The Current - The Current in Saskatoon, the city that punches well above its weight

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

Saskatoon is a hub of creativity and culture, but is also grappling with the same problems roiling other Canadian cities. In November, Matt Galloway hosted a special show at a packed Broadway Theatre to meet the people that make life great in the Paris of the Prairies.First up, singer-songwriter Jeffery Straker performs some music from his new album Great Big Sky, and shares how he recently found out he has a new fan: King Charles III.Then, literary power couple Yann Martel and Alice Kuipers only intended to live and work in Saskatoon for a year, but they fell in love with the “land of living skies” — and never left.Plus, Saskatoon’s new Mayor Cynthia Block shares how she’s going to tackle a growing housing and homelessness crisis, and what it means to be the city’s first female mayor.Also, social media comedy star Farideh lands some laughs about women’s health and being a (sometimes under-appreciated) mother. And Indigenous-led tourism is inviting the world to Saskatchewan, telling the province's stories through the eyes of Indigenous communities. Jenni Lessard and Honey Constant-Inglis tell us about the power and understanding that can come from sharing a story — and a meal.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. Back in November, I had the chance to make my first trip to Saskatoon, right in time for a huge snowstorm. And we did a show in front of a live and extremely lively audience who filled the room despite the snow and the freezing cold, and they had a great, great time. Here is that program. Enjoy, and Happy New Year. We flew into Saskatoon in a blizzard. The roads were impossible. The schools were closed.

Snow banks up to your waist, minus a million. This is a hearty city, but you start to wonder in weather like this, geez, is anybody going to show up tonight? Come on. It's Saskatoon. It's winter. What do you think? People are going to stay home? We have a packed house here at the Broadway Theatre. You know, we've been crisscrossing this country this year, telling the stories of Canadians to each other.

We've been in Winnipeg, Haida Gwaii, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Montreal. Tonight, we are in the city they call the Paris of the Prairies, a place that keeps getting bigger, but where people don't forget to say hi to someone on the Mewasson Trail or push a stranger's car out of a snowdrift. This is a hub of creativity and culture. It punches above its weight. It's where the ties go beyond the bridges that span the South Saskatchewan River. It's also a city that faces some really tough problems, including a homelessness crisis that feels even more urgent when it's 25 below. So coming up, the brand new mayor of Saskatoon on how she wants to help those who are living

on the streets stay safe. We'll also meet some of the people who came here, never left, and are working to make this city even better, including the great authors Yann Martel and Alice Kuypers. We'll hear from people who have been here for generations and the explosion of Indigenous-led tourism in Saskatchewan and fresh from his tour of grain elevators. Where else can you say a tour of grain elevators? The Saskatchewan singer-songwriter Jeffrey Straker is our soundtrack tonight. winners. The Saskatchewan singer-songwriter Jeffrey Straker is our soundtrack tonight. Yes, it's freezing out

and I can tell you that because I walked here from my hotel, but you know what? You would never know it inside this theatre. Live from the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, my name's Matt Galloway and this is The Current. How's everybody doing? Everyone all right?

Oh my goodness. We are so happy to be in your town. The kindness that people have shown to us, the welcome that we have had here in the few days that we've been here has been just overwhelming and um it's just wonderful to be here so thank you very much for welcoming us and thank you very much for coming here tonight we have an incredible lineup of guests for you and we'll start with our musical guest he grew up in the small town of punashaiy, Saskatchewan. His new album is called Great Big Sky. It reflects those prairie roots. Please welcome to the stage of the Broadway Theatre, if you would, Jeffrey Straker. A tip of the big hat from Jeffrey Straker. How are you,

sir? I'm well. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. This is really fun. What do you love about playing in Saskatoon? There's so many wonderful venues here, including this one, but the audience is here, and everyone says this about their audiences, but my favorite audiences in Saskatchewan are here. They listen. They're loving. They give as much as they get. They're perfect people, Matt.

They're wonderful. They're wonderful. That all might be true, but are you just buttering them up because you are from the other city? I might be from the other city. I came up from down south. It got progressively colder as I made the drive. From Regina.

From Regina, exactly. But I'm delighted to be here. We're not going to hold that against you. Just quickly tell me about the community that you grew up in. Punish High Saskatchewan is a small grain farming town about three hours from here, about 300 people. Wonderful place to grow up i grew up on a farm beside the community uh the school i went to was mostly first nations uh people about 95 first nations we studied cree as a second language in our school growing up but

these a lot of these small towns over time like mine they're they're really shrinking and uh the rural landscape's really changing we're going to talk about that um and those grain elevators that you've been playing in. You have fans across this province. You have fans across the country. You have a fan in King Charles. What is this? This is new, Matt. This is new. The King. The King. We're not Elvis here. We're talking about like the King, exactly. He sent me a memo via the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan two weeks ago when I was on tour in England. And he really appreciated a song on my last record. And he told me that he was touched by the tune. And he also sent me well wishes for my tour.

