Helluva Story

Most communities in Canada become a little more colourful every June as rainbow flags fly from town and city halls across the country. It’s a nod to support for the queer and trans community. This week, Falen Johnson hears stories about two towns with different approaches to the Pride flag. In Norwich Ontario, although you’ll find plenty of Pride flags, you won’t find any on municipal property. Reporter Katie Nicholson takes us to the small town of roughly 11,000, where they’re experiencing a pride divide. We’re also heading to the other side of the country, in Coquitlam B.C. for a very different Pride flag story. Last fall, the Gay Straight Alliance at Charles Best Secondary School in Coquitlam were asking why their city didn’t have a Pride event or raise the Pride flag. When they asked city council to raise a flag at city hall for Pride 2023, they were told it couldn’t happen. The city had a policy that meant a flag could not be raised. The students were discouraged, but they didn’t take no for an answer.

It was the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. More than 1000 people were arrested for blockading logging roads on Vancouver Island, particularly in the Fairy Creek watershed. At the height of the protests the provincial government announced a two year pause on old growth logging in the heart of the area. That deferment was quietly set to end this month, when a last minute extension was granted, kicking the final decision down the road to 2025. While we wait to learn the fate of old growth logging in the area, activists and loggers alike are still dealing with the legal, financial, and emotional fallout of the blockades. On this week's Helluva Story, Kieran Oudshoorn, who reported from behind the lines at the height of the protests, returns to the site of one of the major flashpoints with a protester who hasn't been back since—to find out how the fight at Fairy Creek has affected those involved, and hear what’s next.

Last fall CBC investigative journalist Jonathan Montpetit drove to a church in Windsor Ontario. It was the location for an evangelical christian conference. He wasn’t expecting much, it was a theological conference on a Saturday, maybe 50 people and some hymns? But, the place was packed, and the gathering seemed highly organized. Some people there had big goals for making the rest of Canada get in line with their agenda to roll back hard-fought freedoms for LGBTQ people. This week on Helluva Story we follow Jonathan on his investigation, and learn how this group's rhetoric could be contributing to the current climate of LGBTQ hate.

As you walk up the island’s north shore, making your way to Point Deroche, P.E.I., you’ll see it looming in the distance: a massive pile of boulders tapering up to a landing high above. It’s a stone seawall created to protect a land development from the encroaching Atlantic Ocean. The wall is dividing residents of the island, because not everyone agrees on how to protect the fragile P.E.I. coast from erosion made worse by climate change-fueled storms. This week, we follow Janna Graham’s documentary, with Islanders asking questions about who builds what and where amidst a struggle to find natural solution to P.E.I.’s eroding shores.

Alberta voters are scheduled to go to the polls on Monday, May 29th, in a tight election pitting the United Conservatives of Danielle Smith against Rachel Notley’s New Democrats. But there is a lot of political space between those two poles, which has left some wondering: What happened to the middle in Alberta politics? This week, producer John Chipman takes us to a southern Alberta riding where the local board of the United Conservative Party has been taken over by members of the upstart far-right Take Back Alberta movement, which has left more moderate centre-right voters feeling homeless. But a first-time candidate is pitching a middle-ground alternative that he hopes resonates with voters.

If you look up the the word ‘heal’ in a dictionary, it has a lot of different definitions: To become free from injury, to become whole, to be restored, to overcome. On this week’s Helluva Story with Falen Johnson, we hear two documentaries with stories about people from different walks of life who are on their own healing journeys. David Gutnick follows the story of dance instructor Susan Slotnick and her class for inmates in New York. Susan is working with the men to prepare a dance number they’ll perform for 800 prisoners. And Tanara McLean weaves together the stories of three Edmontonians who turn to their gardens for healing while grappling with grief, depression and anxiety. David Gutnick’s documentary originally aired on The Sunday Edition in 2013. Tanara McLean’s documentary originally aired on The Doc Project in 2021.

Montreal can feel like a place from a different time. A place that seems to remember the past in a different way. It’s like Montreal has this culture of reinvention, taking things that could have been forgotten, and forcing you to notice them in a new way. On this week's Helluva Story, host Falen Johnson takes a journey through Montreal, meeting a projectionist who is trying to inspire new love for the old art of projecting film. She also hears the story of a set of old church bells that have gone from ringing out over the rooftops, to resonating with listeners in a whole new way.

As a kid, Duncan McCue remembers his Shoomis hopping in his boat every morning. Shoomis means grandfather in Anishinaabemowin. He’d go across the lake just to pick up the Toronto paper, which he read religiously. His dad got the Peterborough Examiner and Globe delivered to the front door, while his mom loved listening to Peter Gzowski's Morningside on the radio. And as a family, they gathered around the TV to watch the National every evening. Consuming the news was a family tradition in the McCue household, which is why working at CBC for the past 25 years felt special to Duncan. In his last show as host of Helluva Story, we’re paying tribute to Duncan’s legacy at CBC by featuring a documentary he made in 2021 about a subject close to his heart – Indigenous language and the land.

It wasn’t long after Amy Graves met Mike Poirier that their relationship started to feel off. At first it was little things like his social media accounts having no history of his life before they met, or the fact he didn’t have pictures of his ex wife and kids. This nebulous feeling started to become more clear when she got a startling direct message over social media. It was from a woman saying she was Mike’s ex wife — warning Amy about Mike. On this week's Helluva Story, we hear Katie Nicholson’s documentary about a group that call themselves the Ex-Wives Club. Four women from across the country who say they endured an abusive relationship with the same man. Now, they’ve banded together to warn others. We also hear about Clare’s law, a piece of legislation that’s meant to help people find out if their partner has a criminal record of intimate partner violence.

