Did you know sediment at the bottom of a tiny lake in Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment might be the piece of evidence of the moment human activity changed the planet forever? I didn’t. But more on that in a minute.
I’m chuffed to be able to share that The Narwhal has picked up four award nominations from the Canadian Association of Journalists!
Let’s break it all down for you.
First, we’ve got Sarah Cox’s feature on the Pacheedaht First Nation’s stand on Fairy Creek, which is a finalist for best environment and climate change reporting. When everyone was reporting on the logging blockades themselves, Sarah went a step further and revealed the complexity of how the nation was asserting its rights while restoring damaged habitat — and how those choices might not fit perfectly within the vision blockaders have for B.C.’s old-growth forests.
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh reporter Stephanie Wood has been nominated, yet again, for the CAJ’s emerging Indigenous journalist award — and we’re so lucky to have her in our pod. Steph’s recent reporting has included features on the innovative Cheakamus community forest, the legal sagas of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation and Blueberry River First Nations and this first-person view on the work settlers need to do on reconciliation.
Amber Bracken’s work documenting the Wet’suwet’en crisis for The Narwhal has earned a finalist selection for excellence in photojournalism. As you’ve probably heard, Amber was one of the only journalists present in November to bear witness as militarized RCMP conducted raids on land defenders, arresting and charging more than a dozen people — including Amber.
And you might recall back in December I spoke with reporter Hilary Beaumont and photographer Christopher Katsarov Luna to learn about their dogged efforts to produce an investigation on the mistreatment of migrant farmworkers in southern Ontario. Well, that multimedia feature, with 360 imagery to boot, has now been recognized by the CAJ in the labour reporting category.
The four Narwhal nominations are for awards with finalists representing a range of Canadian news outlets, including the CBC, La Presse Canadienne, APTN News, TVO, The Local and The Tyee.
As our executive editor Carol Linnitt tells me, “these sensitive and complicated reporting projects take months to complete and require a tremendous amount of editorial support.”
“The reason our team is able to conduct this kind of reporting is because of the thousands of amazing people who support us as monthly members. They’re the unsung heroes of these nominations!”
Now, about that whole human-activity-changing-the-planet-forever thing (nerd alert warning 🤓).
It all ties into “Anthropocene,” a term that essentially means we’re living in an era that began when human activity first made a visible impact on all of the Earth’s formations at the same time — that time being around 1952, the height of the nuclear arms race, when tests and bombs left radioactive material, well, everywhere. (Fossil fuel residue followed that nuclear layer.)
Ontario bureau chief Denise Balkissoon recently caught up with Francine McCarthy, a professor of earth sciences at Brock University who’s long been studying Crawford Lake — one of 12 sites around the world that have shown signs of being similarly affected at the same time.
“No matter whether you’re looking at the Great Barrier Reef or where you are … there is evidence that the planet experienced an existential change,” says McCarthy, who’s part of a global team that’s studying these sites for a shared marker. If there’s agreement, a sample — maybe from Crawford Lake — will be picked to become the standard for the year everything changed. She’s hoping that if a bunch of “boring geologists” think it’s important enough to mark, we’ll all realize just how dramatic of an effect humans are having on the planet.
“I’d never really thought of nuclear fallout landing all over the entire world before, even on coral reefs,” Denise tells me. “That’s sort of spooky and cool at the same time.”
“I also find it touching how different sorts of people try to address or at least bear witness to climate change in whatever way makes sense in their life.”
Take care and bear witness,
Arik Ligeti
Director of audience
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