Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Amazing Spaces – The Library of Parliament, Museum of History & Gander International Airport

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

“There was a time when the Gander airport was the biggest airport in the world”On this week’s episode, we have three of Stuart’s opening monologues – essays about some of the places and spaces that captivated him on his travels across the country. And Jess has a backstory about the perils of mispronunciations! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your idea of banking without the noise happens here. Brought to you by RBC. Lock in, but don't burn out. Take a moment to pause and appreciate that being here now means you've crushed every obstacle in your past so far. That's 100% success rate. Your finances work the same. It's persistence, not perfection, that builds your financial future.

RBC is here to help. Have you heard of guest favorites on Airbnb? Guest favorites are the most loved homes on Airbnb. Homes already tried and loved by other families like mine. That's how I've booked my most recent trips on Airbnb. In December, I want to take my girls, Eloise and Annabel, to Quebec City. It's so gorgeous around Christmas. They really know how to embrace the season.

When I started looking, the very first place that popped up was an incredible sweet right in the heart of historic Quebec City. And I loved knowing that it was a guest favorite. This home gives us so much space. And it means I can bring Molly, our dog. No kennel to book, no stress. Plus, there's parking included, which in Quebec City at Christmas is a gift all on its own. A little weekend away in one of the most loved homes. on Airbnb.

From the Apostathy Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We've got something a little different for you on the pod this week. We've got three, yes, three postcards from Canada. But these are postcards with a difference. As you know, Stuart loved to explore and visit new towns and cities all over Canada. But he also loved architecture and was drawn to the buildings of a place.

I can think back to the way he moved through the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, a building with not a lot of right angles. It's possible, maybe no right angles. I remember how he noticed that and appreciated it. And I remember his love of university campuses. His favorite was Ron Tom's campus at Trent University in Peterborough. But he also loved the old school charm of Harthouse at the University of Toronto and the soft edges of the Chan Center for the performing arts at the University of British Columbia. So today on the pod, we're touring buildings with Stuart. We're listening to him talk about some of his favorite interior spaces and places and, of course, the stories that unfold inside their walls. But we're going to start

with this one. This is Stuart McLean with an essay he wrote about the Library of Parliament. We arrived in town at the beginning of the week, and first thing Monday morning with time on my hands, I did what I always do when I have time on my hands in the nation's capital. I got in a taxi and headed for Parliament Hill. I find the Parliament building, both in its stony reality, and for all that it symbolizes a moving place. I am moved by all of it, by the certainty of the stone and the symmetry of the architecture, by the fragility of the eternal flame and the aspirations of the Peace Tower, by the Langwood Lawn at the front door and the rapid river at the back. Even if I don't have time to stop by, I like to drive by and pay my respects. Take the long way I always tell my taxi driver,

even if I'm hurrying to the airport. This week, however, I was not hurrying. I had time, but that's not all I had. David McCormick, a member of the Ottawa Press Gallery, had arranged to get me a press pass. So for the first time in 30 years, I was going to be able to wander wherever I wanted. The pass came with instructions. There are some hidden gems, I think you should see, said David, who knows my taste in these things. He told me to go to the parliamentary library.

There's an inkwell on display, he explained. It was used at the Charlottetown Conference. of 1864 and then again 85 years later for the signing of the terms of union under which Newfoundland joined the Canadian Federation. I'll check the inkwell out,

I promised. Well, when you do, he said, check out the cake, too. The cake, I said. It was baked by the parliamentary kitchen over 30 years ago for the library's 100th anniversary. And they still have it, I said.

What's the deal with that? Well, it was baked in the shape of the library, said David. It's the oddest thing, but affecting in an odd way. An inkwell and a cake. These are the sort of things that I love. Let the tourists climb the peace tower I thought to myself as I walked along Wellington Street. Let the students of politics head for the House of Commons.

