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[emmaotoole]

Ontario lake among finalists as scientists prepare to mark onset of the Anthropocene Epoch

Crawford Lake in Milton, Ont., is seen by a team of Canadian scientists as a kind of natural archive of evidence of humanity's impact on the Earth since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The lakebottom sediments also preserve traces of pre-contact Indigenous communities living along the lake shore. [Photo © Capital Current]

This piece was originally published on Capital Current. You can view it here.

Scientists from around the world are on the cusp of choosing a natural landmark to represent the point in Earth’s history when human activity began to significantly impact the planet.

A small lake in Milton, Ont., is one of 12 locations from around the world nominated to symbolize the start of the Anthropocene Epoch, a proposed new time period in the planet’s geological history typified by humanity’s unmistakable impact on the land, water and air.

Traces of pollution beginning with the Industrial Revolution, for example, as well as the enduring signature of 20th century nuclear bomb tests, are among the markers scientists can detect in the lake-bottom sediments at Crawford Lake and at other sites vying to become the so-called “Golden Spike” representing the onset of the Anthropocene.

Crawford Lake’s competitors range from Flinders Reef in Australia to the Antarctic Peninsula. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), made up of members of the  International Union of Geological Sciences, announced the candidates at a conference in Berlin earlier this year.

Paul Hamilton, a scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature and a researcher working on Crawford Lake’s pitch, stresses the global importance of determining the Golden Spike.

“It will be giving the starting point — a date, a time and a place — where we as the human species began to see our contribution to the disturbance of the Earth,” said Hamilton.

Francine McCarthy, a professor of earth sciences at Brock University – the main institution spearheading the case for Crawford Lake – is a voting member of the Anthropocene Working Group. She says the lake shows records of both global and local magnitude — proof of nearby Indigenous settlements that lived on the shores of the lake thousands of years ago, alongside evidence of wide-scale modern events such as the Industrial Revolution.

“The global impact was felt in this little rural, isolated lake,” she said.

Once a site is determined to be the “poster child” for the epoch, McCarthy says, the Anthropocene will be on track to becoming a part of the official geological time scale.

Tim Patterson, a researcher and scientist at Carleton University — another one of the main institutions contributing to the research on Crawford Lake — calls the geological significance of the lake “mind-boggling.”

What makes Crawford Lake so significant, Patterson says, is the way its layers interact with one another. It’s a deep, meromictic lake, meaning the layers of water don’t intermix: the top layer mixes with help from the environment – such as animal contact, rain or wind – while the bottom layer is more dense and does not combine with the top. The separation allows sediments to sink to the lake’s bottom, where they gather in distinct layers and become preserved, forming a geological snapshot of history.

McCarthy describes the sediments as being “seasonally laminated,” comparing the occurrence to the “rings inside a tree.” She and her team have spent the past four years understanding why this happens.

At Patterson’s lab, he and his research team collect evidence of the layered sediments at the bottom of Crawford Lake using a freeze core, a method commonly used to investigate lake bed sediments.

“The freeze cores are basically long chambers. You fill them up with dry ice, alcohol and slurry. Then you pound it all together, you seal it up, and you lower it to the bottom of the lake,” Patterson said.

The Anthropocene: Inside the Quest for the Human Epoch at Crawford Lake, Ontario, a video featuring scientists from Carleton University involved in extracting a lakebottom core sample during the winter at Crawford Lake. [Courtesy of Carleton University]

“Because dry ice is very cold, the lake sediment freezes to the surface of it. You pull it out after about half an hour or so and then you have a beautifully preserved, perfect record of the lake bottom sediment.”

“We are companions in that way, scientists and Indigenous people,” said Catherine Támmaro, an artist, Indigenous Elder and seated Faith Keeper of the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation. Támmaro’s ancestors are believed to have lived on Crawford Lake many hundreds of years ago.

Crawford Lake’s research team has also been working alongside local Indigenous people to preserve the land’s rich history in their science.

Támmaro says one of the appeals of working with the research team was their “scientific language and worldview,” adding that “how it sits next to Indigenous understandings is a beautiful thing.”

“What prompted me to start making art was an absolutely unquenchable urge to connect with questions that I had about my own existence,” said Támmaro. “Crawford Lake is a huge connecting point to my people’s past, to my history and to cultivating an awareness of who I am through the land, through the water in that space.”

Carleton Journalism · Francine McCarthy on the Golden Spike

Támmaro’s art piece was inspired by Crawford Lake and the oral legend the BeadSpitter. She says the piece is symbolic of the wampum belt, a belt created to mark agreements, record treaties and disputes between Indigenous communities. Támmaro says this art piece records a conversation between her and the lake.

While the sediments – shown in her art using beads – represent time, they are also a recording of the “spiritual presence of the lake.”

