Here we are in temagami, ontario.
[cheering & applauding]
Northern ontario, you can say
When you're north of north bay.
This is a place famous for forests,
Where the ecosystem of the great lakes
Meets that of the boreal.
Below your feet, the canadian shield,
While reaching into the sky and almost out of sight,
The old growth pines both red and white.
Some of these trees, so I'm told,
Are up to 300 years old.
You can look up and see their great branches spread,
Unless of course you got a canoe on your head.
[laughing]
This place boasts thousands of kilometres of
Ancient canoe routes, first used by
The people of the temagami first nation.
Challenging routes that now draw people here
From around the world.
A vast wilderness you can really lose yourself in,
Which I did several times.
In fact, the beauty is so majestic, so indescribable,
I found it kind of hard to describe
When I had to call someone to come find me.
[laughing]
The trees are huge, and...
Like, it's beautiful?
[laughing]
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see that people have a sense of humour
About hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
[mc] mr. Jonny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find the funny in the places
You'd least expect it,
Canada's struggling small towns.
Towns that are against the ropes, but hanging in there...
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is temagami, ontario.
♪
The attraction of old growth forests was not always for
Nature-loving adventurers scrambling
Over rough portage paths.
No, for decades, it attracted logging.
And the path back then was, let's say, clear cut.
[laughing]
While it meant a livelihood for the locals,
Others became concerned that these ancient old-growth
Forests would be wiped out.
And it came to a head in the late 80s,
When protests broke out.
It wasn't just environmentalists
Versus loggers.
Of course, these forests and the roads being built
To log them were on the traditional territory
Of the temagami first nation.
In fact, they were the first ones to set up
A blockade to stop the logging.
So, you had construction workers
Who were trying to build the road,
But they're blocked by first nations.
Then you got a gang of angry lumberjacks.
Eventually the police get involved.
What do you got there?
Well, you pretty much got the lineup of the village people.
[laughing]
I managed to find a woman who in a way represented
All factions of the dispute.
Temagami first nation land and resource manager,
Robin koistinen.
[cheering & applauding]
Robin remembers how tense it was back in the blockade days.
At the centre of the dispute was the proposed extension of
A logging road, red squirrel road.
They decided they wanted to put in
The red squirrel extension,
You know, it was just going to be, yeah,
For convenience sake,
For the logging industry, essentially.
She said the road proposal came at a time when the
Temagami people were already at their wits end,
They were already on edge.
Our people had been here for thousands of years,
Trapping and hunting and fishing.
At the time, the government, they were always
Imposing new rules and regulations.
You can no longer trap.
You had to get a license from them.
You can no longer fish.
They were charging our people for,
For doing what they did their whole lives,
Like eking out their living and supporting their families.
You got to consider somebody coming onto your land and
Telling you you need a license to do something that
You've always done.
Like, imagine you're in the backyard,
And a ranger type comes in with a badge and
A sidearm, and is like,
"hey, you got a license for that barbecue?"
[laughing]
"and I think you're over your grams of chicken wings.
Terry, do a wing count."
[laughing]
"I, I'll ask you once again, sir,
Do you have a license for the barbecue?
And no, your 'license to grill' apron does not count."
[laughing]
I have pictures of my mother and
My grandfather and my cousin.
They're out blocking the roads.
They were all hauled off.
Yeah, my mom was arrested.
But at the same time, I was working for
The ministry of natural resources.
They were trying to build the road.
That's got to be pretty awkward at the office,
You know. "okay, ah, hey guys,
Great work today, everybody.
It's 5 o'clock, I gotta bail...
My mom out of jail."
[laughing]
At the same time,
There was environmental groups on the road.
They're at cross -purposes with us, right?
They're not into the hunting, fishing,
Trapping kind of thing. They want it to be a park.
And to us, it's not a wilderness, it's our home.
The temagami people were not after conservationism.
They were after traditionalism.
They wanted their way of life back.
The way they'd always had it on their land.
Some of the parks, in terms of the
Legislation that was available at the time,
Would be another imposition on us, right?
At first, they were united by a common enemy.
Right? The environmentalists showed up,
They said, "we will protest with you,
We will help you stop this logging.
