the year around, you know? And so it's Canadian. That happens to be black. The part of our Canadian history that is black, the part of our Canadian history that is seek the part of our Cana. These are the parts that we don't wanna look. They exist. And what I've found as I started to do this journey is that, it's not just for people of, of, diversity or the black diaspora it's for everybody who's Canadian, it's our story, you know, and that's what I'm finding is for people are so shocked to find out. About settlements and, and, and black history here in Ontario, where a lot of us have lived and grown up most of our lives and have just been discluded from the history we've learned. And we're very
Dave:fortunate to have you here today to talk with us and to share your story. You are currently on a journey that. Santa COFA, a hundred miles of freedom. And it's a journey of re-discovery you live in the, on the grand river watershed in kitchen Waterloo, and you're traveling around Southern Ontario and revisiting the stories of the past. Unearthing the history. to then share with people like me and people in the community, through your, your, your web project. I've heard you on 98.5 CKW R I learned things I did not know. I learned things that were hard to hear. I'm better off because of it. And I thank you for that can you just tell people of the pandemic, what was your life like before the pandemic's struck and before you started this important project, San COFA, a hundred miles of freedom.
Nicola:Yeah. Life was really busy. Like most people, you know, I was going from program to program, um, doing talks all over the country, doing some international talks. it was very, very busy and, just before the pandemic hit, I started to, and it's not that I started to, I actually recognized from the beginning cuz I was traveling across the country doing talks about, food forest. we do a reconciliation now, land acknowledgement. And what I found was that, which is great and which is honorable and we should be doing that. But what I found at a lot of these talks was that it was sort of, it was a kind of lip service because the people who would open the ceremony were indigenous and they would do prayer, but then they were on a minute clock. If you know anything about indigenous people, that's just not the way it works. Right. And so it was very hard to watch them being timed for their introduction, but then they just disappeared. So it was like after they did the introduction, they had no voice in agriculture and there's no diversity. So group of 300 people at a conference, there would be. A handful of people, of diversity. And even then I was throwing in people that had all of skin and saying, okay, we're gonna count you in just so we had, you know, uh, I could count on one hand, you know, the amount of people. And so what I found as well is that with, Those type of confidence. They're very academic heavy. So what happens is, if you are in a program you can, get paid to fly to a place and. Share your research, but then the people that are doing the grassroots on the ground work, aren't there because they have no funding to show up. So then at these conferences, you'd have all of these statistical information that scholars are doing without the people on the ground, given the information. So I felt, and. People that are on the ground, actually doing the work are out of the story to, they're not in the story, they're not being included because it's all academic heavy. So that was, very off putting for me. also I found, often and it's sad because it's 20, 22, you know, I'd be sitting at a table and people would be going around introducing themselves and they'd get to me. And it just fizzle. Because I'm black, so I'm underestimated. So I don't have a contribution to the conversation. And only then when they see afterwards that I'm actually one of the people that's presenting then you know, they get turned around and are looking at me like, oh, maybe we should have included you in that introduction. But I sit there and I don't feel put out because for one I'm very used to it. And for. I'm 3000 strong. My ancestors are in my blood. They're all around me. They're with me. So I can't be moved you know, by small things, petty, things like that. and then even as I, we applied for a lot of grants because, you know, art depicts life, and we found a, a lot of refuge during, pandemic people found in art, in music. You know, even if you say you don't like art people generally are listening to music a few times a day, that is art, so I wanted to include some artists and also because of the places that I'm traveling and black artists, rarely get grants. For anything, book writing, anything like that. And I've spoken to some authors and they've been authors for many years, applying for grants, never received, not one grant when their book actually, when they self-publish and their book gets some recognition, then they will jump on and say, okay, I'll take this as if they were on in the beginning. So. When I applied for grants and I had, contacted some local black artists and some across Ontario that I thought would be fantastic. They would have their art on the van and get to show it. I got zero grants and I really don't. I never was in the lane of grants because I find that you get blocked into the bureaucracy of, and you're outside of what you're actually doing because you have to fit. Whatever your, your project within the
Dave:grant and doing the grant is a job in itself. And like you just said, the grants conditions can limit your project or change the scope of your project. Absolutely.