Like, I was like, this guy's quite busy. But he took the time to do this. So I was pretty happy with that. The king has a CD player. I know. I knew he had the CD. I knew the CD made its way into his office because I got an email telling me.

And then I was like, yes, but is there a CD player in Buckingham Palace? So luckily he heard it. Apparently so. You're going to play a song first. What are we going to hear? I'm going to sing a song called Some Say It's Just a Sky. It's a tune I wrote when I was away from here. I moved to this little town in Ontario that some of you might have heard of. It's called

Toronto. And from there, I finally saw Saskatchewan when I got away from it. And this is about me trying to explain what I believe the sky means to prairie people. Live at the Broadway Theatre, this is Jeffrey Straker, and some say it's just a sky. These

secondhand clouds from Alberta are blown across Saskatchewan Remind me how time keeps slipping by, working as heaven's hired gun. I see a portrait of a whisper, can't be stretched a thousand miles.

Some look up and say hallelujah, some say it's just a sky i moved to the city my friends would ask why do you always look up so high that's where my mind goes when it wanders you see where it went this time or somewhere up there what is and what ain't can gently collide some fill it up with their dreams some say

it's just a sky oh leave me feeling lonely remind me how it feels to be found again and teach me about keeping my feet down on the ground and fill me with wonder asking why. Some say it's just a sky, some say it's just a sky Some say it's just a sky

In all that space, the world we know And the world we want it to be You can't see it in a photograph And it never answers directly But it's taught me that looking up Is just kind of like Looking deep inside For forgiveness, for favors

So see it's just This game Won't leave me Feeling lonely Remind me how it feels To be found Again and teach me About Keeping my feet

Down on the ground And fill me with wonder asking why Some say it's just a sky Some say it's just a sky And the stars will make you long For all you've left behind And every sunrise will whisper Just give it one more try leave me

feeling lonely remind me how it feels to be found again and teach me about keeping my feet down on the ground And fill me with wonder asking why Some say it's just a sky

Some say it's just a sky just escaped These secondhand clouds from Alberta are blown across Saskatchewan Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Jeffrey Straker. One of the many things that this city is known for

is its incredible literary scene. We got here on Sunday in the midst of that storm, and we're lucky enough to have Guy Vanderhaeg as our tour guide. We had to go to him because he couldn't get out of his driveway because there was so much snow, but we managed to get him out and drive him around.

Tonight, we are lucky to have with us two best-selling authors who make their lives here together. He is the author of novels including Self, Beatrice and Virgil, and Life of Pi, winner, of course, of the Booker Prize. She is a best-selling author of five novels, seven for younger readers. Her latest is a guide to writing for young people. It's called Spark. Please welcome to the stage of the Broadway Theatre, Yann Martel and Alice Kepers. Thank you. The story goes, Yann,

that you came here as a writer-in-residence at the Public Library in Saskatoon, and then you never left. Why did you stay? I thought I'd only stay a year, and finally what kept me here were the people and the skies. I love the skies here.

You know, you look on our license plates, it says Land of Living Skies, which is frankly a lot more poetic than La Belle Province or beautiful British Columbia, which say the same thing. Land of Living Skies is absolutely true. The skies here are extraordinary. First thing I'd suggest someone visiting Saskatoon is just look up. It's the sunniest province in Saskatoon, first of all. We own the sun here.

I won't tell the rest of the country that. It's cold. Who cares? Just dress for it. And then the clouds here are magnificent. Honestly, in the spring and the summer, these cloud ships, they're just extraordinary. So it's that. It's the weather. It's the people. It's that landscape, I like that flatness, it doesn't bother me, to me it's like a Rothko painting, it's the subtle beauty of lichen. Yeah, it's a beautiful

place, and it's a lovely city. What about for you, Alice? I mean, you grew up in London, England, it's a big change to come here. Did you imagine yourself living out in the prairies? He's laughing because I don't think I even knew where Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was and my family certainly didn't. Or even Canada. Jan can be quite poetic as you can hear and he was very convincing that we wanted to build a life here. He had the residency at the public

library for that first nine months and we met so many people who took time to introduce us to this community we found ourselves curling in rosetown and we we skied you across the prairies at one point we did things that we don't do so much now we have children um and decided to see what it would be like if we stayed a little longer and the longer we stayed the more enmeshed we became with other people with all the amazing things there are to do here and we realized this is actually a great place to raise a family and to write books what surprised you most about this place well minus 40 is a real thing cowboys are also real i didn't know that either growing up in london like what

