Experts answer your questions and concerns about the return to school

Guests: Tehseen Ladha, Lisa Barrett

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The average amount of time that a person spends on Netflix, I spend looking on Google Maps, I'm looking for green spaces that I haven't been to yet.

MATT GALLOWAY: It's a long weekend and perhaps you, like me, spent as much of it as possible outdoors in nature. The natural world has been an important anchor for many Canadians over the last 18 months. This morning, our friend Duncan McCue takes us back to the land. The first documentary in his series on Embracing Nature begins in 30 minutes and then later talk about peaking at the right time.

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No doubt he's going to come home in an absolutely sensational time. The gold medallist, defending champion world record holder takes out her own world record in the sensational swim for Canada.

MG: 21 medals for Canada at a Paralympic Games. Unlike any other two of the athletes who represented this country are here in an hour. But first, school is back and parents, students and educators have questions about how this year may unfold. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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MG: Well, parents know it is time to get lunchboxes packed and pencil cases filled and tucked away in backpacks, those back to school staples might have strange company in school bags this September, though things like at home covid tests or a stash of masks. It is the start of a third pandemic disrupted school year. And once again, classrooms will look a little different.

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So we have a handwash station here right in inside class. Yes, and hand hygiene is so critical, so masking, physical distancing the screening I already mentioned. We're cleaning high contact areas for singing inside. It was supposed to be allowed without masks. We're looking at making sure that masks would be used if singing is happening inside, there is a motion sensor that will allow the unit to increase the airflow and the filtration.

MG: That's Dawn Danko from the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board in Ontario, covid-19 protocols vary widely across the country, though. Here's Rani Senghera from the Surrey District Parent Advisory Council in British Columbia.

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Speaker 4: We just heard that the mass will be mandatory from grade four till grade 12. And I think that a lot of parents that we're hearing from are very disappointed with that. They wanted it to be kindergarten to grade 12, pretty much.

MG: As the Delta variant drives a fourth wave across Canada. Many parents are asking, what are the risks of kids catching covid-19 at school? What about on school buses or playing on the basketball team? And what is the best way for everyone to stay healthy? You've got questions. We've got two doctors in the house with answers. Dr. Tehseen Ladha is a paediatrician in Edmonton, assistant professor of paediatrics at the University of Alberta. Dr. Lisa Barrett is a clinician scientist and infectious diseases expert at Dalhousie University. She's in Halifax. Good morning to you both.

TEHSEEN LADHA: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Dr. Ladha, let me start with you, Alberta. Most kids went back to school last week. And as you've watched this, what's been going through your mind?

TEHSEEN LADHA: So there's been some anxiety, I mean, we were certainly happy that the provincial mask mandate came in recently, but Alberta left masking mandates up to individual school boards. And so there's been the fear of inequity amongst children attending rural schools, for example, which may not have mandated mask's compared to the big cities, Edmonton and Calgary, which did mandate masks. And certainly with our case rate right now being triple the national case rate, there's there's fear that the schools that don't have mass mandates, covid will spread quite quickly and easily throughout the schools.

MG: What about for you, Dr. Barrett? This is back to school week in Nova Scotia. How are you feeling about what's in store over the next school year?

LISA BARRETT: Well, I think we're certainly not past the pandemic and those who thought in July and August that we were have certainly, I think in various parts of the country, realised that we're still in a pandemic here in Nova Scotia and on the East Coast, we are still seeing very low amounts of virus in the community, along with fairly high vaccination rates. So what do I think is going to happen as we go back to school? Well, hopefully we're going to be able to keep the virus low in our communities, which is going to help our schools and for those under 12 for those folks to stay fairly free of covid. However, if we don't have simple things like masks, people staying home and having the ability to stay home when they're sick and continuing with some testing, I think we're going to see, just like in the rest of the country, that things will start to take off broadly.

MG: Do you know how many cases of serious illness from covid-19 we're seeing amongst Canadian kids at this stage in the pandemic, Doctor?

LISA BARRETT: Well, it's been variably reported in different provinces. Certainly there have been cases of children who've been hospitalised and I think ahead of us in the U.S. and kids in the U.S. aren't that different from kids in Canada. The percentage of kids that are getting sick and going into hospitals had started to rise as of August. And I guess the Take-Home message is they're lobach lower vaccination rates, more kids get infected and end up in hospital. The same would be true here. We've got higher vaccination rates in Canada and I think that's protected us a bit. But to be honest, I don't know at this stage of the pandemic when we know how to prevent communities spread, that there's any excuse for having many children in hospital at all. We don't need to do lockdowns. We just need to be sensible about the things we know, work masks, staying home and sick and a lot of testing in places and getting vaccinated, making sure that the younger folks who are the parents and around young kids are getting vaccinated in that younger age group.