Nicola:And also with the black people, there's a thing we call white gays. So that means that as I share the information, I have to manage how I say it and how I deliver it so that it's more palatable for my funders. So. So what happened was one of them actually responded in saying they can't see the benefit. So I thought, well, that's, that's sort of an irony in that. It's, it's a, it's an awareness campaign. So,
Dave:and I benefit from white privilege. I am a, a white man and I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I know we talked to Janice Jo Lee earlier, in the pandemic show, I believe it was season two, our episode battling white supremacy in Badden. And she said, she, she found a lot of comfort and strength in doing her art, not for a white audience. But for her Korean Canadian audience and non-white audiences. And I know when we spoke with Lisa Humber, she was a stage manager from come from away. She said that several years ago, her book club started reading women's authors the following year, it was just all. bipo authors, black indigenous people of color authors and getting that other perspective can really help white people. I know it's helped me understand what people are saying of different communities and backgrounds that you, that you might not understand initially when you just, or feel threatened by initially when they first. They first shared. when we talked to sta the boss from Brooklyn, she mentioned the work of Octavia Butler and, and getting to read a prominent science fiction writer like Octavia Butler, a black futurist really has helped me see the different perspectives of different community. And I think what I've come to after talking with Marie McLaughlin, I live on a white cloud, his song in response to the police murder of George Floyd. Is that a lot of us have to listen, look internally and see where some of these insecurities and hate comes from. Think about what we can do to get it out. But also when somebody tells us something that we don't experience, we really need to believe them. And to, and to think about that Murray shared that he was doing a recording session and there was a musician who was always on. But for some reason, this one day they were late and Murray couldn't, everybody was worried about this man. And he, and when he finally got there, it was, he was late because he was driving well, black D w B. White people. We might not experience these things, but we have to listen to the people in our community that do experience these things. There's something to it. We need, equality and justice for all as a goal. And I think sadly, this is gonna be intergenerational. I Think it's, it's, it's a long journey full of a lot of hard conversations. But when I think of the summary report, Maur Sinclair, Senator Mari Sinclair's summary report for the truth, truth, and reconciliation report. We have to find the joy in this process of building a better world based on equity and justice for all and not dwelling in the guilt. there's a lot of feelings around this so I just so grateful, Nicola Jane for you to be here today to recognize and celebrate emancipation day with us to share your Sankofa a hundred miles of freedom tour. And can you just tell us. What made you pick that title? And, and why did you decide to do this? Because you're not only traveling to places, which is a big job and talking to people, but you're documenting it and sharing it. I know you taught me a lot about the Detroit river. You put the Detroit river in a perspective in my mind that it had never been in before.
Nicola:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting going to these places and, um, walking the walk that, um, you know, uh, my people did so very many years ago, which really wasn't that long ago, you know, we're talking 1820 when they arrived here in the emancipation on, and. Captivity, but escaping at captivity. And I think also we use this language like slavery, the slave trade. It makes it more palatable for people it's genocide, it's Holocaust. You know what I mean? Language matters. Yes. It really matters. And. We're the people we're always on the bottom, no matter which country you go to, black people are on the bottom. But in, in reality, I mean, even if you go and do geological digs, we know that civilization started. In Africa. We know that that's where we all came from. So if you are a white supremacist, how much are you hating on yourself? This is what I might teach my children. Because when you go back, we were all black. We will likely end up being all black. We need to get it together. Even you see a flag of all the religions of, of the world. There's no African there. We talk about voodoo as if it's something, demonic. Meanwhile, other cultures can dress in their regalia and it's not seen as demonic, but for us, it is. And how did other religions come if they didn't come from the epicenter of where. Man was born. So it's this really, really weird mind screw that's happened. And we are on the bottom, but if you really look, we are on the top because we built most things. My people, you know, across the globe with this colonial, lot of culture comes from our people. Music comes from our people, clothing. So we are, are we on the bottom? No, we're not. We're told we're on the bottom. We're not, we're resilient and we keep rising. We keep rising and we keep rising. And the thing about the George Floyd situation was that that's the one good thing. That's come out of cell phones with all the crap that's come out of it is that you can see what we already know now. We've been knowing. And if black lives matter is that now everybody else sees what we've always known. And so what happened at that time was people were like, could you come and give us a talk? I'm like, no, we've talked enough. We've marched, we've done silent protests, the violent protests, every kind of way. Hundreds of years, we're done talking, figure it out, hear what we've said. You know, people would say to me, how can we have diversity in my workplace? We're working on our diverse policy. And I just simply say, okay, how many people of color in your office are making decisions? Have you asked your boss? Why the top positions are no people of color, because if you wanna make a diversity policy and share with me, don't, you know what I mean? Because if you are not doing it in action by representing so that the voices are heard, the perspectives are, are valued, are of worth. It's not enough to say I'm going to do a policy for your. No, we're, we can manage that ourselves. and anyway, My, my trip came out of