Thunder Bay Climate Crisis MOMS 2024

Imaginary Appalachia?

Last weekend, I flew to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where, according to the locals, we were experiencing “end-of-the-world weather” with highs reaching 21 degrees (that’s 70 Fahrenheit) instead of the prototypical impending frost. What a time to study environmental history. With unprecedented storms impacting one of my favorite cities, Asheville, North Carolina, and Canada experiencing a more prolonged fall than normal, the impending threats from climate change are undeniable as we approach 2025. I asked a local if there would be any harm to these extended falls and warmer winters in Canada, and the answer is yes. Northern Ontario and other Northern regions of Canada are where many Indigenous peoples live, and many of them rely on ice roads half the year as there are no real roads that far north.

Mt McKay scenic lookout

I attended the International MOMS conference with five other students from the University of Saskatchewan at the NOSM and Lakehead University joint campus in Thunder Bay. I spoke on a panel about drugs and had to follow my supervisor, Dr. Erika Dyck after she spoke about her book The Acid Room: The Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital (check it out) https://www.anvilpress.com/books/the-acid-room-the-psychedelic-trials-and-tribulations-of-hollywood-hospital.

I spoke about my Master’s Thesis research into the efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy as a valuable missing tool for BIPOC America. In 2018, a study of PAT or Psychedelic Assisted Therapy treatments published in BMC Psychiatry showed as little as 2.5% of participants from 1993 to 2017 had been Black across all clinical trials. Still, as you know, if you listen to rap music, Molly is being consumed by mainstream BIPOC America. I met students from three universities doing important work and received great feedback for future research. My mind-blowing synchronicity experience occurred when the best feedback I received all weekend came from one of my thesis supervisor professors at the University of Minnesota Dr. Jennifer Gunn.

The talk that I found the most pressing in importance involved a panel of speakers, two of whom were Indigenous. One was a lead professor at the school, and the other was an Indigenous elder wisdom keeper in the community. Their project revolved around oral histories and documenting the effect of the opiate epidemic on Indigenous communities. During the COVID-19 crisis, they had entire groups of Indigenous peoples who were reportedly on the mend prior to COVID-19 overdose and die. This project carries the weight of a long legacy of colonial anguish tied in with Indigenous substance use as a coping mechanism for life. This project spoke to me because of my interest in oral histories and my use of them in my own work. I was fortunate to interview a BIPOC psychedelic pioneer, Robin Divine of Black People Trip, who created a psychedelic guide for gearing sessions towards BIPOC participants after learning about the horrors many BIPOC psychedelic users experienced working with white guides through her website. This work that Robin and others are doing to culturally gear medicine work towards African ancestral roots is very in line with the work that these two men were doing in their community on the reserve; their project involves getting people in touch with Indigenous culture involving traditional hunting, land occupation, medicine wheel ceremonies, dances, and ritual tobacco usage, a holistic herb essentially seen as a cure-all.

Mount McKay

Luckily, given the gorgeous apocalyptic weather, we took a tour of the town. Thunder Bay is a beautiful place that is positioned between Toronto and Winnipeg in Manitoba. The city rose to prominence in the 1970s simply because of its spatial relations to these places. When flying there from Toronto, you spend the entire flight over the Great Lakes. I had never seen Lake Huron or Lake Superior. We drove up to Mount McKay for the scenic lookout and took some pictures before visiting the real highlight of the trip, which was the natural wonder of Kakabeka Falls, the largest waterfall I’ve ever seen.

Last night, I attended a talk at a brewery here in Saskatoon apart of a seven nights of history that changed the world series. The beer was on point and reminded me of Edmunds Oast, the Raspberry Lemon Sherbet Kettle Sour, transported me to the beach on this 45-degree dark night. Last night’s topic was April 1, 1922, a day of the coal crisis. The most interesting information I gathered from this talk involved the rapid shift in energy output that occurred in the move away from coal in many places in the post-World War two era. If this same type of momentum can be gathered for a shift away from oil in the 2030s, maybe we can restore harmony to the earth.

I can’t wait for the next MOMS trip to Minnesota in 2026!