surprised me is how you can step outside and say hi to someone you know within a couple minutes, but also every time you go somewhere. And tonight is a good example. There's lots of people I know here, lots of people I love in this room, and lots of people I've never seen before because it's got that big city, small city feeling. So there's always something really fun happening. I mean, I talked about the literary scene in the city, what is that about guy vanderhag was speaking about that earlier and that there's a long tradition of that of this city supporting writers and it's not just writers but writers in particular seem to get

some sort of injection some little boost from from the town what is that about do you think well i think the fact that it's so isolated means there's lots of time to spend with other people and that will yield stories i think i read somewhere about because there are no mountains the highest thing on the prairie is someone standing and so you focus on that you focus on the thing that's tallest that's the person next to you maybe they're taller and i think a lot of places that are isolated generate stories because you know if you don't tell your own stories, no one else will. So I think it's a product of the isolation,

the ferocious weather, that's quite exhilarating, and it creates community because you're indoors. But you're right, there is a peculiar, strong literary tradition in the prairies that's very, very, very strong. Alice, how has the landscape filtered into your writing? Well, when I first came here, I didn't really think about setting at all.

In fact, I discussed with writer David Carpenter how setting just wasn't important. My first book is written with no setting. It's written on a fridge door. And then as I lived here longer and got to know this territory, Treaty 6 territory, homeland of the Métis, the storytelling culture, traditions, the people who live here, the way people look at the land. The latest book I've

written, the editor who just read it and said nice things, which is exciting, said that it's imbued with a sense of place, a place she's never known. And so I think it's slowly shifted and really filtered through to everything I'm doing. You surprised by that? Very. I'm endlessly surprised by stuff. I find lots of things surprising about this place. I've learned to do something that I call micro-travelling. With four kids, it's not as easy to jump on a plane, although we still do, luckily. But just taking time to pay attention to that changing, shifting landscape.

Like you would have seen as you were running along the trails, which I was very impressed by, that you ran at minus 20 today or whatever. Perhaps not the smartest thing I've ever done. But yeah, to know that you've done that, like to see that landscape, to know there was a coyote on the trail just the day before, it's really interesting when you pay attention to this.

This is a city, I mean, we said earlier on that there's so much energy here people are working toward the idea of the city but it's also a city that faces some big wicked problems. I mean the homelessness crisis we talked about in our program at length, it becomes much more acute when it is so cold and you see people who are just

struggling to get by when you know that you can go somewhere warm and they can't. How have you engaged with that? I'll say that's another that, in a sense, oddly enough, is attractive about Saskatoon. Because it's a town of only 300,000, you see everything, you live everything. It is a real community.

So the homelessness challenge is not something far away, you know, on the other side of the city. It's prevalent. We see it everywhere. You go to the Miwasan where you see coyotes, you also see homeless people. And yeah, the ferocious weather means

it really matters to us because people die. And it's the result of a racist cleavage here. Also, this is a wonderful place. It's also a terribly racist place. And you can't escape that. And nor should you want to. We have to live the ugliness of our societies to get through them.

And so it's present there. And yeah, work needs to be done. It's getting worse. And these are fellow citizens who are less lucky than us. And so, yeah, it's something that both Alice and I have been involved with through an organization called Sanctum, for example, because it's not something that you can just wish away. You have to find concrete solutions for these fellow citizens who are far less lucky than us. Part of the reason that we come out to do events like this is to tell people about a place that they might not know about or that they have an idea of that maybe should be

interrogated. What do you think the rest of the country should know about this city? Well, you know, when I first moved here, the number of people would ask me, why do you live in Saskatoon? And they were obviously from Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver. And I'd say, why do you live in your place where you have to endlessly commute? You don't know your neighbours. You know, Saskatoon is like a decathlete. You know, the decathlete is not the best at any single discipline, but overall it's good enough to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

That's fantastic so for example little saskatoon middle nowhere has the largest art gallery between winnipeg and vancouver the ramey has a terrific ukrainian museum there's a large ukrainian population here there's wonderful theater here at the university at the refinery at the Persephone the SSO middle of nowhere the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra pulls way above its weight so there's a lot here. Alice you talk about micro traveling where's the place that you go in the city to feel like you have that connection with this town? I always like to go to Delish the coffee shop just by our house to take a moment to go right um Warnerskamen is a World Heritage Site. So it's a little bit more of a drive, but it's worth it. And I think just seeing the energy that continues in this place,

in this building right here, we've been to loads of things. So it's just really, there's lots of choices. There's a lot of energy in this city. Thank you both for being here. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having us. Jan Martell and Alice Kuypers, bestselling authors, philanthropists.