pandemic. Certainly. I was turned around before, because as I said, you know, we had no voice, we had no representation, but yet we cleared all of the land, like Queens Bush here from, you know, London all the way up to gray. Bruce down to Hamilton were black settle. They exist in silos because if you go to those places, they're, they're known there by some of the people that live there across Canada, Don, nobody knows. So it's not for lack of them. And they're cemeteries that are actually listed as, abandoned. They're listed as abandoned now. That's our history. So even I've seen where, you know, we have the blue, Sign that's, uh, the official sign by the government, you know, with the yellow I've seen at, the Freeman site where they've, they've colored it out. Now, is that a thing you can name a site historic and then take it away. But for black people, that's how it can work, right? Yeah. So this trip, so what I wanted to make aware, because I grew up in Oakville, Ontario. I moved here from London, England in 1982. I grew up in, in Oakville, Ontario, heard nothing. I was in agriculture for more than 10 years across the country. Never heard a thing about black people in agriculture. and so, I felt. Really angry, very pissed off for a long time. So I moved way out of community for a while because. I didn't want to share that kind of anger that I had. I've still somewhat angry. Of course we, black people are angry, you know, we've been TRO on and all the things that happened, but there's a resilience to us. That's not told, you know, whenever we hear about captivity, we hear the slave narrat. And so I love Ontario. I could spend the rest of my life. Discovering it and not discover it all. Every time I'm driving, I turn around a corner and there's another beautiful landscape for me to see. So I mix that combination of traveling Ontario, which is what I do in summertime. Anyway, traveling Canada. And wanted to follow that trail, but not of the, the slave story of the resilience and not necessarily of the men, but of the women, because we always hear the men's stories. And as we know, women hold communities together. So that's what I'm, I'm, I'm, uh, bringing the awareness to our, the fact that we were here. The fact that, uh, Canada has a very deep and rich black history here. there's everyday heroes. You know, we wanna think about shees and heroes of, or the Martin Luther Kings of the story. Sometimes the, the, the everyday heroes and heroes are the ones that battle the story every day that go to work that dig the ground, that plant the, the food, and we don't wanna recognize them. So this tour is about that. So Sankofa is a word that. Is a, it comes from the tree language it's from, Africa and from Gaia. it means to go back and fetch the knowledge that was left behind. So if you look up Sankofa, you'll find the black DBO has really reached out and grabbed this word. so because we've forgotten ourselves, that's what colonialism does and what. We wanna say, well, we were also fighting and waring and, and holding people captive for since the beginning of time. But the thing that the colonials did that was different was took humanity away from us, took our culture, language, everything that we are the same thing that's done to indigenous people across the globe has been done to black people. I mean, even indigenous people. Now here, we're talking about the children that have been found. We've been known that. So to say, now we just know is not the truth we've been known. I knew that you know, how many years ago, so other people knew that there are more children of indigenous background in care now. Than there was in the sixties grab and residential schools put together. So we can come and talk about how awful that was with zero action to how awful it is more today. a lot of people wanna pay lip service you know, have orange t-shirts and do nothing. This we see over and over. My trip is also that, part of the motto of grand river is the value of one and the power of. You know, the power is with the people always when I started food forestry is because I bought a container of raspberry that cost me almost$8. I have three children to share that organic raspberries with, if you are a gardener, you know, you don't pound RAs, raspberries. Nobody does cuz they take over. So it's ridiculous that something that propagates itself that we have to pay so much for. That's how I started doing food forestry because. people had access in, um, hiking trails and things. As a kid, we used to walk the old railways and pick raspberries and gooseberries and blackberries and all kinds of things on the way we never took snacks with us, you know, um, forged we forged. And actually it wasn't until I started doing grand river food forest. That my sister reminded me that, when we were nine, we petitioned council in London in is LinkedIn to make that place, uh, because we loved it so much. We spent all our summers there to make it a wild space. It is now the, the longest, hiking, naturalized, trail in Islington and those people, some of the people that were in the petition when I was nine, which I'm 53. Now are still on that council. When I contacted, they offered for me to come, to their next meeting. And I'm like, the commute is a little bit long. So I've been in the game for some time, you know, in terms of, um, how important nature is to our human spirit, mostly to children who are our future. Remember we used to have that tagline, children are our future. And then we said, eh, we don't need. It's so much more true now than it ever was. And if we don't bring children to the soil and we don't remember our past, and we don't remember the people that came before, like even for grand river doing our food forestry, we plant right on the soil. Right. If it wasn't for the Susan cos winds and, and her group, you know, 10, 20 years ago, banning pesticides across Ontario, I couldn't do my work. So I have to recognize. That because of what the people did for before me, I am able to do what I do. And we do ourselves a disservice when we forget that what came before, because then we tend to repeat. And also we miss the resources of what. Was gained from what the people did before. And we tend to go, okay, I have this new idea. I'm gonna do this thing and it's gonna be great. And people are gonna accept it without looking back to see what was done and build on that. That's the foundation we build on. We wanna just move on and move on. So Sankofa is go back, fetch the knowledge, which we already had, bring it to today and use it. And that's what I'm doing with this.