Chris Brookes was a pioneer of audio storytelling from St. John’s, Newfoundland, whose work won him international acclaim and influenced radio makers worldwide. His documentaries covered a wide range of topics, a reflection of his voracious curiosity. But, whether it was a piece about Elizabethan England or the demise of Newfoundland's cod fishery, you could tell a Chris Brookes doc by its sound. Chris believed sound had the power to move listeners, to alter our perception of the world, if only for a few moments. His sonic soundscapes were poetic, complex, whimsical, some might say zany. Chris Brookes died suddenly earlier this month, at the age of 79. This week, we talk to Paolo Pietropaolo, a longtime collaborator and friend of Chris. We pay tribute to the visionary storyteller by listening to excerpts from some of his remarkable documentaries.

Every Saturday morning, 95-year-old Marjorie Taft still performs piano for a captive audience, despite living with dementia. But the show wouldn't go on if her daughter, Beverly, wasn’t there to get her mother out of bed. It’s a production of its own for Beverly. Arriving at the care home, drawing the curtains to let daylight in, and working through different methods to convince Marjorie to leave the comfort of her bedroom. On this week's Helluva Story, we hear Alisa Siegel’s documentary about a daughter’s mission to help her mother remember who she’s always been.

When Craig Desson visited New York City a few weeks ago, gate 26 at the Port Authority bus terminal was busy late into the night. That’s where migrants were waiting to get on a bus to Plattsburgh NY, then onto Roxham Road. It’s a trip thousands of desperate migrants have made, all seeking asylum in Canada. The migrants boarding this bus didn't know what was waiting for them at the end of the trip. But they also didn't know they were among the last to cross at Roxham Road into Canada. This week, producer Craig Desson gets on a bus at gate 26, and talks to migrants in the last leg of their journey to what they hope is a better life.

Residents of Port aux Basques, N.L. have seen raging seas and roaring winds before. But no one was prepared for post-tropical storm Fiona last fall. The storm forever changed this community. Winds and waves surged up the coastline, dragging cars, homes, and loved ones back to sea. This week, we hear Caroline Hilier’s documentary from Port aux Basque, six months after Fiona. We hear how this community is still struggling to move forward, knowing in the age of climate change this is certainly not Port aux Basques' last life changing storm. This Doc was made in collaboration with What On Earth.

When Junaid Khan’s mother commented on a friend who couldn’t fully speak English despite living in Canada for 25 years, a sobering thought crossed his mind: Why hadn’t he or his family learned any of the Indigenous languages of this land? This led him on a journey to learn Anishinaabemowin, the language of the people whose homeland the city of Toronto was built on. This week, we follow Junaid’s journey to bring Anishinaabemowin into his work as an ecologist, and why non-Indigenous learners are important to help preserve languages this country tried to purposefully stamp out.

When Michael Williams Stark was born in the 1950s, he had the most severe cleft lip and palate case in British Columbia’s history. As a kid, he had so many surgeries that he lost count. So, as an adult, Michael set out to use his experience to empower kids with the same facial difference by using improv. This week, we’re taking a trip in the wayback machine to 2001 with producer Cate Cochrane, to meet Michael and his students. And for a special update, we organized a reunion between Michael and a student who went to his workshop 23 years ago.

Going to a Canadian university was Solani’s dream. It was her entire family’s dream for their daughter, who grew up on a small farm in India. So in 2022, when Sonali was accepted to a private college in Vancouver, her entire village turned out to celebrate. But when she arrived in Canada, everything she imagined her education would be started to evaporate. Despite paying thousands of dollars in tuition, her classes lasted barely 10 minutes, and instead of lectures and discussions, her instructors told Sonali and her classmates to “just Google it. Soon, Sonali realized that she was one in a long line of international students being preyed upon. On this week's Helluva Story, we hear Kiran Singh’s documentary that follows two international students on a mission to get the education they paid for. This documentary was produced by Kiran Singh with Acey Rowe.

On a blizzardy night a couple of days before Christmas 2022, Fritznel Richard started a journey to reunite with his wife and son in Florida. A smuggler dropped Fritznel at Roxham Road in Quebec, where the 44-year-old would start his journey on foot. Days later, Fritznel’s frozen body was found on Canadian soil. In this episode, producer Verity Stevenson follows a Montreal advocate for asylum seekers who is on a journey of his own to return Fritznel’s ashes to his wife and infant son in Florida. This documentary was produced by Verity Stevenson. It was edited by Julia Pagel and Craig Desson.

This past News Year’s Eve, a party brought a bit of joy to a group of Ukrainian refugees in rural Ontario. Their host was Katya Sundukova, one of many Canadians who have opened their doors to Ukrainians displaced by war. But she has to face one hurdle when she first meets a new guest: Sundukova is Russian. On this week's Helluva Story, we hear John Chipman's documentary about help coming from an unlikely place.

Pier-Alexis Soulière's love of wine started around the family dinner table. Along with the salt, butter, and bread -- wine was always there. It was a pathway to deep family discussion and connection. It's part of what led Pier to become a sommelier. And, not just any sommelier. The best in Canada. Now, his love of wine is taking him far away from home. He's heading to compete in the World’s Best Sommelier competition, to champion Canada on the world stage and prove himself. But, this competition has left him conflicted... Can he stand to be away from his family to further his wine career? Or will home win the day? This week, producer Acey Rowe follows Pier’s story from a sugar bush in Quebec to a pivotal moment in his career on the world stage in Paris.

For 13 days in 1969, students occupied the computer lab at Sir George Williams college - now Concordia University - in Montreal. They were protesting racism in the classroom aimed at Black students. Now, over 50 years later, students involved in the protest reflect on how their actions changed the conversation about racism in Canada. This week, David Gutnick's documentary explores the protest’s significance, both then and now. And what a recent apology from the school’s leadership means for current students.