Jan Martell and Alice Kuypers, best-selling authors, philanthropists, and as you heard, proud Saskatooners, welcome back to our stage, our musical guest, Jeffrey Straker. What are you going to play for us? Hey, I'm going to play a song of mine. It's called More Than Two-by-Fours in Timber, Matt. And it's a tune I wrote. I'm taking people out of the city now. We're going out to the countryside, out in the prairies. It's a song about sort of the fall of the grain elevators and the disappearance from the prairie topography. This is Jeffrey Straker in More Than Two-by-Fours in Timber.

applause applause There was a TV camera there by the railroad tracks. Some folks were point-looking up at it, but most were looking back. There used to be three grocery stores in town. There's just one left. Padlock the doors, board windows up. Place a little frayed at the edges And that church where they'd sing on Sundays Long since closed

Now they're gathered here To struggle with holding on For once again letting go It was so much more than two by fours and timber That last green elevator Was coming down today Under the breath

people said goodbye They tried their best to take it off in stride They just got used to doing it that way For years that prairie sky Scrapers stood guard At the end of Main Street

Farmers measuring luck By the bushel or truck So would be to reap But the bottom line Nichols and Dines In progress have their say They knew if you weren't From round here

It wouldn't really matter Anyway We were so much more Than two by fours And timber We'll be right back. They tried their best to take it all in stride They just got used to doing it that way The bulldozer kept trying They had a hard time getting her to move Though no one said it It's almost like they knew

She had a point to prove An old couple looking on said Well, ain't that just how it goes A point to prove An old couple looking on Said well Ain't that just how it goes Nothing lasts forever Kind of clean their throats Used to mean From a distance

You were heading somewhere When heading here Now more than the last grain elevator Was disappearing It was so much more Than two by fours and timber That last grain elevator Was coming down today

Under their breath People said goodbye They tried their best To take it all in stride It just got used to doing it that way I'll be your man Two by fours and timber. There's that line in the song, if you weren't from here, it wouldn't mean anything anyway. Yeah. For people who aren't from this province,

what do and what have those grain elevators meant to Saskatchewan? I fell in love with them from an early age growing up in a small town, and every small town in Saskatchewan had these things, and they stuck up on the horizon as you were driving around Saskatchewan. The name of the town was on the side. It was kind of something to see when you went for a drive in a way in Saskatchewan, you know? And one of my first jobs ever

was cleaning the boot of one of these old elevators. All the dust would settle to the bottom. And I had this job at 14 years old and I would go down this deep hole with this bucket and down a ladder and bring up buckets full of dust. And I'm not Catholic, but I would go down this deep hole with this bucket, and down a ladder, and bring up buckets full of dust, and I'm not Catholic, but I believe I discovered purgatory, like it's there, so you're welcome, I found it, but when these things went up, you know, at the turn of the century, it signaled to the surrounding areas, like we're a community, we're doing this together,

we're giving this our college try, We're going to give this a go. And it was the heart of the community. And they were a real going concern for a while. They were the economic hub of those places. And now they're coming down. They peaked in the 50s. There were 3,000 of them, these iconic 30,000 bushel grain elevators. And today there's less than 175.

What is lost when there's only that number left? To me, they symbolize not just the elevator itself is going, but these small towns are going, and the hearts of these small towns are going. A lot of them are shrinking before our very eyes, and it's a real shift

going on in Saskatchewan, you know? And when they went up, it was all this hope, and as they're coming down, what I hoped to try to ask in that question was, now what? Thank you very much. We are live in Saskatoon. And this is, as you've heard over the course of this evening,

a great place. People are plugged into this town. There's a sense of community here. They want to make their city an even better place. There are some big problems that are here in this town as well, and it is the job of my next guest to try to tackle them. Joining us now on stage, the new mayor of Saskatoon, Cynthia Block. Congratulations. Thanks for having me, Matt. I actually just really want to welcome you and your crew to Canada's best city.

We are charming, and you are clearly seeing that in your guests this evening. It's been wonderful to be here, and people have been so kind and generous and warm, and they're welcome. It's been great. That's who we are. Tell me a little bit about why you wanted this job. I wanted this job to make a difference. I mean, I've been serving on my community in many ways throughout my lifetime, really. I was a journalist for a long time in the city, and I was a small business owner. I've served on, you know, many volunteer committees and events. I think that

we have an incredible opportunity to show the rest of the prairies a really bright north star, even as we have come through some very difficult times, not just in our city, but in cities right across Canada who are facing homelessness and community safety issues and affordability. Can I ask you about public service and what inspired you to get into public service? I mean, part of this is about one of our heroes, somebody I know well, Adrienne Clarkson. I'm so glad you asked that question. I was in grade eight, and it was about the time when people start to ask you what you're going to do with the rest of your life, which is very daunting and scary. And there was a show called The Fifth Estate on CBC. Yes. And this beautiful woman was uh doing this news magazine program telling canada this is