Dave:Fantastic. And what better way to celebrate emancipation day, August 1st, 2022 than to be here with Cola Jane talking about the Sankofa hundred miles of freedom. Nicola Jane. I listened to you on CK, w R 98.5 Canada's oldest community radio station and Kitchener. And you were talking about the Detroit river. Now I've been to Windsor and I like to go to Detroit. There's so many wonderful things happening there. recently I heard the river otters are back in the Detroit river, but you said something on the radio that put the Detroit river in a whole new context. Can you just share your observations and what you've learned about the Detroit river and the March for freedom
Nicola:yeah, and I chose am Hertzberg, which took me a minute to get my, my, my tongue around, because it's the most Southern tip of Ontario where, the freedom fighters would have first landed. and so when I was there, I talked to people about it. And it's interesting because the, the history is, is oral often, that you don't, when you go to the sites, Talking to people, and that's why I'm doing the road trip because people have the information, there's some information at the sites, but the oral history is where the heart stories are. so people were telling me, in one of my videos, you'll see that there's a strip where the boats were coming in and out the long boats and they're taking salts and metals in and out of the Detroit river. But then. You can see that there's bits of land mass between, the Canadian side and the American side and that water, even now they've told me is so rough because the lakes meet there, that people still die in that water. And I'm looking at people SCU, canoeing, and wondering why they would make such a choice because they say that even if you're wearing a life jacket, the water, the, to can pull you. So I, with that in mind, I'm thinking about the people that are escaping, slavery and thinking about the journey. They're a hundred miles that they would've had to go through Bush and, you know, running from dogs and just the worst kind of atrocities that you could think of that would've happened to them if they were, caught, but their, their. Like the human spirit is amazing that we could do things with such adversity. So they get there to the Detroit river and it's so rough, but they have no choice. It's either they jump in or they go back to captivity. And so, you know, on the other side of the river, You can go to the sites, the black historic sites, and you can read about those that made it, and you can read about how they, made clay bricks from the Detroit river. and they're still standing today from those bricks, but then those were the few that made it. There were many that didn't make it just like on the slave ship, when we were packed. Many were tossed to the bottom of the ocean. So we wanna remember the, the freedom fighters, the ones that made it. But then what about the ones that didn't, what about the ones that made the hundred miles, but just didn't make that river Trek and their lineages done. They weren't able to keep it going. Their people don't even know whether they were eaten by dogs or that, that was, I mean, even Harriet tub. She was gone so long by the time she came back, her husband had moved on two years, thought she was dead. She was doing the, the freedom trail to go get her husband. That's how she started it. And then when she got back, she said, okay, maybe creator has a different story from me cuz clearly it's not my husband he's moved on. Right. And then she went on to, take more and more people and it was just so moving. To stand in the place that she stood to, to be in, in the church where I can't, you know, when you're, you're relieved of something and you exhale, I can't imagine what kind of exhale you would have to, to come to Canada and then find your way to that church. And. and then know that you're, you're no longer gonna have to chase dogs. You're no longer gonna be lynched. You're no longer. And one of the women I spoke to, she had said to me, and she was in Chatham 79 year old woman there. She said, isn't it funny how our settlements are always close to watersheds or railways, right? Yeah. Because even in 2022, we better be ready to run. We never know when we got to run, we've never had that settled place.