MG: Want to come back to being sensible, as you say, in a moment. Dr. Ladha, a lot of attention was paid to the government's new modelling released last week. It suggests that we seem to be on a course for a pretty steep rise in case numbers with school starting. What do you think this is going to mean for kids in class?

TEHSEEN LADHA: I certainly think that I echo Dr. Barrett's comments that when community transmission is high, school transmission reflects that. And I think the other way is the case as well. So when school restarts, we often see an increase in community transmission, especially if that layered public health approach isn't mirrored in schools. So, for example, in B.C., where masking is only grade four to 12 or in Quebec, we're masking as only in hallways and common spaces. Certainly there will be transmission in schools and this will drive community transmission up as well. And we're we're already at a state in certain provinces like Alberta where we're close to overwhelming our health care system. And so, you know, we we need to be making sure that those sensible measures are in place both in the community and in schools. And I would add that in addition to the masking and consideration of rapid testing in schools, which has been done in the states and in other countries, there should also be consideration of optimising ventilation, which has not been done in all provinces. And this is a disease that spreads by sharing air. And of course, classrooms are the epitome of shared air because you're there for eight hours a day every day with 30 kids in the classroom. So, you know, there really is a concern that that transmission overall will will increase now that schools are open.

MG: You wrote an op ed last year on how to make schools safer, if I'm not mistaken. Do you think that they did or are we in any better position? If you take a look at what's happening across the country and again, it's different in different jurisdictions, but broadly, are we in any better position now than we were at this time last year?

TEHSEEN LADHA: You know, I was just thinking about this match and I was thinking I didn't think that another school year would come by and we would actually be in the same position. I I feel that we're in worse of a position with this fourth wave because Delta is so much more transmissible. And so those measures that may have worked in the past may not be sufficient to work this time around. And I don't feel that schools have taken additional measures this year. In fact, in certain provinces, they've actually relaxed some of their measures because of the presence of vaccination, which is, of course, very important. But vaccination rates vary across the country and vaccination will not be the single handedly the measure that gets us out of this pandemic.

MG: I think a lot of people feel that anxiety. And so we have a number of questions. For you both from listeners, this, Dr. Ladha, is a question for you from Kaye Banez from Vancouver. Her child has autism. Take a listen.

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Many children on the spectrum also have other conditions that make them immunocompromised. And many of our kids will not be able to adhere to the safety protocols that can lessen their chances of getting the virus. Some are not able to wear a mask because of sensory challenges, and many require literally hands on one on one support from IA's and teachers. In B.C., masks are not mandated for children in grades K to three, and teachers and support staff are not required to get vaccinated. How could children on the autism spectrum, children with disabilities and special or diverse needs reduce their risk of getting infected with covid-19 in school?

TEHSEEN LADHA: Yeah, it's an excellent question. I think that there hasn't been enough attention paid to children that are developmentally challenged or that have delays, and I think the key is here are that it shouldn't be up to individual parents to figure out how to keep their children safe in school. This has to be a community effort. It has to be a school effort. So in this scenario, for example, it is really important that everybody around the child that cannot wear a mask be masked. So for NBC, for example, there should have been a mandate from kindergarten so that it protects those that cannot mask. And the other really important thing is that there has to be public health measures, again, not a lockdown, but public health measures within the community at large to decrease that community transmission, as we see in the East Coast provinces in order to keep schools safe. Schools are an essential service. So it really behoves the adults in our community, the leadership, the government, to be implementing these public health measures in order to keep community transmission safe so that all children, regardless of their ability, can go to school safely.

MG: Very briefly, I mean, what would those measures be using not a lockdown, but what would the measures be?

TEHSEEN LADHA: So, you know, a lot of provinces had lifted their indoor mask mandates and some are implementing them now. But absolutely, provincial mask mandates are very important limits on the sizes of indoor gatherings, especially in those places where community transmission is high. That's also very important. I think rapid testing is a tool that's very underused. So if there is going to be some sort of indoor gathering using rapid testing to determine whether the person is positive before being allowed to enter and mandatory vaccination for participation and things like indoor dining and other activities within the community will all be ways to get community transmission down to safer levels.

MG: Dr. Barrett, this is a question that picks up on the idea of testing. It's from Liz. She's from Guelph.

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Speaker 6: I'm a mom of a six year old and a three year old. Since the pandemic started, they've had several tests done, all negative to the point that they both are terrified of swaps. We found out that in Toronto there are a few hospitals with a saliva available for kids with a kids coming back to school without the vaccine available for them and therefore to wave around the corner. We were wondering what is needed to have these less invasive tests available for kids across the province.