We don't care how long it takes.
We'll stand with you day and night."
And the temagami people said, "well, thank you.
Ah, but you should know the nights get pretty cold.
So, here are some warm hats.
Feel how soft that is, that's beaver.
Feel that?" -[laughing]
"lovely. That's nice, isn't it? Huh?"
Finally in 1990,
They agreed to come off the road
When they signed the memorandum of understanding.
In 1990, the first nations and the ontario government
Signed the memorandum of understanding.
It was a truce, it put an end to the, the blockades.
Shortly after that,
The milne & sons sawmill closed,
Essentially ending 100 years of
Large scale forestry in this area.
I would say the blockade might have been
The straw that broke the camel's back in that
Everybody had to fess up.
There was an over -competition for
The white and red pine here.
There wasn't going to be enough raw materials
For the mill, which is sad.
I mean, you know, because it displaced
A lot of people in our town.
You know, our friends and neighbours worked at the mill.
It was a huge blow to the community.
As many as 150 people were put out of work,
Families moved away, the grocery store closed,
Restaurants shuttered.
The school went from an attendance of about 300
Down to about 30.
It was really hard for the town, really hard.
It's an age-old debate where you're trying to compare the
Value of something used or harvested
Versus the value of it if you just leave it alone.
You know, I had a similar thing in university with my
Roommates when some of them decided we should take down
The great wall of beer empties to return to
The store for money.
[laughing]
I know it's slightly different in your case.
You know, the stakes are a little higher when you're
Talking about the world's largest stand of
Old growth red and white pines.
We all know how ugly things can get
When you remove old growth.
You don't need to watch dr. Pimple popper to know that.
[laughing & applauding]
♪
-Hey, roz, how are you? -Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
I spoke with a woman who has spent
Most of her life in a canoe,
And never stops trying to get other people on board.
She can lead from the stern, and that deserves a bow...
Roz kilbridge.
[cheering & applauding]
Roz and her partner, francis, run smoothwater outfitters.
They are upper canada's canoe concierge.
We set people up with as much or as little as they need.
So, some people come to us already kind of
Owning all their own gear.
But then other people need everything,
Especially if they're coming from overseas.
So they get us to do the canoe rentals,
The shuttling, provide all their gear.
We dehydrate a lot of our own food,
So we pack a food package for them.
Where in the world are people coming from to canoe here?
Most of our overseas people are coming from England,
From great britain somewhere.
-Yeah. -Then probably germany.
They have a fascination with the wilderness.
She said they get a lot of people from
The uk and from germany.
So, chances are you're not bringing your own canoe.
If you're coming from germany, she'll rent u-boats.
[laughing]
She'll rent you boat- she'll rent boats to you.
[laughing]
♪
It's hard to travel through temagami, and I think...
People underestimate sometimes how
Rugged this area is.
2,4000 kilometres of historic canoe routes.
It's not all waterways, some of that is portage trails.
You have to pack light because you're carrying all
This gear, and a canoe over difficult, rocky portages.
We had one group of americans come up once,
And they had a lot of beer.
And francis said, "you know, I don't think
You're going to want a portage all of that.
I don't think you quite know what you're getting into."
And they said, "no, no, we'll be fine."
Here she is putting chili in a dehydrator,
So you can get rid of the water weight.
The boys show up with a two-four.
[laughing]
Bro, you're supposed to pack light, not coors light.
[laughing]
How do you even begin doing this?
With canoe techniques, she showed me
More than the broad strokes.
She showed me how to get the canoe up and over
The top onto your head.
First, you grab it by the gunnels.
And kind of flip it up like this.
Pull it kind of up onto your thighs like this.
She pulled up the canoe, and then you, you sort of rock it-
You get some momentum going with your thighs, and then...
-Whoa. -You flip it like that.
-Nicely done! -[laughing]
Then it was my turn to try.
So, I pull it up, I got it on my thighs, and I'm like,
Trying to rock it. My technique was-
I don't think I was helping myself doing-
I probably looked more awkward than I do right now.
I'm rocking the canoe, and then...
-[effort grunt] -nice!
-Hey! -Amazing!
And really, was there any doubt I would get it up there?