Dave:and it's unfortunate that some people would think they can't understand that, but even today, the amount that there's that same level of cruelty in the world today, if you look at how children and, and people are treated, trying to cross the border into the Southern United States, children being taken away from their families, it's disgusting, that that same level of cruelty exist today has existed. And has existed historically, and I'm glad we're talking about it so we can reimagine a different future and we can celebrate these freedom fighters that made the Trek and escape, slavery survived the harshness of nature to make it to Canada, and make it to Owen sound. And some of the other places where they could find jobs and start over. the ancestors of these people are still out here in Southern Ontario or maybe around the world, but I'm glad that you're helping tell this story to people like me and people around the world, because if we understand history, hopefully we won't repeat it.
Nicola:Yeah. And the, the other thing is, is that, you know, in reconciliation, we can't have blame, shame and guilt. This is not a blame, shame, and guilt story. If we stay with that, we can't move forward. This is reconciliation. And I believe in people, and, whenever there's natural disaster, Government doesn't run in. It, it, we it's the people on the ground that save each other. And I believe in those stories, I believe that there were baskets of food that were carried together. You know, I don't buy the story that All people wanted to do these kinds of atrocities. I mean, I can't hold that, you know? so yeah, it's, it's to find the, those great stories of the women. And funny enough, I'm finding great stories of men, which is interesting because when we talk about equality and how you know, what needs to happen is that women need to have more equality. To be honest with you. I think men need a. I think that the issue is, is that men don't have men's circles. Men don't have support systems. Men don't have places to cry, may it not have places where they can be vulnerable, be nurturing. and so this is the state of our world right now is that I think that if men had more circles where they could share and not have to hold and be, you think back to when, men were hunter. They went into the forest together. Certainly they had youth with them and they were saying I'm really scared. So then the elders would say, you know what, when I came to, I was also very scared and they would share their stories and they would support each other. We're not seeing that. And I think that that's where we've gotten lost. It's not necessarily women to jump up and be men in the story. No, you know, we do our own selves very well, but there seems to be no place for men. And so what I've actually found on the trip is men supporting men, which has been a really beautiful surprise to me, to see men sharing food, taking care of one, another, bringing things to each other. so that's been a one and that's why I'm going on the journey. And, and people will say, well, where are you going? Part of the journey is that whenever we go on road trips, it's the parts that we didn't plan that usually are the best. So the whole trip is not really planned, it's loosely planned so that I can meet with people and have that kind of serendipitous magic that we know exists.
Dave:Can you tell us what was the Mecca museum in Chatham? Like
Nicola:it. Full of information. they had so much data there. it was crazy to think that we're out here sifting through to find, and they have so much there. The issue is, is that it's, funded by government. So they either get, and that's not just black history. It's, it's any kind of museum. They have a hard time getting grants worse for black diaspora. There, is a rich oral history because, um, the people are ancestors often of these sites. So they can go back to the 1820s in their own lineage, which is very difficult for most people in black ice brewer to do That's a wonderful, I'm going back there. I, you know, I'm going back to some of the places because. It's summertime. And so a lot of people were missing at the time. and then I found as well that, I need to spend more time at least two or three days in each site. And because trying to upload the information, find internet and all of those things has proven very, very difficult. And also because I'm not tech curious, so I don't have that gene right to. Really be. So it's been, I knew it was gonna be a challenge, but at the same time, I felt like it was a challenge that was very necessary. the ancestors have been bubbling up inside of me and I felt like it was, but I had to wait until I could share where it was palatable, but it wasn't a guilt, blame and shame. So I actually, throughout the pandemic, I've done, I'd write a lot. So I've done a lot of. So in the fall, I'm coming up with a, a book it's called, uh, soul to soil. Because the thing about us as human beings is that we're all soil in the end. You know, when and all of our stories, no matter which shade or background are in the soil, the blood, the sweat, the stories are in the soil. So I think soil is a great place to start for reconciliation because it's a one place that we can all agree. Food is passive. We all know we need to eat. So that's why I started with it was activism from the beginning, but I didn't have to use that language because food is passive. So I was able to get people together to do things in action for activism, for the planet. without saying that, because at the time people get really bent outta shape. When you start to say, oh, well, what can you do? Because I think people want to. They're just stuck in knowing what to do. And we're limited with leaders. I think the programming that we have with internet and stimuli so deep that we don't have much free thinkers. And, and so it's difficult to move into a different way of being without leaders to show us that way.