I'll go to the library and in that most splendid of Parliament's many splendid room. In the wood-lined cathedral of books, I will pray at a familiar altar, the altar of the inconsequential. I've always believed that the big truths are hidden in the small things. An ink well struck me as such a nice small thing. The indelible smell of ink, like the smell of blood or the smell of the sea, recalls elemental things. the alchemy of liquid that with a stroke of a pen can become law. I was touched that someone had had enough respect for history to guard that inkwell for nearly 100 years

so that it could be brought out again to be used during both the first and the most recent days of Confederation. And I was pleased that I was going to find it displayed so modestly on a library desk. And so I thanked David, and I picked up my pass in great anticipation. If you'd never been to the Parliament buildings, the best way to imagine walking into the center block is to imagine yourself walking into a cathedral, limestone and marble gothic arches, and the soft, indirect light of a setting sun. For as the parliamentarians would have us believe, shore an approaching dawn. You wouldn't be surprised as you walk around to spot a red-cloaked

bishop patting down one of the corridors. Like what a Canada's great railway hotels, Parliament is all history and tradition. I wandered into the center block, into the rotunda, and then down the Hall of Honor heading to the Library of Parliament. Before I got there, I was drawn to another corridor, one that the public's not supposed to. to use as it's reserved for members who want to slip out the back door when they want to avoid people like me. And they are tucked away in a small alcove. I stumbled on a sculpture, a small bust by the great French artist and father of modern sculpture, Auguste Rodin. To Canada, read the plaque on the pedestal, whose sons shed their blood to safeguard world freedom.

The plaque assigned from Grateful France. Nice, I thought. And then on I went, and soon enough came to the library where Irene Brown, the librarian on duty, told me with obvious disappointment that the cake I'd been sent to see had begun to crumble. I was no longer on display. The ink well was gone, too, in storage in the basement.

Irene was soon joined by her colleague, a librarian named Louie, and with the spontaneous enthusiasm typical of librarians everywhere. They soon enough had set aside their work and joined me and mine. We could show you our favorite book, said Irene. What books that, I asked. It was sent to Canada by Queen Victoria, said Irene, after the death of her husband. Yes, said Louis. It's a collection of the Prince Consul. speeches, and it's inscribed in the Queen's hand. What does the inscription say, I asked?

To the Library of Parliament, said Louis. From a heartbroken widow, added Irene. And so I passed a pleasant hour in the library before saying my goodbyes and continuing my wanderings, up to the top floor, the sixth floor, to the parliamentary restaurant, which I've always wanted to where the matre d a woman named marguerite welcomed me just as graciously as the librarians that table there she said pointing at a quiet alcove near the door is reserved for the prime minister that alcove is for conservative members that one for liberals and that is where the nDP gather and then sensing my interest she said would you like to see the new zealand room she took me to the back of the restaurant and into a small and elegant dining room with a table that would sit a dozen, but not one more. It's paneled with wood sent by New Zealand after the center block burned to the ground in 1916, she said. And it was at this moment as I stood under the green copper roof of Parliament in that little dining room with its magnificent view of the Ottawa River that I

had my little epiphany. A hundred years ago, New Zealand was pretty much on the far side of the moon as far as Canada was concerned. Yet in 1916, someone in New Zealand somehow heard that our parliament buildings had burned to the ground. And they responded to that news in such an odd, yet peculiarly appropriate way. They sent wood. to Canada, of all places.

As if Wood was something Canada was lacking. And someone here received that gift with respect with which it was given. And all these years later, I found myself standing in what is now known as the New Zealand room. The respect of the gift. giving had been matched in the receiving, and those two small acts of respect had served the greater good. And it occurred to me as I stood there that we have lost our understanding of that sort of respect these past few years. In its place, we've developed an impulse to cynicism. Too quickly we look at our politics and our politicians as if everything was easy to figure out.

as if compromises didn't have to be made, as if a thoughtful person can't reflect on something and then change his or her mind, as if this business of governing isn't complicated. Cynicism is an easy place to pitch a tent, and it's worth remembering when we're tempted by that soft and easy clearing in the forest that there are more honorable campsites.

Parliament has been and could still be the best of us and I would put forward that it behooves us to embrace that possibility to admit to that possibility, to own that possibility and most importantly to expect it. These are important days and this is an important place. We owe it many things, our passions, our commitment, our truths, and yes, our respect. The broken-hearted Queen Victoria showed that

when she signed and sent that book in the memory of her husband. Auguste Rodin showed it when he fashioned that sculpture for all of France. Those New Zealanders showed it as they bundle together, their little shipment of wood. The librarians show it as they go. that inkwell still, and so should we, all of us here in this lovely theater, and all of us listening elsewhere as we come together in our today's and in our tomorrows to consider as best we can the great questions of our time.