On top of that, the lake’s record shows evidence of Indigenous peoples’ presence through agriculture.

“There’s corn pollen in the sediments that reflect our presence there,” Támmaro said. “It anchors us in that spot in a way that perhaps nothing else could, other than memory or other people’s records.”

Crawford Lake’s ability to preserve sediments makes it an excellent way to recognize human activity over time, Hamilton explains, stating that “there’s a very good record” of especially the past 600 to 700 years.

During these years, the record shows three distinct periods of human impact: the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation settlement in the 1400s, shown through agricultural remnants; the colonization of North America in the 1800s, which saw deforestation and land alterations and the industrialization of the modern world, beginning in the 1950s and continuing today.

“Since the 1950s, the planet has been different than it had been for probably millions of years before then. So the changes since the mid-20th century are of a greater magnitude than the end of the Ice Age, or any big things that happened in the last few million years,” said McCarthy.

In comparison to other sites, Hamilton continues, Crawford Lake is the only one that is close enough to where these major changes were happening. Contrastingly, scientists at other locations, such as the ones in China and Antarctica, argue their sites’ importance by noting their distance from the changes. “(They) would be saying, you know, we’re far away from the industrialization and we could still see (its impacts),” said Hamilton.

The search for the Golden Spike is a hard one, though it is not the end of the AWG’s journey.

Hamilton explains that the first step as a scientist is getting your site chosen as the representative site for new human-shaped geological epoch.

Traditionally, locations chosen as a Golden Spike will have a physical metal spike placed in them to formally recognize the start of an era in geological history. For example, the marker for the Ediacaran Period in Earth history — which began about 635 million years ago and lasted nearly 100 million years — can be found on a cliff of exposed rock in South Australia. The unique features of the site, including certain rock formations and embedded fossils, are representative of the geological processes and long-extinct animals of that time in the planet’s history.

If Crawford Lake is selected as the Golden Spike for the Anthropocene era, a spike would be placed on a publicly displayed core that has been removed from the lake bottom.

The second step, Hamilton says, is to present as much information as possible to ensure that everybody, including scientists working on different sites, are on board to designate a new epoch called the Anthropocene.

If Crawford Lake is not chosen, its team will continue to collaborate with other scientists involved in trying to define the epoch using the winning site.

Hamilton says even if the team working on Crawford Lake’s proposal loses, “they will still try to help and research and fight to establish the start of the Anthropocene,” he said. “This is just the start.”

“I expect all of the other sites will be doing the same thing,” Hamilton said, noting that this is the ultimate goal. Scientists are rooting for a site to be chosen, he says, whether it’s theirs or not, “because the human disturbance now is so great that we just can’t avoid talking about it anymore.”

Voting will begin Sunday, Dec. 18, but it is a long process and deciding the winner could last until next year.

[santanabellantoni]

HighJinx Ottawa Photo Story

https://capitalcurrent.ca/neighbours-help-neighbours-at-the-high-jinx-antique-store/

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Problems in planned nuclear waste dump at Chalk River

Problems in planned nuclear waste dump at Chalk River

New nuclear waste guidelines could lead to ‘massive dump’ upstream from Ottawa if approved, CapitalCurrent , By Bailey Moreton, 23 July 20,   

New nuclear waste guidelines set to undergo public consultation this fall could clear the way for a much-debated, large, above-ground waste disposal mound to be built at Chalk River, the national nuclear research facility 180 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

[emmaotoole]

Exploring The Rooftop Garden: Ottawa book launch showcases author’s debut novel

This piece was originally published on Capital Current. You can view it here.

At a coffee shop in Berlin, colourful book spines line the walls. They rest on tall, oak bookshelves, and are interrupted only by a countertop filled with pastries and a panel of windows. They surround customers sitting at tables, sipping lattes.

To journalist and author Menaka Raman-Wilms, the store, Shakespeare and Sons, is more than just a coffee shop. It’s where she began writing her debut novel, The Rooftop Garden.

On Saturday night, book lovers gathered at the Laurel Street location near Little Italy to meet with and learn about the author behind the novel.

Raman-Wilms’ The Rooftop Garden follows the lives of two childhood friends, Nabila and Matthew, in their 20s. Nabila is a scientist in Toronto, but when Matthew gets swept up in an alt-right group that leads him to Berlin, Nabila travels to find him. The novel highlights themes of friendship, loneliness, climate change and radicalization.

At the Nov. 26 book launch, Raman-Wilms read an excerpt from the characters’ childhoods and discussed her novel in conversation with Carleton University journalism professor and fellow author Sarah Everts.

As a novelist and a journalist, Raman-Wilms highlighted the importance of “headspaces” when balancing her two writing styles. She sees creative and journalistic writing as “two different dialects of the same language” — dialects that require their own space and time.