MG: Dr. Barrett, you've worked on a lot of testing initiatives in Halifax. We've spoken about this before, advice for parents, particularly in smaller cities, on how to get access to those less invasive tests, particularly for young kids.

LISA BARRETT: Yeah, it's it's a great question, you know, despite the fact that we have more and evolving evidence from around the world that rapid tests of various forms are useful, particularly in stopping and limiting waves as if they're used early and in particular in an at home way or a take home kit way. We've still not seen Health Canada approve a lot of those tests here in this country. So right now, some labs, some some places in the country are using saliva in kids. But but it's not a universally available type of test. It has to be worked on with your lab and then it goes to the lab and you do a PCR test there. So it's not an easy answer. Unfortunately, there are other kinds of rapid tests that could be used and are much easier to use in kids if you don't have access to that special saliva test, the rapid test, that health that the Maori the federal government has purchased, some of the ones like Cambio have a front of nose swab now that are not the deep swab that I have. You know, we have kids here, five, six years old, that DNA themselves for their parents, it's the pregnancy type test and those are federally available. I would if you live in a small town or you feel that you'd like to get access to some of those tests, I'll be frank. I think I think you should be lobbying people there to get them available for you. Again, the best way of keeping your kids safe is to have folks vaccinated in the community and the public health measures. And I sound a bit like a broken record, but the tests do help. And I do think that right now I'm still a little bit surprised that we aren't offering parents of kids going back to school, particularly those unvaccinated, the option of take home tests that they can use with a front of nose swab. Well, I want to

MG: pick up on it again. We have about five minutes left in the number of questions that we want to whip through, but not to suggest that you're a broken record, but you have emphasised what you're calling sensible measures that could protect people, particularly for young kids. I mean, kids under the age of 12 can't get vaccinated. The Delta variant is driving up the numbers. This is a question from Julie. She's an elementary school teacher in Toronto.

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As teachers, we're using basically the same protocols as last year, which worked pretty well. But because the variant is that much more aggressive, will the same measures be as effective the school year?

MG: So, Dr. Barrett, if you take a look at those sensible measures in the school itself, what is going to be the best protection from the Delta variant?

LISA BARRETT: Having people vaccinated that are teaching and having kids just above kids that are of age that can get vaccinated, having them vaccinated around those other kids and then keeping virus low in the community. But in the school itself, some places I know in Ontario are going to be offering some rapid testing, particularly if there's more virus in the community. And that makes reasonably good sense to me. Masks, you know, not that herd. And I do not you know, I'm not a paediatrician, so I'll defer to Dr. Laura on this. But I don't think developmental stages will be missed from kindergarten to grade four if people wear a mask this year. And the other piece of this is the ventilation part. And I do think that's important and not universally done across different state stages, different provinces.

MG: Do you think that masks should be mandatory in all areas of the school, right through the grades?

LISA BARRETT: I think people indoors, breathing, shared space, whether they're a big person or a little person, can transmit a virus, particularly those who aren't vaccinated, and that includes K to four. So I do think that people inside close together, breathing together, including the group who can't be vaccinated. It's a good idea, at least for a couple of months. Let's just get us past this wave, get us past the biggest risk and into a time when we can vaccinate those other humans and then think about getting rid of

MG: masks and for vaccinations for those who can be vaccinated. I mean, you have to have certain vaccinations as a child to go to school in most areas. I mean, do you believe that kids who can be vaccinated above the age of 12, that that should be mandatory for school attendance?

LISA BARRETT: I struggle with the mandatory part, mainly because there is a big equity issue that starts to come in to that, people who don't often or who have some challenges or hesitancy around vaccines, there tend to be some inequities in those groups. And I don't want to generate that even further at an early childhood age, but either vaccination or routine testing while they're getting, you know, either the parents or the kids are getting their heads around vaccination if they've been offered education and they've they've had the opportunity to to get access to vaccines, testing or vaccines really, really should be very much a part of going back to school. We're still in a pandemic, folks. We've got great tools. Let's use them all.

MG: It feels like we're in a different part of the pandemic now, a different phase of the pandemic. Take a listen to Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, who was speaking to reporters in August about that province's back to school plan.

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And if I had to compare it to other viruses like influenza. In influenza, we anticipate always a rise in cases over the winter months. Sometimes we'll have 10, 15 percent of students away because they've come down with the virus, but they recover, they resolve and they're back in the classroom. I think we have to normalise covid-19 for four schools and have an approach that's prudent, that's cautious, but that realises yet we're going to have a rise in cases, but we're going to adhere to the best practises to minimise the spread and to keep our communities safe.