That was Stuart McLean talking about the Library of Parliament. We recorded that in 2009 at the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. We recorded a couple of concerts while we were in Quebec on that trip in 2009. Both concerts were held at what was then called the Museum of Civilization, and now it's called the Museum of History. Stuart was totally captivated by the museum and for good reason. In this piece, he talks about the incredible architecture by Douglas Cardinal and also about the museum's wonderful collection of artifacts

which trace the history of Canada and its people right from the beginnings of human habitation onwards. I find it so interesting listening back to some of these older scripts. I've talked about this before on the pod about how so much of Stewart's writing is timeless. But, of course, some of it isn't. Every once in a while, I come across language that just gives me pause today. Stuff written decades earlier that we'd phrase differently now. Phrase differently or maybe come at it differently.

Sometimes it's language, but other times it's perspective. This next piece is a good example. of that. This script was written in 2009, which doesn't sound like a long time ago, but it was over 15 years ago. And I know that if Stewart were writing this today, he would likely use different language here. He'd use indigenous instead of Aboriginal or native. So his language would be different, but his perspective might be too, because sometimes when we're our best selves, our change in language reflects a change in society, a deeper understanding or a change in perspective. And speaking of language, there's something else I should tell you here before we

listen to this. There's a mistake in this script. A mispronunciation of spectacular proportions. It makes me cringe every time I hear it. And he says it more than once. So it makes me cringe three times every single time I hear it. So listen carefully. And bonus points for anyone who catches it on the first pass. This is Stuart McLean. It's very nice to be here in the Museum of Civilization. Now there's a modest mandate.

Well, there's nothing modest about this place. This is the most visited museum in Canada and arguably the most beautiful. Museum is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and it still takes my breath away. After 20 years, it's sweeping walls and domed ceiling still give it the look of a visitor from the future rather than a monument attending to our past. The building was designed by the great Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal. Cardinal's father was a Blackfoot Forest Ranger. His mother was a nurse from a Méti family.

The Cardinal grew up in the hills of Alberta. This museum reflects his heritage. It is quintessentially, Cardinal, all undulating and curved. You'd have to search to find a right angle. I spent most of Tuesday wandering through this museum. I started in the Grand Hall, a soaring glass-walled room that houses the totem poles of the Aboriginal people of Canada's west coast.

Then I went through the Canada Hall. a journey that begins on the east coast in the time of the great Norse explorers. And from there, through the adjoining rooms, onwards and upwards through time and through space, onwards across the country, and upwards through the years. The decades flicking by room by room and the stories building one upon the other. Like the story of the schoolboy who found what they believed to be Champlain's lost astrolope, the navigation device he used to determine his latitude and that he left in a field

and how comforting is it to know that even then and even he could be that careless. Hey, has anyone seen my astrolope? Where did you have it last? The astrolope that the boy found is of the right era and was in a plausible field. Stories of Champlain's forget and of the Basque fishermen and the Bretons and the Normans and of the familiar architecture

of New France. There's nothing like a young country to make you feel old. Stories of the fur trade and the timber trade of ship building and city building, of railway building, of nation building. We are not a nation that celebrates our heroes. And when all the central characters, all the leading men and women are gathered up on one stage, even if they gather they're up modestly. You can't help but feel a stirring of something. And if it isn't pride, maybe it's wonder. And not necessarily because it's a Canadian story, but because it's a human one. I would have kept going. I could have gone all night. But the clock ran out on me, and the security guard tapped me on my shoulder and said, excuse me, sir. And I found myself back

where I started, both in time and space, back in the grand hall, back at the beginning, trying to assimilate everything I'd seen, to do what I suppose you'd do with a new story to impose some sort of meaning or truth on it. What does all this add up to, I was wondering? Is it just another totem pole, one story stacked upon the other, the raven on top of the bear, the soldier on top of the sailor? Is it a great drama or great tragedy? Have we made great progress

or any progress at all? Is it a coming together or a coming apart? That's what I was thinking when I came to the end of the great hall and stumbled upon the work of another of Canada's great native artists. The original plaster sculpture used to cast

Bill reads two great bronze pieces, the spirit of Haida Gwai. The two great bronze sculptures can be seen on either side of this continent. The first, the black canoe in the lobby of the Canadian Embassy in Washington. The second, the jade canoe in the Vancouver International Airport. It's a magnificent piece. An oversized canoe filled with legendary Haida figures, the Raven, the Grandmother Mouse, the Mother Bear with her two cubs, the eagle, the wolf. Each one with a paddle in the water, and each one paddling in the same direction.