I mean, if you've seen my acting,
If you've seen murdoch mystery,
You know my technique is not very good,
But when it comes time to be over the top,
Well, no sweat.
[laughing] [applauding]
♪
There's a new, more sustainable forestry program
Happening in temagami now, and I met the guy who-
Well, let's call him the branch manager, jeff barton.
[cheering & applauding]
Daki menan is a forestry company started by the
Temagami first nation.
They have a mill, they cut trees, they plant trees.
But most of all, what jeff is trying to do is
Provide training for youth from temagami
And the surrounding areas.
There's a sign up the highway that says,
"forestry supports 180,000 jobs in ontario."
Part of what we're doing is sharing a small piece of that.
He said oftentimes he'll train someone up to a point
Where they're so good, they'll get hired by
A bigger forestry company.
He said it's kind of like being the coach for
The toronto marlies.
If you do a good job and you win the cup,
You lose your best guys. -Right.
The difference though between forestry and hockey is,
In hockey, the leafs fall in the spring.
[laughing]
Jeff was talking to me about
The regeneration of the forest-
How wide, how thick a tree will grow
Depends on how crowded it is.
In order to renew the forest,
You need to take away the competition,
Just like you would when you're weeding the garden.
He said it's not unlike thinning out
Your vegetable garden.
And he said it to me as if I had a vegetable garden.
[laughing]
Yeah, I guess each tree is competing for sunlight and
The nutrients in the soil.
Right, what we're trying to do is,
Is give those trees the best chance that
They can to get to maturity.
You do this with a brush cutter, a brush saw.
Jeff and one of the other workers who was there,
Sebastian,
They got me kitted up with the helmet and the glasses,
The visor, the harness, the...
The brush saw.
I watched seb do it first.
[chainsaw rumbling continues]
I started doing it.
It was fun, although, I almost felt like
An evil version of bob ross.
"here's a happy little tree right here.
He's happy, but he's a little too little,
So he's got to go."
[laughing]
If you want a sustainable forest,
That's what you have to do.
You got to get rid of some of these small, gnarly ones.
I bet jeff is the only guy who, when people
Are watching the charlie brown christmas, right?
And everybody feels bad for that like little,
Gnarly, weak tree, I bet jeff is like,
"no, no, this is not how it's done."
"that is not... Okay.
Try framing your house with some lumber from that."
[laughing]
♪
Next, I met a family who are trying to make sure people
With physical challenges can enjoy the temagami experience.
Even if you aren't a peak performance paddler,
You should at least come get your feet wet.
From andorra accessible cottages,
I had a chat with candice and tyson rogerson.
[cheering & applauding]
Candice, so you spent some time in this area
When you were younger?
Yes, my family had a remote fly-in cottage up here.
What did you love about it?
Why did you want to come back at some point?
I don't know, it's very relaxing,
Like just being here, it's like, it fills you up.
Candice and her family, they bought an old
Tourist lodge here, and it's all about, you know,
Allowing people with challenges to...
It's all about accessibility.
In fact, things were so accessible,
Tyson didn't want to sit and talk to me,
He had a powered wheelchair, and he just went
Booting around doing his own thing.
[laughing]
So, tyson has cerebral palsy and,
A very severe form of epilepsy.
And we could never, ever find a place where
We could just come to a cottage for a week...
And have all of our needs met.
The goal is to build a fully accessible resort.
Accessible means can I
Dress or bathe or change an
Adult-size person that has to have that happen
While they're lying down? Is there a hoyer lift?
Is there extra power by the bedside to run a pump or
Oxygen or a feeding tube or something like that?
A cottage is never going to come
Equipped with those features.
Right.
We had almost jokingly talked about, well,
We should just buy a resort up here and, and...
Make it accessible and, we saw this place and,
As we're driving down the driveway, I just got like,
Whoa, this is the one.
♪
Doing this kind of thing, if you go a certain route,
It can be very expensive.
You know, the cost of, of accessibility.
We have a chair in the house, that's-
It's called a recovery chair,
And it's just basically a soft,
Foamy chair that he can sit in,
And he's perfectly safe if he's had a seizure.