MG: Dr. Laura, what does that mean to normalise covid-19 in schools?

TEHSEEN LADHA: You know, I think we've heard some of that in Alberta as well. And to me, it means treating covid-19 as though it's endemic. And frankly, we're not there yet. Endemic means that you have an R value of one. You don't have exponential rise in cases. You know, influenza does rise, but then it comes back down. And then the other important difference is that we do have seasonal influenza vaccines available for children about six months of age. So I don't think that it's a valid comparison. Certainly if a child gets covid-19 on an individual basis, they're at low risk for getting a serious complication. But at a population level, when you allow tens of thousands of children to become infected, if proper public health measures aren't in place or if community transmission is high, we will see that rise in paediatric hospitalisations that we're seeing in the states. And frankly, for a for a disease that is vaccine preventable, likely within the next six months for that under 12 each group, that kind of paediatric hospitalisation is unacceptable.

MG: Dr. Barrett, we just have about 30 seconds left and we're going to be speaking tomorrow about the disruption that, you know, the pandemic has brought to the education in the learning of young people. In the meantime, do we need to get more comfortable with the fact that there's going to be cases in schools?

LISA BARRETT: We absolutely do need to know there are going to be cases, but coming back to this vaccine preventable idea, that's OK. If you've done everything you can and folks still get infected when you haven't done everything you can, you do not want to see a preponderance of cases in young people. That's not fair. And we really have to remember that this is a vaccine preventable disease. And until we get past the next few months and those kids are vaccinated, I think let's keep the cases as low as we can. I'm not saying we have to panic about it, but we certainly should not accept less for younger children because we're tired of a pandemic as adults.

MG: It's great to speak with you both about this. I really appreciate you taking time. A lot of questions that parents and students and educators have. Thank you very much.

TEHSEEN LADHA: Thank you.

MG: Have a great morning. Dr. Tehseen Ladha is a paediatrician and Edmonton assistant professor of paediatrics at the University of Alberta. Dr. Lisa Barrett, clinician scientist, infectious diseases expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax. More on this coming up tomorrow, but we'd love to hear from you. What's on your mind as the school year gets set to begin? You've questions about how kids are jesting and what they're going to be facing. You can write us thecurrent@cbc.ca Or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC and more on the academic fallout and mental health impacts of last year's school disruptions coming up tomorrow. I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one.

Prescribing nature: Research suggests the outdoors are good for your mental health

Guests: Dr. Melissa Lynn, John

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, Canada's Paralympians are making their way home and whether they have hardware around their necks or not, these games have been extraordinary. We'll speak with two Paralympians about what it took to make it to Tokyo in the midst of a pandemic, what their experiences were like. That's all coming up in about 30 minutes. But first, we're going to go fishing.

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MG: Mondays at this time, for the next four weeks, we will bring you a special series of stories with CBC host Duncan McCue. The series is called Back to the Land. Duncan is with me now. Duncan, good morning.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Good morning. It's great to see you.

MG: Good to see you. Why Back to the Land?

DUNCAN MCCUE: Back to the land. When you hear that, you kind of goes off in your head. The hippies in the 1960s, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young people who are starting to homestead and because they wanted more contact with nature back then. but some say that that here now in the 21st century, there's there's a new back to the land movement going on. And and more and more people, and particularly young people, urban millennials, they just want to trade in the hustle and bustle of city life and get out in the country. So but also, I mean, during the pandemic. Let me ask you this question, Matt. I mean, you're pretty outdoorsy guy. I know you cycled to work and you run that kind of stuff. Did you notice a change in your relationship to nature during the pandemic?

MG: Yeah, I mean, I'm not certainly not a millennial anymore, but I did. I mean, part of it is it was the thing that gave me a bit of stability and a bit of grounding when everything else was kind of flying apart. And I see a lot of that. I see a lot of people who are out. Take a look at how difficult it is to find campsites in this country this summer. People are trying to figure out what they can hang on to. And often that is the natural world grounding.

DUNCAN MCCUE: I'm going to pick up on that word. A lot of Canadians have been feeling that way during the pandemic. There was one poll that came out this summer, 85 percent of Canadians said access to nature is is just key to maintaining their mental health through the whole thing and getting outside and whether that meant, you know, walking or biking or, you know, any kind of outdoor activity just turning to nature to cope. So that's what we're going to look at today with our first documentary. It's all about the ways that that nature can be good for you.

MG: Excellent. Let's have a listen.