The canoe may be forever frozen in bronze, but you can see the way that it's going. That was Stuart McLean from back in 2009. All right. Did anybody catch it? The mispronunciation? Stuart says Astrolobe instead of Astrolobe. Lab. Not once, not twice, but three times. Yowses. Stewart would mispronounce things all the time. But those mistakes, his mistakes, were actually really in a way my mistakes. That was my job to notice and to fix. Every single time you heard Stewart mispronounce something, it wasn't his fault,

it was my fault. I'm not being facetious. I mean this. He might make a mistake, That happens all the time. We all make mistakes. But if you, the audience, hear a mistake, that's my mistake. It means that I didn't notice it or I couldn't figure out a way to fix it. In that case, the Astrolobe, Astrolaib case, that mistake happened live on stage. And that did happen. It happened all the time. Stewart would make a mistake on stage in front of an audience.

Sometimes, often, he'd catch those mistakes himself. That was the best case scenario. When that happened, he would just do what we call a pickup. He'd go back to the beginning of the sentence and retake it. He'd pick it up, redid it and kept going. And that would allow me to edit it in post-production. So I would fix it in post. That way you, the audience listening at home, would never be the wiser.

Even the audience in the theater would barely notice a pickup like that. But it didn't always go that well. Stewart wouldn't always catch his mistakes, but usually I would. And when I caught them, we'd have some options. Ideally, I'd have time and space to get him to do a retake. For instance, if the mistake he made was in the first act of the show before intermission, I would talk to him at intermission, and at the beginning of the second set, I'd ask him to go out and explain to the audience what we were doing,

and we'd redo that part of the show. He would simply retake the line or do a pickup and I'd have what I need to fix it in post. And that also worked if we were doing the show again the next night. So if we had a chance the very next night to do the show again, then I'd make sure that I had the line I needed so that between the two takes, night one and night two, I had a version of what I needed to have a clean show. but if the mistake was in the second act after intermission and we weren't doing the show again the next night, that was rough. I didn't really have that many options. I would just have to walk out on stage, stop the show, and get him to correct it, to do the pickup right there live in front of the audience. This was a bit of a thing between

me and Stewart. I didn't like it. There were better, more professional ways to handle this. I tried for years to get Stewart to handle those moments like that. I tried to get Stuart to wear an in-ear monitor so that we could avoid that awkward on-stage moment. But he flat out refused, mostly because he relished any opportunity to haul me out on stage. It became a bit of a shtick over the years. He loved having me out there because he liked pulling back the curtain, but also because it was kind of fun. He'd sort of like pick a fight with me on stage. It was a bit of a show, but like all the best performances, it was a show rooted in reality. It was an exaggeration of our actual dynamic. In this particular case, the case of the astrolabe,

I shamefully had no idea the correct way to pronounce astrolabe. So I completely missed that mistake. It flew right past me. And it flew past everyone in the audience, too. No one said anything about that. It went to air like that. I didn't know, Stuart didn't know, no one ever said anything. And so I wanted it to go to air like that for you today, too. We thought about editing it out and fixing it, but that's not the way it happened. It happened like this. But also, because letting you hear it like that allowed me to tell you the story I just told you, that backstory, which is just another reminder that sometimes mistakes lead to something interesting, as long as you let them.

We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with one more amazing space to tour with Stuart McLean. Your idea of banking without the noise happens here. Brought to you by RBC. Lock in, but don't burn out.

Take a moment to pause and appreciate that being here now means you've crushed every obstacle in your past so far. That's 100% success rate. Your finances work the same. It's persistence, not perfection that builds your financial future.

RBC is here to help. Welcome back. We've got another essay for you now. This postcard comes from the town of Gander in Newfoundland and Labrador, Stuart's talking about a very different kind of public building here, Gander's International Airport. If you've seen the wonderful musical come from away, then you'll already know something about the importance of that airport on 9-11. But there's a whole lot more about the airport that Stuart found out on his visit. Here he is

now with Gander. Live from the Smallwood Arts and Culture Center in Gander, Newfoundland, and Labrador, it's the Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I was born at the edge of the age of aviation, the era of airlines and airships, jet planes and rockets. The astonishment of flight defined my boyhood.

And I've come here to Gander today to answer an echo from those far away days. Because of all the reasons to come to Gander, and I'm sure there are many, I came to see your airport. That means, though, we have barely met, you and I, barely know each other, we do have something in common, because everyone in this little theater today is here because of the Gander Airport. Gander's the only town I know of that was built as a result of an airport. Everywhere else, everywhere else, things happened the other way around.