Dave:Seems like the algorithm on social media is the dumbest down rather than to connect us with the bright minds in our
Nicola:myth. Yeah, absolutely. And, and we're, so, I mean, even with the boob tube with television, you know, even when you watch the news, you know, there's a good story. They'd start with the tagline of whoa, the dog got rescued. That's like, you have to wait an entire hour to hear that one minute story. Why don't we lead with the good stories? We never hear them. And we we're full of them. We're just, it's fear based society that we're in. And there are many great stories of many people doing wonderful things. We just have to start to highlight them more. You know,
Dave:I think the pandemic too, a lot of the early pandemic was neighbors helping neighbors. some of the good things that came about the pandemic is that people on their street know each other more now. Then they did beforehand. So hopefully there'll be maybe some more community mobilization.
Nicola:Absolutely. Yeah. and, and when we get the dialogue is the vast rate. Like we have uncomfortable dialogue, but as long as we stay in the dialogue, the other thing that's happened with pandemic as well is it's given people license to. To basically like to dart and throw their opinions at others. so that's been very difficult and I think people hide behind the Facebooks of the story instead of coming out with that language face to face. So that's been a difficult thing, but it has also, you. Cream rises to the top. It filters out a lot of the noise that we were paying attention to and putting our energies to. I think that that's what pandemic has really done as well for some of us is it's like I said, it was very busy before the pandemic. Not that I'm not busy now, but I am more discriminating as to where I'm putting my energy and the level of capacity by which I have to give. And where, and when I do that, if there's no push and pull, then that's a waste of capacity for me. I moved out of community for two years. I was very integrated and, and involved in community, but I felt I had to really step back. and not no longer use the white gaze with my voice, but come with my authentic voice hard as the language is to. For people, it must be heard, you know, and I'm not now coming in in an apologetic way, I'm not out here to make enemies, but I'm out here to share the truth. And I think we're. And I think most people have brought enough shoulders and it's hard for me to hear. It's hard for me to share. So yes, it's gonna be hard to hear. I hope that people continue to share. and there's an embracing of the tough, you know, like how do we get to the good, if we don't embrace the tough parts? That's what we've did with Canadian issue. We pretend it didn't exist. And so what does that do for my. And my value, if what my people did doesn't count, of course it count. And I
Dave:think now we're in season three of the pandemic. We're in the middle of the pandemic, hearing Ontario things are opening up, but those first two seasons of the pandemic when we really were isolated and locked down, the, the rise of the black live matter movement. The, focus on truth and reconciliation and ending the secrecy around residential schools seems like there is a collect. Awareness of these things that hasn't been before in my lifetime. I know, I remember Oka as a, as a 12 year old that I think that anniversary just passed a month ago or so. And I couldn't understand as a young person, why adults were fighting like this, I could understand why people would feel like they needed to defend themselves. I couldn't understand why the government was doing what they were doing and. All these years later, And then, and then the pandemic too has been quite divisive. I think social media and people with money and influence have seen this as an opportunity to divide and conquer and disagreement and chaos really. Benefit some, but now we're in the season three. It's it's the great reopening. How are you celebrating emancipation day 2022. I know before we started talking, you said you had some plans
Nicola:Yes, I do. I'm gonna be going to the emancipation celebration and. And I have a few, a couple of things up my sleeve that haven't really come together yet. So I'm not gonna share that right now. Hopefully I'll be able to share at the time. I'm just really looking forward for one, to be, surrounded by black people, which is not something that you get to experience very often in Ontario. And it's a wonderful experience to see people of all different. Shades of myself with all different hair types as myself, because generally my hair is seen as very aggressive, you know, in the workplace. Although other people rev it and I have to stop them from putting their hands in my hair. I'm looking forward to, that it, it, people understand better. The plight of, of Dipo, of bipo, which is a term that I absolutely hate. It sounds like a virus. what do you prefer? Right. Bipo. I don't have one, but I don't like that one much, but you know, it is what it is and it describes what's what what's going on. I'm excited because you. I'm an example of resilience. If not my life on its own. My, my tour is also a tribute to my parents who met at a time when black people and white people should not be together is still very segregated. Um, at that time my mother took a chaperone, to go on the first date with my father. their story is of love. there was no color lines, although people would ask me, who do I like better? I like the love. I like having two parents who love me, just like everybody else. they were activists by proxy of their love. they weren't intentionally being renegades. They just were in love, you know, and we can come back to that simplicity of humankind that we all need love and we all need to be. we need to, to have value for our experiences. That's the human condition. As long as our experiences can be validated that they can be, made aware that, that our flights aren't for nothing, you know, that the children it's tough,
Dave:I am just so thankful. Nicola Jane for you sharing and for doing this project, this ACO a hundred miles of freedom tour and for sharing it. So someone like me who wants to become more informed and, and learn about the history in my region, can do so. And I'm so excited for you going up to Owen sound. I've been to the park where the, where that very unassuming powerful. Monument is, and I'm just so excited to be celebrating emancipation day a little bit early here with you today on the pandemic show stories of the pandemic for the people of the pandemic. No, one's alone on the pin. Demi show Nicola Jane. I think we would both agree. Structural racism, income, inequality, environmental degradation, how we treat our seniors, how we're divided by age groups and different backgrounds. There were so many different pandemics happening before the COVID 19 pandemic. When, or if we are looking at the COVID 19 pandemic in the rear view, what do you hope the world's like in the.