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JOHN: Yeah, this is a place I'd really like to take my friends to do a little foraging. There's a rock over there right where the water breaks and you can sit. Listen to the sounds of the stream.

DUNCAN MCCUE: John Keddie is 25 years old, a forager and an outdoorsman. And this is his oasis, amazingly or not, far from a busy, busy six lane highway where a steady stream of commuters flow into Toronto.

JOHN: Took me a lot of research and discovery to find a place like this.

DUNCAN MCCUE: How do you find the spots that you've you've come to to forage and fishing?

JOHN: Well, the average amount of time that a person spends on Netflix, I spend looking on Google Maps, I'm looking for green spaces that I haven't been to yet. You know, you look closely enough, you can start to tell apart the different shades of green from the satellite images. If I'm looking for, let's say, wild garlic, I'm looking for the green spaces by the rivers. And all along the floodplains,

DUNCAN MCCUE: John plunks down his camping pack and reaches in with his arm, which is covered with tattoos of Trillium flowers. He pulls out a rod and a box of colourful fishing flies.

JOHN: Just pulling up my fishing rod o fly right there. They are really long. So this one comes in four pieces. So I put this together so maybe we can try to catch some lunch.

DUNCAN MCCUE: There's all kinds of fish running into this stream from Lake Ontario, steelhead salmon, soccers, smallmouth bass.

JOHN: So I'm just tying it fly until the end of my leader here. This one is kind of cool. It's meant to sit just below the surface. It's it imitates a caddis fly. And for those who don't know what a catalyst flight is, it looks like a small moth, maybe a centimetre long. So it looks like there's a few fish over there rising in the bubbles of the stream. We'll see what bites.

DUNCAN MCCUE: John sounds like a pro and he is now. But getting here was a struggle.

JOHN: Well, growing up in the suburbs, you don't really get exposed to too much nature.

DUNCAN MCCUE: He grew up in Mississauga,

JOHN: you know, subdivisions on subdivisions of just these cookie cutter houses.

DUNCAN MCCUE: His dad is a Filipino immigrant, his mom a Cambodian refugee.

JOHN: My parents expectations of me were very high. They wanted me to excel at school so I couldn't really go outside. I couldn't really go anywhere. Aside from school. Lonely bit of nature that I really knew where my parents, guardians, we used to have strawberries in the backyard and tulips at the front. But aside from that, I really had no idea what was truly out there. I spent a lot of time in my room just ruminating over thoughts and sleeping constantly. I remember when my depression was in its full force, I would sleep maybe about 18 to 20 hours a day. And I would just be so, so down on myself. I felt really sorry for myself, like sorry that I couldn't really live a full life, how it seemed that no matter what I tried to do, I could never get anything right. I think the worst part was feeling that I really had no place in this world. And it felt like there was no. No escaping that and that since I felt extremely trapped in my situation,.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Would you describe yourself as as suicidal at that point?

JOHN: Yes.

DUNCAN MCCUE: But then in his late teens, he got his driver's licence.

JOHN: And I drive over this bridge that goes over this creek and I see all these fish right under there. And I just I started making it my goal to go catch one of these things. When I first came there, the creek was just abundant with life, there was there was bars that you could see from the bridge. There was pike hiding in the weeds, there was beavers swimming through the water, and there were even snapping turtles hiding in the weeds. And I was just fascinated and I was terrible at fishing. So most of the time I was just sitting there with a rod in my hand and looking around. And I liked what I saw. I felt at peace. It took me two weeks to catch one of those guys, but I was focussed and I was concentrated on it. I managed to put one of those fish on the shore and I realised that whole time I stopped ruminating about. My situation, all the bad things that were happening, I was focussed. And I realise that maybe being out here and putting myself towards a goal, even if that's just, you know, to catch fish, maybe that could help.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: There's a huge body of evidence that's decades old showing that spending time in nature is one of the best things that we can do for our health.

JOHN: That's Dr Melissa Lynn, a physician on a mission.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: I'm a family physician in Vancouver and I'm director of prescriptions for the BC Parks Foundation and president elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. From diabetes and and high blood pressure to heart disease and stroke to mental health spending, time in nature results in significantly positive outcomes.

DUNCAN MCCUE: I'll get to all the science around those health benefits in a sec. But first, a little bit about Dr. Leam. She also grew up in Toronto, but launched her medical practise in rural B.C..