Everywhere else, the town came first. But that's not what happened here. They carved the Gander Airport out of the Newfoundland Forest before there was a town here, or even close to here. The airport came in the 30s. The town came two decades later. Gander's a substantial little town. There is a Canadian tire here. And a grocery store as well stocked as the ones in the city where I live. And a Tim Horton's, of course. But no one would ever. say Gander is a big city. The local phone book fills less than 20 pages. Towns still a chin up

away from 10,000 people. Yet there was a time when the Gander Airport was the largest airport in the world. Bigger than LaGuardia, bigger than Idlewild. Bigger than Gatwick and Heathrow and arguably more important than any of them. The runways at the Gander Airport are so big it is still one of the alternate landing sites for the space shuttle. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I should back up a bit. I should begin where any storyteller worth his salt begins. I should begin at the beginning. How about 1937? This was the middle of nowhere in 1937. And then suddenly mile 213 on the Trans Island Railway, which is where we are, just a mile post in the wilderness in the middle of a rock in the middle of the ocean, which doesn't sound like a spot to build

anything, let alone the largest airport in the world. Suddenly, Mile 213 found itself precisely in the middle of the world, right at the crossroads, because it suddenly mattered that mile 213 was right at the sweet spot of the great circle route from the eastern seaboard of North America to the coast of Europe. If you draw a straight line from New York to London, you go right over, Gander. And in 1938 and 48 and 58, if you wanted to fly along that line, you needed a place to put down to refuel. So with an eye to the future, they carved right runways out of the woods. And then, almost as if it was planned, the war came along. So they made the runways longer. It's hard to overstate the importance of the Gander Airport to the

war effort. The Allies would have won World War II without the Gander Airport, but the war was shorter because of it. During World War II, 20,000 Canadian and American built fighters and heavy bombers were brought here to Gander and flown, ferried, they called it, across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom. At the beginning of the war, they were shipping planes over by sea, and losing as much as 80% of the shipments to German U-boats. No one believed they could fly them over. They didn't have the range. but they hadn't counted on the engineers who modified the fuel tanks or the bush pilots the crop dusters and the barnstormers who flew the planes often by dead reckoning the first flight of seven lockheed hudson's left on november the 10th in 1940 and what a story that was there was only one real navigator among the seven pilots so instructions were kept simple if we get separated they were told, head for England. Well, they hit weather, and they did get separated. And some went up and some went down, and all seven made it. By the end of the war,

planes flying out of gander were guarding convoys, ferreting out submarines, and, of course, being ferried to England. Not tens, but hundreds of planes. every week. And then, when the war was over, the airport, your airport, was right at the epicenter of civilian flight. If you were flying east, say, from Paris to L.A., you might stop at Cairo, Constantinople, or Karachi, you might even overnight at the world-famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Sounds romantic, doesn't it? But wait, if you're flying from New York to London, you got to put down in Gander. Virtually every plane that flew across the Atlantic stopped in Gander.

In 1956, which was the heyday of it all, approximately 150 international flights put down at the Gander airport every single day. And something remarkable happened. Someone, somewhere, realized that the International Transit Lounge at the Gander International Airport probably would be the only impression of Canada that thousands of people ever had. And if Canada was going to make a good impression, this was her only chance. So they decided they better make an impression, and to do that, they decided to build a showcase. They commissioned a lounge to end all lounges, with a geometric, Tarazzo floor from Italy, sleek mid-century modern furniture from the Uber Design House Herman Miller,

and a stunning 72-foot mural, an ode to flight, painted on site. The artist Kenneth Lockhead, from the prairies, used over 500 dozen eggs to temper his paint. It was a remarkable room, an avant-garde snapshot of the future when it was designed and appointed. and today a glorious snapshot of the past because what is most remarkable of all is that the Gander Airport International Lounge has remained virtually untouched for 50 years. The New York Times Style magazine

was impressed enough to commission a feature about the lounge some years ago And in the glowing essay, they quoted Alan C. Elder, curator of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, who said the lounge is, and I'm quoting him now from the magazine, the lounge is, quote, one of the most beautiful and most important modernist rooms in the country, maybe the most important room. And we're talking about the Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador Airport here in case you just tuned in. And in case you think Elder might have taken leave of his sense, as I'm here to say, I don't think he did. I spend an afternoon at the airport this week, and here's what I can add. I think the lounge is one of the most remarkable rooms I have ever been in in Canada.

