Midweek
Wednesday March 1st, 2023 with Mac Linke & Reanna Julien
Winter 2023 - Episode #4

A radio show is a bit like building with a random bag of Lego blocks: You may know the pieces will (probably, perhaps) all fit together … somehow … but you can’t be sure what you’re building until the last piece is snapped into place. That’s the way it is with Midweek, anyway — this week more than most! We were shorthanded for this show and started the day with just three stories done, but the team went to work and by the time we went to air at noon, the show they’d snapped together was pretty darned solid. Host Reanna Julien opened, telling co-host Mack Linke about the conversations she’d had earlier in the day with folks on the Carleton University campus about their thoughts after one full year of war in Ukraine. Then we spoke live with Kaite Burkholder Harris, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, about the city’s long-declared housing emergency and what needs to be done to make progress. We then joined Ottawa’s Indigenous community at their annual round dance, through a documentary produced by Mack Linke that captured the music, singing, dancing and fellowship of the gathering. With March being Women’s History Month and with International Women’s Day coming up in a week, reporter Gail Pope went around asking passersby who the most influential woman in their lives has been. The most shared answer: Mom. But there were some interesting runners-up, too. Meanwhile, Midweek’s Devon Tredinnick was out asking people what makes them happy (which seemed like a timely question, now that we were finally clear of February). Academic success, working out, walking and eating all came up, but so too did seeing other people being happy, along with volunteering and helping others more generally. Made us kinda happy to hear that… There may not be unanimity on whether snow … and more snow … and more snow is a source of happiness, but like it or not, it’s what we’ve got, so Mack Linke looked at how many folks in town are rolling with it — literally — on bike tires, and how one community organization is encouraging winter biking to promote a greener (can we say that in winter?) lifestyle. Winter biking alone isn’t going to stop climate change, and our altering temperature patterns are even affecting maple syrup tapping. Gail Pope reported on some subtle impacts — and not-so-subtle ones like last year’s derecho windstorm that snapped thousands of sturdy maples in sugar bushes as if they were twigs. This past month’s mild temperatures messed up many of the National Capital’s Winterlude events and kept the Rideau Canal closed for skating, and this sank the plans that Zups Poutinerie in the Byward Market had to sell their specialty at the canal. Mack Linke spoke with owner John Hennessy about what this disappointment meant in business terms and what he thinks may be ahead for businesses that are counting on old-fashioned winters. And y’know, building with Lego blocks is a lot like making a radio show, at least when Lego’ing is a team sport: It takes everyone working together to succeed and have fun. Devon Tredinnick ended this week’s show with a documentary that took us to the first-ever Lego League Explore Festival in Kanata that also had helping the climate as a theme.