what's going on in your country and i thought to myself that's it that is exactly what i want to do and that sort of i think launched my sort of efforts to come from uh a small i'm a farm girl as well just like jeffrey and we know that it isn't always expected that people that come from a small, I'm a farm girl as well, just like Jeffrey. And we know that it isn't always expected that people that come from small places can do bigger things. And so sometimes folks weren't really sure that I could do it. And truly that just made me more determined. So I heard you on Saskatoon Morning talking to Stephanie, and you said the morning after the election on very little sleep, that your top priority is homelessness. We arrived in the middle of a snowstorm and it's been frigidly cold. The shelters are full,

warming spots are full. How do you see the homelessness crisis in this city right now? Well, right now I woke up this morning to a record number of people who are staying in the warming shelter. We've never had 260 people that needed shelter on one frigid cold night and this is just the start of winter here. That is deeply concerning and that warming centre, it just seems everything that we've tried to do as cities across the country, it's just, it accelerates at a pace where policy makers and service providers just can't keep pace. And I think what gives me energy and optimism is the people of this city who are stepping up and asking how they can help.

If it was not for a lot of private donations and the United Way and the Community Foundation, we would have potentially had a disaster on our hands. And it's not just here, it's across the country, but it's exploding. There are encampments coast to coast to coast in big cities and small towns. The population of homeless folks in this city has more than doubled, right? So what are we doing wrong, do you think? Well, I think we're being incremental, and I think that we have to be like 100% full force ahead. And that looks like what? What does that mean? Well, the honest answer, I think probably one of the best answers, I was at a conference on Friday and listened to a man who was homeless from the age of 12. He said this, solving homelessness is not complex. It's just

hard. Complex means that we don't actually know what we need to do to help people. And that's not true. What we need is money. We need a lot of investment to make sure that we are adequately helping people to make sure that they can get off the streets into safe housing and transition out of homelessness. So where is that money? You were at the throne speech yesterday. Is that money coming from the provincial government? I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I mean, one of the things we've heard from advocates who are working on the front lines is the need for transitional housing. We heard that again and again and again from people. What would that, what would transitional

housing mean? Well, actually, literally the day after the inauguration, I went to actually help, what do you call that thing with the shovel? I didn't have to do that before. Oh, digging the, so like a groundbreaking ceremony? A groundbreaking ceremony, that's what you call it. All the things, the lingo you have to learn now in this office. All the things I lingo I have to learn. A new transitional home in the Kensington neighbourhood that I think, you know, is going to be the start of how we're moving forward with our housing accelerator dollars that

our city has accepted. And we are moving forward with our housing accelerator dollars that our city has accepted, and we are moving aggressively. I mean, because homelessness, okay, it was a good plan. And I mean, just foundationally, people need to be housed. That is, I think, the period. That is what we have to do. And figuring out homelessness, we still also have to figure out those other pieces of the housing continuum, affordable housing, attainable housing, and we're working on it.

But we need to work right now to make sure that we are taking care of the front lines of homelessness. How do you ensure that people, we've heard resistance from neighbourhoods, we spoke with somebody yesterday who is now on council, who in some ways led a campaign to have a shelter in his neighbourhood closed down and moved to a different neighbourhood. How do you deal with the pushback? I think the critical difference between the way forward and where we've been is that we have relied on governments to solve our problems, and we need our community with us. and we need our community with us. We have homeless facilities all across the city but this one shelter is far larger and what can we learn from that? What

kinds of supports can we put in place to ensure that people who are unhoused in and around sheltering spaces are safe but also their neighbours and these are the things that residents on every doorstep, in every neighborhood across the city have been asking us. The estimate is that 90% of people experiencing homelessness in Saskatoon are Indigenous. Why is there so much inequality in the city right now? Oh, you know, I mean, it's colonialism. It's systemic barriers. I mean, it's the gauntlet of the sad story of a part of the history of Canada that we definitely need to face.

That number is staggering. 90% of the people who are out on the streets are Indigenous. Right, and so another really big piece of figuring this out is ensuring that we have indigenous people and people with lived experience at the table to help us learn what is the best way forward. What's the message, do you think, to the rest of the country that Saskatoon, what can this place teach other communities, do you think? I think we're resilient people. Saskatoon, like every other city in Canada, is on the front lines of a crisis that it doesn't have all the tools to solve. But what we do have is a lot of determination. We're a city that looks after each other. We

punch above our weight, like you said, and we never give up. And I'll just continue to believe that if we work together, that there is nothing we can't achieve or overcome. I'm really glad to have you here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's the new mayor of Saskatoon, Cynthia Block. Thank you very much. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. So we've had some great people here with us on stage. We're going to crank things up. Our next guest is a big star here in Saskatoon and beyond.