DR. MELISSA LYNN: My walk to work basically encompassed looking at mist rising from the mountains, rising from the river. When I would have a difficult case, when I would feel tired after a long day of work, I would just head out for a hike and it was so easy to do so. So it was really not hard to connect to nature at all there.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Then she moved back to the big city.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: I was sitting in my apartment looking out at a tiny little square of sky with the Sears Tower in the distance, hearing the streetcars rumble by and feeling incredibly stressed. And I thought to myself, why? Even though the work I'm doing here as an outpatient family physician compared to the work I was doing as an E.R. physician, delivering babies in the middle of the night, dealing with acute inpatients in a really low resource setting, I thought, why am I so stressed out? And then I realised it was probably because I didn't have as much access to nature. I mean, when I lived in B.C, I had bears walking across my driveway. I could see mountains in my front window. And even though the work was stressful, that went a long way towards relieving my stress.

DUNCAN MCCUE: So she started digging into medical studies.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: I just started to click around on my computer. I thought, is there a scientific basis to this intuitive feeling I have that nature is good for me. And so I opened up a couple of the popular medical databases and I just typed in health benefits, nature and all these different studies popped up. One of the earliest ones that I found was a study where they looked at patients after their gallbladders were taken out. So they had cholecystectomy years and they had them in rooms in the same hospital that either looked out on to a brick wall or looked out onto trees. And what they found is that the patients whose rooms looked at under trees actually went home a day earlier, use less pain medication, called on and bothered their nurses less. And I thought, wow, in this medical context where people aren't even outside, just looking out a window can have that powerful effect. So I just kept going down the rabbit hole.

DUNCAN MCCUE: She found reams of research backing up her intuition that nature could help cure what ails you, whether it was a study of young girls who live in high rise towers.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: If their windows look out onto views of trees versus views of a parking lot, for example, they're more likely to have higher self-esteem and lower rates of anxiety and depression,

DUNCAN MCCUE: or examining what happened when kids with ADHD went for daily walks in the park.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: This actually improved their maths and attention scores to the levels of kids without ADHD. And when they crunched those numbers, they found that this was similar to the effect of prescription stimulant medication, which is pretty incredible.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Studies of adults showed those who spent 10 minutes having nature experiences three times a week saw significant drops in cortisol, their stress hormones.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: And so what they found was that after that self-defined, meaningful nature experience, that people's cortisol levels dropped over 20 percent compared to non nature experiences.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Why is nature so good for us? Well, there's the stress reduction theory.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: That basically says that when we're stressed, spending time in nature helps us recover from that stress. Better stress is a major risk factor for all kinds of chronic diseases through release of a flood of neurotransmitters that kind of sends the body into this kind of toxic state of kind of heightened stress. And so conditions like stroke conditions like heart attacks and diabetes are all related to stress and inflammation. So by reducing that stress and reducing that inflammation on a biochemical level, we can improve our health.

DUNCAN MCCUE: There's also the attention restoration theory, which suggests nature gives us a break from our hectic modern lives.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: Because of all the motion and all the commotion and all the busyness we're spending time in nature is sort of the source of soft fascination that is interesting, but doesn't require us to continually direct our attention to navigate around different obstacles. Therefore, it reduces our fatigue and reduces our irritability.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Going out for a breath of fresh air also really is good for you if you're around plants and trees because you breathe in chemicals called fight sides.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: These are organic chemicals that are released by plants that go into the air. And studies have shown that if you just breathe in, fight in science, that increases your natural killer cell activity, which is an important immune cell, and it actually increases your your amounts of immuno proteins. So just smelling nature can actually boost our health.

JOHN: Oh, yeah, so we're looking into this treatment right away, we can see a fish swimming pools.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Back at Creekside Johns fishing line is swishing through the air.

JOHN: When you look right along the river's edge, you can see hundreds of little baby tadpoles. I wonder if that's what the bats are eating. Now that I see these tadpoles, I think I might actually change my fly again.

DUNCAN MCCUE: From the moment he first tried fishing in that creek in Mississauga, John's life changed. He started rolling farther and farther from home in search of fishing streams.

JOHN: And at the time I was studying to be an interior designer, but it wasn't really working out for me. I dropped out. I remember fishing for brook trout in the upper credit. And it's midsummer really hot, and I'm standing waist deep in the river, feeling the water rushed between my legs and in between my toes and, you know, feeling deeply and feeling alive. And. Seeing all these things around me that I didn't know the names of and it felt wrong. I felt like I needed to know more. So I decided to go to college.

DUNCAN MCCUE: He enrolled in a Fish and Wildlife programme in Lindsay, Ontario, became engrossed in the study of trees and minnows and mammals and birds, but there were bumps and grinds in his personal life. His mental health went from bad to worse.

JOHN: I ended up in a crisis situation in the winter of my first year and I was actually admitted. Into the mental hospital. So from that point on, I was put on medication, I made sure that I kept in touch with my counsellor on a regular basis. And with my counsellor and my medication, combined with I guess you would call it nature therapy.