I was fortunate to purchase it for $800, used.
A new one would have been $3000.
So, they're trying to figure out how to do
Some stuff on their own.
They're trying to take the "bill" out of accessibility.
[laughing]
They've got like a raised bed on the beach there.
Older people that want to relax at the beach and
Lie down, but they maybe don't want to go all the way
To the ground either because it's harder to
Get up from the ground.
Or, even changing a toddler out of a wet bathing suit,
If you're raised up on something that's not full of
Sand, it just makes life easier for everybody.
Changing out a wet bathing suit is hard,
I don't care who you are, what age or-
I go get in the car at the beach like I'm going to leave.
But if it's a busy day, there's people all around,
So I try to do it real quickly,
Like whip down my trunks,
And then I hope no one's walking by,
Then I get my trunk stuck around my ankles,
And I hope no one is looking,
And then I'm wrestling with that,
And just as I'm doing that, my forehead honks the horn
And people are like, "whoa, is that guy okay?
Let's go check on him."
And then, eventually I just roll my window down,
And it's like, "oh, the water was so cold today, right?"
[laughing]
[applauding]
Take care, we'll see you soon.
-I'll see you Saturday. -Yeah.
[train bell ringing]
I heard the old train station had been turned into
An art centre that is showcasing the talent
And culture that's located right here in town.
It's called living temagami.
I was dying to see it.
I had a visit with ashly legacy and omar de la serna.
[cheering & applauding]
My grandparents had an island on the lake,
So I used to grow up coming here in the summer
And in the winter.
I found a guy that was willing to
Move up here with me.
Omar, he's mexican.
The most amazing thing omar told me, he said-
Temagami is really similar to mexico city, right?
"temagami reminds me of mexico city."
And I was like, the one with the population of
Twenty something million people?
And he said, "yeah."
Everyone say hi to everyone.
The people are really friendly.
So, the vibe is sort of-
The vibe is really similar to my town.
I've been to mexico.
I don't think I ever would have made the comparison.
But, who knows, I've never seen temagami
At cinco de mayo. So, what do I know?
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
Omar brings an expertise in paper mache.
This is very big in mexican culture,
Particularly for festivities.
-I used to make pinatas. -Yeah?
In the school, like,
It was a common thing to do in December.
This art is made to be destroyed.
-Tell me about this. -This is the phoenix.
The idea is that people will come over the
Next couple of months and get a feather.
And then you write something down, something in your,
In your life that you want to be done with, that, that-
Something negative that maybe you want to move past,
You want to put behind you.
And you write that on the feather,
And then that goes on the phoenix.
So, the feathers will actually all go
Onto the bird and become the bird.
And then, on the winter solstice,
We're gonna burn the phoenix with the community.
Everybody gets to start fresh and burn all their bad.
And they invited me to be a part of it,
So I had a feather,
And I wasn't sure what to write down.
I was like- and then I thought of something that
I actually did get rid of, but I've never really
Mentally been able to put in my past for me,
So I wrote down "belly button ring".
[laughing]
It's sort of ironic that this thing's gonna go up in flames
Because really, I think it's the burning is the
Reason I've never been able to get past it entirely.
[laughing]
♪
[laughing]
"up north," you can say when you're north of north bay,
And temagami is by an hour.
Trees reach even higher,
So when you light that bird on fire,
I wish I could be watching from that
Awesome fire tower.
If you have challenges already and want something
More steady than wearing a canoe like a fedora...
Well, mobility needs are met
Where wheelchair wheels get wet.
Life's a beach for everyone at andorra.
People made a demand, so the old pines still stand...
After protests, arrests, and riffs and tears.
By lake temagami they stand, and watch over the land,
As they've done so for 300 years.
Thanks for coming out, everybody!
You've been great!
[cheering & applauding]
-It was awesome! -It was wonderful.
It was great!
♪
-I loved it! -Yeah, yeah, good show.
♪
We're bagging firewood, we're making lumber,
We're planting trees, so we might have him
In the yard next time.
♪
You know, jonny, I think belly button rings
Are gonna come back.
Soon. [laughing]
♪
Jonny, thank you for
Showcasing temagami wonderfully.
♪