Every bit as glorious as some of the grand railway hotels and railway stations this country's known for. and in better shape than most. When you're there, it feels like they closed the doors in 1959 and only reopened them yesterday. What a place and what a history. Because if every plane that crossed the Atlantic put down here, so did every person. Oh, sure, said Cynthia Good Year,

who I met in the airport restaurant, and who has worked there at various jobs for 27 years. Oh, sure, said Cynthia, with a shrub. rug, I've served all the presidents, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. And the heck with the presidents, Cynthia has made tea for the queen. That's right, she said. But she turned the tea down. She asked for coffee instead. Cream, no sugar. Just about everyone in town has a story like this. That's true, said Marilyn Stockless, who was a teenager the day Fiddley. Cadill Castro came through town and went tobogganing for the first and probably only time of his life.

There was a bunch of us on the hill opposite the Hotel Gander, said Marilyn. And these men came along. They were more tan than us, that's for sure. And excited, too, they told us it was the first time they'd ever seen snow. Someone told me that when Fidel went down the hill on his borrowed toboggan, he had a cigar in a mouth. I don't remember a cigar, said Marilyn, but that was a long time ago. The list of people who went through the lounge reads like a social register of the 20th century. Everyone thinks the Beatles' first stop in North America was New York City. Uh-uh, boy. Their first stop was

in Gander. Who else has been through? Well, Jackie O. stopped here, and so did Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchill, Marlina Dietrich, Richard Nixon, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, who still comes regularly on his own plane, and Humphrey Bogart, and Bob Hope, and Woody Allen, and Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Rod Stewart, Clint Eastwood. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. You probably know them all personally yourself. Well, I know a lot of them personally, said Cynthia. Elizabeth Taylor always calls ahead and asks for our homemade bread. Vicente Fox orders two plates of lasagna. Bill Clinton loves our muffins, said the man standing beside Cynthia. I saw him stuff a few in his pocket on his way out.

Well, the Gander International Airport is not as busy as it once was. A lot of the flights that land these days are private flights, corporate planes. These days there are, what, maybe five scheduled flights landing here every day. As for the international flights, well, today's jets don't need to refuel on their way across the Atlantic. 11 international flights put down in Gander this month, down slightly from the 150 a day. These days the flights that do stop are often unscheduled, but it doesn't seem to matter. When they do arrive, phones start ringing around town, and in this world where customer service is often an automated voice message, people here in Gander tumble out of bed in the middle of the night

and open up the gift shop and staff the restaurant and the duty free they stand by ready to serve they are still rolling out the red carpet to people from all over the world here in Gander and they roll it out at any hour of the day and night which is how it all began isn't it? That's what it was like during the war And during the early days of transatlantic flight, and on September 11th, 2001, when almost 40 planes landed out of the blue, and everyone was cared for. We like to see ourselves as a nation that welcomes others.

Well, that's what you do here, and you've been doing it for years. And that's why we are here today. Thanks for having us. and thanks for making us feel so welcome. That was Stuart McLean. We recorded that at the Joseph R. Smallwood Arts and Culture Center in Gander-Newfoundland back in 2010. And listening to that script brings back such good memory.

We had an amazing time in gander, and the stories we heard. Oh, my goodness. Everyone had a story to tell about that airport. Feeling unsure in your career path, RBC has programs and resources to help you open the door. Discover RBC-led internships, scholarships, networking opportunities, and upskilling programs designed to help you launch or further your career. At RBC, your idea of career happens here. Learn more at RBC.com slash open doors. All right, that's it for today. But we'll be back here next week with one of my favorite Dave and Morley stories. Big Bucks poker, read the ad.

Kenny slapped the table again. He looked as if he was going. to burst. Record collector will pay top dollars for Walter Osternak and any or all polka albums. One day only, bring your records Monday morning to Dave's Polka Palace. Formerly the Vinyl Cafe, no calls, no early birds, get top cash on the spot. Kenny closed his eyes and grinned. Imagine some guy in Liederhosen jostling for position out in front of Dave's store. on Monday. Monday, April of 1st.

That's next week on the podcast. I hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. The recording engineer is someone who fixes so many of my mistakes. Master Builder, Greg DeCloot. Thank goodness I didn't mispronounce that one.

Master Builder, Greg DeCloot. Theme music by Danny Michelle. The show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeCloot, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now. Your idea of calm confidence happens here. Brought to you by RBC. Lock in, but don't burn out.

Progress doesn't happen all at once. and taking a moment to pause is the key. It's not intensity that builds momentum, it's consistency. $5 becomes 50, 50 becomes 500, and suddenly you're further than you thought. Stay steady, and no RBC can help make it happen.