DUNCAN MCCUE: That therapist, an indigenous woman, told him nature may be the best medicine.

JOHN: It was affirming to hear that being outside, going on these walks, incorporating that into my treatment plan, felt like I was walking, walking the right steps. I got them always headed into the grass. Yeah, I got him.

DUNCAN MCCUE: John is cradling the golden brown fish in the water.

JOHN: This is a white sucker, I believe it ran up from the lake and it's maybe about a foot and a half long. It's beautiful just holding the fish in the water, admiring it, realising that this thing is here, living in this environment all the time. And and it's still beautiful even when I'm not looking at it.

DUNCAN MCCUE: He wants the fish to live its life thats fun.

JOHN: So I think it's time to let this one go.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Persistence pays off.

JOHN: It really does.

DUNCAN MCCUE: You weren't you weren't giving up until

JOHN: It only took a few dozen last casts.

DUNCAN MCCUE: It's the kind of outdoor experience Dr. Lynn would support. You might even prescribe it.

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DR. MELISSA LYNN: Nature prescription happens when a licenced health care professional, like a doctor or a nurse or a psychologist, writes a formal recommendation down for their patient to spend time in nature to treat or prevent health conditions.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Last fall, Dr. Lynn was instrumental in launching X, Canada's first National Nature prescription initiative.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: We have a standardised at least two hours per week recommendation and at least 20 minutes each time recommendation. That's based on the most recent research. And then we write it down because evidence shows that when you write something down, people are more likely to do it and then we email it or hand it to the patient for them to fill.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Is it literally I mean, take two hikes and call me in the morning?

DR. MELISSA LYNN: Well, the neat thing about nature is that you don't necessarily have to take a hike. Right? You can just be sitting in nature to get those benefits.

DUNCAN MCCUE: After starting in B.C. parks rolled out in Ontario this winter, plenty of health professionals are signing up 800 and counting so far. The problem for many urban patients is not enough public green space.

DR. MELISSA LYNN: It's one thing to kind of write a nature prescription to someone who's surrounded by parks and ocean, but it's another thing to write a nature prescription to people who, you know, the closest park is is ten blocks away or low quality or not safe. And so I think a really important part of the work that we do is, is getting governments to realise that nature is an essential health service and to get them to enshrine policy into city building and city planning that makes sure that green spaces are accessible to everyone, not just, you know, a little patch of grass, but a high quality green space with trees and interesting biodiversity.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Having landed his elusive fish,

JOHN: what we're after today is the bulbs.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Me and John are now on our hands and knees in a meadow harvesting wild garlic.

JOHN: I always like trying to harvest these wild edibles by hand out of this this little hillside by the creek. You just yanked a wild garlic. I mean, it's a gorgeous plant. Look how white the bulb is. Yeah, it's it's beautiful. This is good, Garlic. As much as he loves and needs the outdoors. John is still figuring out how to make a living off the land. He tried canoe guiding, but lately a foraging and selling wild mushrooms is his thing.

JOHN: Some people would define wealth as the money in their bank account there, you know, large house or their expensive cars. But when I get all this food together, I think I have them beat.

DUNCAN MCCUE: As he unpacks is cooking gear. John is grinning from ear to ear. Not only has being on the land improved his mental health, he's also made peace with his parents.

JOHN: At first, they were very hesitant on it, because it seems like such a 180 swing from what I was doing before, but they're very accepting of what I do now because they they see that it brings me a lot of meaning and joy in my life. And they certainly don't mind having a lot of food on the table when I come home. We've made it a tradition that we go foraging for fiddleheads every spring. Now we go to the same spot and we end up having a really nice meal afterwards. I'm really proud of how far me and my parents have come, and it's really nice being able to incorporate my family into this life, the stove on high and cooking oil and wait for the pan to heat up. And in this world where it seems that we're more and more disconnected from what's really out there, it's my thought that learning the name of a tree is a radical act of love for this world. And I would love it if I could get more people to really appreciate what's out there. And it's good for you and it's good for you. Oh, yeah, yeah. That looks like just about.

DUNCAN MCCUE: We've been listening to Back to the land, how is John doing?