Please put your hands together. Maybe you want to dance as well for Faraday. Thank you. Morning sickness, endometriosis, menopause, migraines, PCOS. What's happening to your body? We don't know. Because we've never really studied the female body. We're all funny. Say it's all in my head, but the research is quite funny. No, we've never really studied the female body. How are you?

I'm so good. People who are listening can't see what you did. Oh, I... And what you're wearing It's sunglasses, but it's like your full face My husband says it makes me look like a security camera It's a good look Thank you That tune, I mean, what is it?

Three million views on TikTok? Yeah, and 17 million on Instagram. What is it like to be a viral star on the internet? I don't know anything about these things. Well, I would say a little overwhelming, honestly. Is it? You know, like Maria Shriver posted and was like, this should be a White House song for, like, the Women's Health Initiative.

And I was like, I just put my phone down. And I was like, I don't even know how to feel about that the tune is called female body tell me about it the punchline is basically i list many conditions that affect women because they've never really studied the female body and uh i don't know if it's funny. It's just true. Research is, like, they didn't really actually have to include women in research studies until 1993. So, personally, what happened to me is that I needed to take my husband to the hospital. And he was having a hard time grabbing stuff. He kind of had a hard time going up the stairs. And I was like, we have to go to the hospital.

He's like, no, I don't think so. I was like, we will. And personally, I was preparing for him to be treated like a woman and i thought and which which is they're not going to believe you he's he's going to send them home but matt you know it's like when he walked through those doors it's like he had beyonce's wind wind machine on him all those nurses were like, he looks like our son. They like got him an emergency bed. Hundreds of people are waiting. All of them women.

And they're like, we know exactly all the tests to run. We're so glad you're here. At that point, I'm like, leave him alone. He's fine. Are you surprised that it has become, I mean, that that many people have leaned into this understood what the message is of the tune um great question i you know usually with my songs i'll have an idea of like oh this one's gonna hit and then it bombs and then there's ones that are

surprised but i have also learned that like it seems like comedy is also about like pressing a rage button and um i know that i have lots of friends with endometriosis who have like had to advocate for themselves and not been heard and not believed yeah exactly and so i kind of thought in my heart like this is something i know women are talking to each other about that they're. So I'll give them a banger. And you did. Yeah. And you never felt like you had to leave and go somewhere else to do your music? I mean, people, one of the things that we've heard

is that people will go and then come back. Yeah, you know, I was like, I am never going to live in this place. As soon as I can get out of here, I'm out of here. This winter is not for me. And then I had a chance to tour the world. I toured all over Canada. I toured all over the US, Europe and New Zealand and Australia. And I was like, there isn't a place better. Firstly, everybody's from somewhere. But then I was like, the people, my mom. I'm not going to leave my mom. my mom like i'm just i'm not gonna leave my mom what is it like when the phone rings and it's um good morning america or the today show on the

other line you know i'm i'm so grateful like one of the things about living in saskatchewan is that there are new opportunities that are available because of the internet so then you're like what is happening why is good Good Morning America calling me? Because I just put a video on my phone. And I think that's one of the things that lets me allow to keep staying, is that my career isn't limited by my location anymore, because we have an airport,

and we have the internet. What else do you need? What else do you need? Just my mom. Done. You write a lot about motherhood as well. Mm-hmm, yeah. What drives you crazy about being a mom? Wow.

Well, I mean, I think it is a journey through chaos. It's limitless. But yeah, the most annoying part is that strangers approach my husband in public when he's just pushing a stroller to tell him how amazing he is. Literally. I have a job where I wish for applause. Where are my strangers approaching me? That sets up this next tune that you're going to play.

Yeah. It was my first viral hit, Matt. It's called Such a Good Dad, and it's really about all the applause my husband gets. And I want to tell you, he is such a good dad. You're saying that seriously? That is serious, but also, when we first had our baby, he took off two months,

and he strapped that baby to him in his little Baby Bjorn carrier, and he went out in the neighborhood. He came home, and he was like, I am a god. He's like, strangers, women are approaching me like, oh my god, look at that man. My baby daddy wouldn't do that. And like, look at you. And he's like, this is incredible. So we started laughing about this together, about this truth that I'll be like, you realize if somebody's like in the grocery store being like, you're such an amazing dad. I'm like, you realize ain't no mom being approached in a grocery store. I'd be like, you're out with your child in a grocery store?

You are so amazing. What a mom. All right. Let's hear it. Performing live at the Broadway Theater, this is from her album, The Motherlode. It's Faraday, and yes, you are such a good dad. I did the cooking and the cleaning And the groceries and the laundry Fed the cat and the dog And someone stole my pocket. Got a gift for your mother, but she probably won't like.