Nicola:Wow, boy, that's a big question. I tell you what though you remember when everything shut down lockdown in the first couple of months and the Himalayas were visible and dolphins were in the Venice canal. I don't know if you've ever been and seen that canal. It's disgusting normally. And in two months for the earth mother to readjust, he. I think, I I'd love to see a global lockdown on purpose for every year who doesn't want two months off who couldn't use the rest. I think it's shown us that we're moving and running about like for no reason often, If we had a lockdown where we know, okay, we're gonna ride our bikes, we're gonna hang out with family. We're not gonna do the things that pollute. We're gonna give the earth a chance that gives us a chance. What would that be like? Dave?
Dave:I am so excited. Nicola Jane, by your amazing idea of having a pollution, lockdown or moratorium and slowing down our pace of life and connecting and spending more time in the natural world around us, that would, I think, address so many of our problems. and, and that's interesting you say that, like, it reminds me of Ned McAllister, a, an amphibian lover and he commented on how with the lockdowns there's so many. Fewer cars on the road, more frogs and amphibians and reptiles made it across the road after they hatch. So there were so many natural benefits to the earth that we as humans necessarily benefit from as being interconnected with all of this beauty. I noticed that during the lockdowns, that slower pace of life, I was seeing the things, the other species in my life a little bit clearer. There was one day I noticed there was a little B stuck upside down on a water droplet on my. And just small, small things like that. Like how the clouds look, the Ray of light coming through the trees, the, the hummingbird fighting to protect the bird, feeder, all of those types of things. So, wow.
Nicola:we're always talking about what can we do for pollution? What can we, well, it turns out we do nothing. Yeah. Yellow. How about that? You know, we could do nothing and it's not just. It's ecologic. When I think about ecological wellness, that includes us as a human being. That includes our, our mentality. Like how many people had a moment to like so many people had their kids home. They weren't used to it. I mean, we've homeschooled for years. So we're used to that. Reconnecting with your children, you know, nine to five who made up that number? Your kids have to be in care before and after school. Why can't you drive them? Why not make the, the, when you work, is it in after you drop your kid, then you have a half hour to get to work. Then you half an hour leave so you can get to your kid and nobody else has to raise your kid. How about that? You know, how about you get home at a decent time where you can relax and you're not rushing around. How about we take a break from all the doing, doing, doing, you know, I think we get lost in, what do we do? What do we do? Nothing sometimes, you know, take a breath, sit still. How many people can sit still without thinking or doing in a room. That's hard. I've been practicing that skill. I, in my work, I encourage people to build a pond because it gives you, the watching fish gives you the same feeling as watching the sky, watching the ocean or watching fire. It's like a, you can take A pilgrimage to your backyard at the end of the day. And just sit, I have a friend who's very, very, very, very busy. She built upon and she said, oh my gosh, it's the first time that I've sat without thought, just looking at the fish. We need to have more of those moments to get back inside ourselves and only then can remember to connect with each other and the soil. Nicola
Dave:Jane Thomas. Thank you so much for joining us here today. As we recognize and celebrate emancipation day.
Nicola:Thank you for having me, Dave, it's been a pleasure and it's always great to chat with you.
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