“With journalism, it’s very in the moment. You’ve got to think quickly; you’ve got to get stuff down fast,” she said. “With creative writing, I find it always takes me a bit longer. I need a bit more space.

“I need to sit in a coffee shop or somewhere else where I can physically get out of the headspace of writing journalistically.”

Raman-Wilms’ attraction to coffee shops worked its way into The Rooftop Garden with the fictional Café Arboretum.

The novel’s café, she says, was loosely inspired by Shakespeare and Sons. For Café Arboretum, Raman-Wilms took the Berlin café’s book-lined walls and injected plenty of greenery in her imagination, adding that she found beauty in “the integration of the literary and the horticultural worlds.”

Raman-Wilms says she also drew inspiration from Berlin’s integration of urban and natural spaces. After the Second World War, many of the city’s destroyed buildings were never fully rebuilt, so the natural world “moved in and took over.”

“That really triggered my imagination because we often pave over the natural world and make it into urban spaces. But this was the opposite of that.

“There were these previously urban spaces that were being reclaimed by trees or bushes,” she said. “And I just thought that was so incredible.”

After her time in Berlin, Raman-Wilms returned to Canada where she finished her novel. It was published by B.C.-based Nightwood Editions last month.

Nightwood publisher Emma Skagen said one of the most important themes of Raman-Wilms’ novel lies in Nabila and Matthew’s relationship. When Matthew gets caught up in extremist views, Nabila must empathize with Matthew before she can help him.

“Nabila is a scientist, and she thinks in facts. That causes an interesting tension because she wants to save him, but doesn’t really understand how he got there in the first place,” Skagen said.

She added that while it can be “hard to feel compassion” for people with views different from our own, it’s crucial.

“If it were someone in your life and you wanted to help them see that they’re getting involved in something that’s wrong, in a way you have to just step back and be there for them,” Skagen said.

Author and former family therapist Diana Stevan noted the importance of compassion in the novel, too. Her therapy background gives Stevan a nuanced persepctive on Nabila and Matthew’s relationship.

“I’m very aware of the fact that we’re vulnerable, depending on what’s happening in our lives and the support we get,” Stevan said.

A key part of understanding the characters as adults, she said, stems from their childhoods. Stevan describes Nabila’s homelife as loving and nurturing while Matthew’s was deprived and lonely.

“He doesn’t want to do bad stuff. But you see him going through these motions. And he’s caught,” Stevan says.

“He didn’t have the support to be able to sort out what he was doing. For that reason, I was intrigued by where the writer would take this story.”

Stevan’s full review of the novel is published in The Miramichi Reader.

The event at Happy Goat Coffee Co. was one of three book launches for the novel since The Rooftop Garden’s release; the other two took place in Winnipeg and Toronto.

The Ottawa launch was a return to the city for Raman-Wilms, who studied journalism at Carleton University, graduating in 2020 with a Master’s degree. During her time at Carleton, she was also a reporter with Capital Current.

When Raman-Wilms isn’t writing fiction, she can be heard hosting the Globe and Mail’s daily podcast, The Decibel.

[emmaotoole]

Home for the holidays, amid enduring childhood triggers for my OCD

Capital Current reporter Emma O'Toole in her childhood, biking in her old neighbourhood with her sister, Molly. A trip home during the holidays is bringing back moments from the past when Emma's obsessive-compulsive disorder was gradually coming into focus. [Photo © Sean O'Toole]

This piece was originally published on Capital Current. You can view it here.

I’m eight years old and I’m biking around my neighbourhood. It’s recently developed, the sidewalks lined with new homes and mounds of dirt reserved for homes-to-be. I’m flying through the streets, counting in rhythm as my feet push the pedals — one, two, one, two — making sure it’s even. I’m going fast, wind whipping at my helmet, and as I round a curve, I lose my balance and my body hits the asphalt. 

One.

I brush myself off and hop back on my bike. Then, on purpose this time, I fall off again.

Two. 

I stand up and despite taking two falls, I feel better.

When you interact with the world like a broken calculator, the only thing worse than getting hurt is getting hurt an odd number of times.

When I was eight, I didn’t know there was a name for this; I didn’t even know it deserved a name. Thought patterns like this quickly took over my life, and it wasn’t until I was 19 that I spoke with a doctor who recognized I was experiencing obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD.

OCD is characterized by excessive perfectionism or rituals acted out in response to obsessive and intrusive thoughts. According to the Canadian Association for Mental Health, people with OCD “usually know that their obsessions are creations of their own minds,” but they’re almost impossible to kick.

This disorder manifests in different ways: some people experience compulsions related to an obsession with cleanliness; some experience this with order. Compulsions can be mental, such as repeating phrases, or physical, like completing tasks. They range in severity from quirky to debilitating. Treatment can include therapy, often alongside medication.

For me, compulsions come and go over time; they morph into one another and they flow. I don’t have control over what gets swept into my obsessions and what doesn’t.