Paid a bill, wiped it, but broke up a couple times. Then I just about lost my mind because we both took the kids to the park. And someone said to you, You are such a good dad. You are such a good dad. You are such a good dad. I woke at 5 a.m. to screaming in the hallway. There was barf in the bed, so another load of laundry. Our kid was crying, so we talked about our feelings.

You were sleeping. That's cool. But then you got up and your mom came over and she said, You are such a good dad. You are such a good dad. Yes. I did the bath time, story time, the pee time, the snack time. I said, go to bed just about a million times.

Then I sat down to write this song and you said Did you notice I'm of the Lord? You are such a good dad You are such a good dad such a good dad You are such a good dad, such a good dad. You are such a good dad, yeah, such a good dad. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's fantastic.

Farideh. Yes, indeed, she is on the internets you can find her on Instagram and TikTok her handle is ilovefaraday joining me now on stage two people who are inviting the world to Saskatchewan and telling the story of their home through an

indigenous lens Jenny Lessard is Métis from northern Saskatchewan you could say she's a chef that would not be nearly enough. You'll hear why in just a moment. Also joining us on stage is Honey Constant Inglis, who is a Plains Cree artist, archaeologist, and heritage educator. Thank you both for being here.

Thank you. As I say, you're inviting the world to this province and to this area. How big of a deal is, in particular, Jenny, Indigenous-led tourism in Saskatchewan right now? Well, I think there's a saying in Indigenous tourism that nothing about us without us. And I, as a Métis person, I don't want to tell First Nation stories or go into communities and tell their stories for them. So that's super important. And I think there's a, pun intended, there's a huge appetite for Indigenous culinary and Indigenous tourism, and we have the people here ready to deliver those experiences.

What do you think is driving the interest in that, Honey? It's a lot of stories. Like, words have meaning. And the more that we're sitting together telling these stories, the more that we realize there's these little invisible strings. So in my language, I'm Plains Cree from Sturgeon Lake. So we call it Wokotoan. And it's a natural law teaching, which means all of my relations. It doesn't mean that you have to be blood to be family. It means that everyone is connected some way, shape, or form, whether it's biking on the roads, surviving the snow, or telling these stories. The more that we are realizing our own voice and reconciling with ourselves and healing ourselves and our communities and sharing that out, we're noticing that

resiliency, we're noticing that fire, and we are just in welcoming people in, so that way we are able to have these stories led by us. Let's talk about what that looks like. Jenny, you lead a trip called From Field to Shield. Tell me about that. Well, I lived in Jasper, Alberta for quite three or four years as a youth, being a ski bum. And I participated in something called the Banff Jasper Challenge or Jasper Banff. I can't remember which way we, yeah, Jasper Banff. And I thought, you know what? Where I'm from, Prince Albert, that's about the same distance. Woo, go Prince Albert. Love the shout out to the audience.

I should say where I'm from, where I was born, and my parents moved us way further north when I was two months old. That's about the same distance from Prince Albert to La Ronge as Jasper to Balfe. So I kept this kind of name in my mind, Field to Shield. So from Prairie Field to Precambrian Shield. And then partnered, well, they came to me, actually, Adventure Destinations, who are an amazing company. Yay, Adventure Destinations. That provide experiences all over the North.

And they basically let me create this culinary tour that starts in Saskatoon, and honey is part of that. So we start out the first day in a good way. Yes, so I am very fortunate to be on a healing journey with myself. So my grandparents are residential school survivors. be on a healing journey with myself so my grandparents are residential school survivors and part of my own healing journey is connecting to the medicines and understanding my connection to land so I grew up on the landscape but not connected to the spirituality and that was just St. Michael's residential school um so how I do my entire being I've my master's on it even though it's archaeology, was stories. And part of it is

understanding who we are and how we're connected to the land and how are we responsible to community members. So we start off with smudging. So I teach them about what smudging is. And then I tell them we're putting down medicine for your travels. That way you can learn in a good way and hopefully find something that you can connect to as well. So after the smudge on the riverbank we get back in the bus and we drive to Batoche National Historic Site which is the site of the resistance. I would say it's the Métis heartland in Saskatchewan and I'm very proud to be part of that community so then I get to share my Métis heritage. It's not that long ago and I think that watching the guests' faces as they're like, wait, that was like yesterday, basically.