From age 5 to about 9, I kept a running tally in my head of every motorcycle I’d ever seen. I don’t care about motorcycles. I never have. But for the sake of Canada’s motorcyclist community, I had to make sure there were even numbers of vehicles on the road. (There were. You’re welcome.)

Aside from my obsession with evenness, one of the main drivers of my OCD relates to the passing of time. If I do anything — eat something, go somewhere, say a phrase, watch a show — around a time when something significant happens to me, that thing will be plagued forever and ever, and I will never be able to repeat it comfortably again. The more time passes, the more intense the anxiety gets.

The most recent iteration of this has taken shape in the sacred space of my childhood bedroom. I’ve had two bedrooms in my parents’ house: the one upstairs with a twin-sized bed, where I spent age 8 to 14, and the one in the basement with a queen, established at age 15 for more privacy. 

After a couple of quiet and COVID-ridden Christmases, much of my extended family has travelled to spend the holidays with my mom, stepdad and me. I’ve sacrificed my spacious basement room for my aunt, uncle and cousin, leaving me with one very feasible, very normal alternative: the bedroom upstairs.

No. Nope. Absolutely not.

The last time I slept in there, I was 14 – do you have any idea how many significant things happened to me when I was 14? And I’m expected to just waltz in there like nothing happened?!

As I write this, I sit in my mom’s home office. It has a desk, some old furniture, and, in the corner, set up just for me, a borrowed cot. It’s hard and it hurts to sleep on. It’s out of place, and sometimes the work phone wakes me up early in the morning. But I’ve never slept in here before, so it’s not tainted yet. 

This office has a perfect view of the street I used to bike on and the corner where I fell. It serves as a reminder of the kid I was, the adult I am and the quirks that will always follow me. I’m better now – I talk to a therapist, I take medication – but I am still me. 

[emmaotoole]

The Red Bird is Live: Local musicians welcome new venue to Ottawa’s music scene

Elizabeth Bruce and Doug Hardley, stage name Libby & Cal, perform at a recent Red Bird Live Open Stage Tuesday event. [Photo © Emma O’Toole]

This piece was originally published on Capital Current. You can view it here.

Grab your acoustic guitar, or borrow one of theirs – a new music venue is in town.

Red Bird Live is the most recent addition to Ottawa’s live music scene. The Bank Street venue hosts live performances and music lessons, along with three weekly events – Coffee House Sundays, Bluegrass Mondays and Open Stage Tuesdays – giving local performers the spotlight.

The venue’s chalkboard on Bank St. advertises its Open Stage Tuesday with host Shaun Francisco. There are different hosts every week. Mar. 22, 2022. [Photo © Emma O’Toole]

Shaun Francisco, Red Bird Live music teacher and a host of Open Stage Tuesday, is one of many musicians happy to be back on stage after Ontario eliminated most COVID-19 restrictions.

“It’s nice to come out of what feels like two years of hell and be able to be here tonight,” Francisco told the audience at a recent event to applause and whistles of affirmation.

“It feels a bit like heaven in here, doesn’t it?” Francisco said.

For Lynn Miles, Ottawa native and award-winning folk artist, Red Bird Live is an opportunity to revive the city’s music scene.

Miles remembers the 1970s and ’80s when, she says, there were plenty of places to play, and there was always something going on.

“And then it just slowly has died down,” she said.

Spaces for up-and-coming artists to integrate into the city’s music scene are key to that revival, Miles said.

“It gives them a venue to play their new songs in, meet other artists and find their musical tribe.

“When you have a place for the artists and musicians to hang out, it really does help create a scene. So, the more of those we have, the better off we are,” she says.

GoogleMyMapsFrancisco said Red Bird Live owner Geoff Cass’s dream was to make the venue a hub for music lovers and people in the community. After four weeks in business, Francisco said that dream has been realized.

Red Bird Live is a new addition to Ottawa’s music scene. [Photo © Emma O’Toole]

He said the spot is great for music aficionados and “people who just want to come in, sit, and read their books.”  

Elizabeth Bruce and Doug Hardley, who perform under the stage name Libby & Cal, have already played at Red Bird Live a few times. For them, the small, intimate venue, with chairs facing the stage and no distractions, is ideal.

“That’s the big difference from the bar where people are watching hockey or are out for a night out. They’re not really paying attention to the music,” Hardley said.

“And no screens. I love it,” Bruce added.

Bruce and Hardley said they feel Red Bird Live’s atmosphere encourages its audience to focus on the stage. The crowd, Hardley says, is quiet.

“A listening room is like gold,” he said.

Francisco said he’s happy to see such a lively and multifunctional space in the city. He calls Red Bird Live a “breath of fresh air for Old Ottawa South,” and added he looks forward to many more successful years to come.