And then going further north and spending five days in the community of Missinipi, which is adjacent to the community of Grandmothers Bay, which is part of the Lac-La-Range Indian Band, and learning from those community members, having language dinners, trap line tours. By the end of that experience, and the company that's hosting this

is not an Indigenous-owned company, but they're right in the community, so obviously the storytellers are, and the culinary folks up there are. By the end, if you've shared a story and a meal, one or the other, but both, it's, you can't go back from that, unless you're just a very hard, rotten person. In that case, don't to saskatchewan but yeah and can i can i ask you about the meal part just because food is is this doorway to conversation and understanding and you have this great knack for making people when you talk about food really hungry so i get to harvest from the land with tobacco offerings. And as, you know, if it's a really bad year, really drought year for certain plant nations, I won't harvest those.

I'll get them from down south where I live now on Treaty 4 territory in the Capel Valley. But the main course is bison. The bison were reintroduced to the park in December 2019. So we have bison tenderloin with nettle sancho puree under it, a little smoked bison broth, and you enjoy that meal right in the teepee village where people actually would have prepared and eaten and feasted together.

I would like to say we're not eating our conservation herd. We are not eating our conservation herd. Duly noted. Thank you. We sourced our bison somewhere else. Yes, we do. Locally sourced amazing bison. Yes. I mean, just finally, there's a lot of generosity

in the work that you're doing. I mean, you are... I don't know. The world is filled with some really hard stories, and it's easy for people to feel like there's not a receiving audience in some ways for good. Do you know what I mean? And what you're doing is putting something out there

and trusting that it's going to be received by people who want to receive that and to create something bigger and something better. It's healing through laughter. It's healing through feeding people. It's healing through being hosts and visiting. All our history for so long, especially targeted in the prairies, has said, don't talk to each other.

So what we're doing is we're saying, we're not going to do that anymore. We're talking to each other. And how are we related? So I've adopted all of you sitting here. I expect Christmas gifts. I'm really glad to hear about the work that you're doing. It's important, but it feels set in this place, very specific to this place as well.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Jenny Lessard is a Métis chef, culinary consultant from northern Saskatchewan. Honey Constantin Gliss is a Plains Cree artist, archaeologist, and heritage educator. And they have both been with us here on the stage at the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon. This is a special edition of The Current from the Broadway Theatre.

My name is Matt Galloway. It has been such a joy to be here with you in your city. We have one more tune to take us out. Please welcome back to the stage our musical guest, Jeffrey Straker. Thank you. So you, like so many people, you leave and then you come back. You were living in Toronto for a good chunk of time. Yeah, a good chunk of time. What brought you home? It was seeing this place from afar and really coming to really appreciate a lot of things about it that I

simply never saw when I was here. And I also hadn't found love in Toronto. I was going to say, there's also a love story to that, right? Tell us a love story. You know, I'm an out gay guy. And I would have thought that in Toronto, the pinkest city in the country, I would have found love, right? Not a chance. So I came back to Saskatchewan and I met the one man, my partner Michael. He's from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. We've been together for four years. And the

geography and the people brought me back and loved keeping me here. I think, I mean, farming is kind of a macho occupation. I think I met the only gay farmer in Saskatchewan. I'm not entirely sure about that, but yes, continue. He's mine. You're going to play another song for us to close us out. What are we going to hear from you now? A song I wrote called Sing Your Song. I co-wrote this with Lynn Miles. And it's a song for the dreamers, the hopers, the people who have a vision for making

a place better. I think that describes Saskatchewan people to a T. They have such great dreams and hopes, and I think this tries to sum up part of that encouragement I want to give them to bring all that to life. Live on stage at the Broadway Theater is Jeffrey Straker, and sing your song. There's a whole world inside this piano As a kid I'd explore and play Used to dream of a name on a marquee But I stopped dreaming those dreams one day There was a fault line between who I once was And who I guess I became

Against my will, a canyon I filled With wishes, excuses and blame Looking back through the present light I was only Running from myself But I And it's okay To not quite belong Letting down your guard

Is how to be strong I was so afraid Of getting it wrong Even if you think Your voice ain't the best that's okay it's yours, go right ahead and sing your

song oh, sing your song if you told me your dreams I wouldn't judge you cause I've already stood in those shoes I know what it's like to stand up there alone With everything to lose

Yeah, a soul is a bit like lightning And there's thunder when you open it wide It's the gamble you take You don't know what they'll say You know you got nowhere to hide Looking back through present life I was only

running from myself But I learned it's okay To not quite belong Lettin' down your guard Is how to be strong I was so afraid Of gettin' it wrong

Even if you think Your voice ain't the best That's okay, it's yours Go right ahead and sing your song Oh, sing your song Yeah, sing your song Oh, sing your song So tell me are you one Who's been waiting

Is tomorrow where you place In your beds Keep on reciting those Worn out storylines Pretend to the world Be regrets And it's okay To not quite belong

Let down your guard It's out to be strong I was so afraid Of getting it wrong Even if you think Your voice ain't the best That's okay