DUNCAN MCCUE: It's a good question. He asked me to add a postscript to this piece. After our fishing trip with him, he fell into another depressive episode and that lasted about three weeks. So the struggle is real for him. But the good news is he's doing better now. He went on a two week mushroom fishing trip and he says that helped a lot. It's interesting because I think a lot of people might believe that you need to this needs to be a long term investment. Even two hours a week in nature, though, that's all it takes.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Those nature prescriptions, according to the research, people who spend two hours each week in nature report better health and wellbeing and parks that that nature prescription programme that Dr. Lamb talked about that's expanding to Saskatchewan this summer. So there are more and more provinces where you can just go to your doctor or your health provider and ask for a nature prescription. What have you got for us next week? I'm going to introduce you to an initiative of a plant expert, and he's going to explain why revitalising indigenous languages isn't only good for indigenous communities, but it could contain solutions for the climate crisis. Duncan, thank you. Thank you.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Duncan McHugh, we'll be back with that story as we continue his series Back to the Land next Monday. If you can relate to that feeling of well-being when you're out in nature, tell us all about it. Maybe you've even had a prescription for nature time that you need to spend outdoors. Let us know your story of how being in the outdoors has helped your mental health. Email us The Current at CBC Radio. Again, that's thecurrent@cbc.ca. Find us on Facebook or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Coming up after your regional update.

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Tonight, not like a closing ceremony, but the opening to a bright and inclusive future. We must see beyond the athletes that have performed so well here and see the one point two billion persons with disabilities.

DUNCAN MCCUE: The Paralympics are over and it took superhuman efforts to make it to, through and home from some of the strangest games in history. We'll hear from two athletes about their pandemic Paralympic experience. That's coming up in 90 seconds. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one. Stay with us.

MG: The Paralympics are over and it took superhuman efforts to make it to, through and home from some of the strangest games in history. We'll hear from two athletes about their pandemic Paralympic experience. That's coming up in 90 seconds. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one. Stay with us.

A look at the unique challenges of this Paralympic Games

Guests: Sarah Mickey, Tristen Chernove

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. They were postponed a year, some said they shouldn't have gone ahead at all. They were expensive. They were put on for the very first time without fans. But in spite of all of that, the show, yes, indeed, it did go on in Tokyo. And yesterday, The Current came down on it all as the Paralympics wrapped up.

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[Song]

MG: There's a bit of magic to the Paralympic Games, even in a pandemic, exceptional athletes expectations, elation, disappointment. This year, of course, there was also covid-19 Canadian Paralympians persevered through it all and put on some amazing performances. And so to tell us more about the experience, I'm joined by two of them, Tristan Chernove, four time Paralympic medallist in Paris cycling. Tristen won silver in Tokyo and is now home with his family in British Columbia. And Sarah Mickey is back in Medicine Hat, Alberta, after her sixth place finish in the discus. She is a first time Paralympian. Good morning to you both.

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: Good morning.

SARAH MICKEY: Morning.

MG: Congratulations. Sarah, you are a Paralympian for the very first time. How does it feel to be called a Paralympian?

SARAH MICKEY: It's really surreal, honestly, I'm still reflecting on everything and it's just such a cool experience and now to have that title training was also amazing.

MG: Would you have ever imagined over the course of your athletic career that you would make it to this is the biggest showcase in sport?

SARAH MICKEY: Definitely, definitely never something that I ever pictured for myself. But it started to become more of a possibility within the last few years. And I am really, really excited that it did happen.

MG: I want to talk about how you got there in just a moment. Tristen, for you. How are you feeling? Silver medal performance. And as I mentioned, the fourth time that you have taken home the hardware at a big game.

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: Yeah, I mean, it's this has been a very different return home because prior to going to Tokyo, it was very clear to me that this would be my last elite international competition. I would be retiring from that level. And and, of course, that's because of the way things transpired in Tokyo. After my very first ride, that retirement, they advanced and came early. And to be honest, I probably never felt better. It's amazing to be out of games. And this was a very unique games, very different from my experience in Rio. But, you know, it's really just it's only been a short time since I've been home. And I love what sport has given me and the experience over the years. But also, I think was the complexity of my life probably was really calling for more time devoted elsewhere quite a while ago and when something is kind of overdue and finally comes. Speaking of my retirement from that, I'm really seeing all the benefit of making that choice as well.

MG: Your retirement came earlier than even expected. I mean, you retired mid game. You still had events to come. Why did you do that?

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: Yeah, great question, and there are many pieces to it, but predominantly this happened because after my very first event, I was confirmed to be reclassified and it just I guess I just had a flood of emotion about that and and thoughts. And what was really clear for me was that I, I it was better to finish out my career sort of and not not live through that big change in that arena. You know, I've had. So much wonderful success and good fortune in my career of cycling that. To to continue on for the other three races in classification that that I now would be in, which includes athletes that I feel are overcoming a lot more disability than I am. You know, this is really where. Where I would like to devote some of my time, though, that I'm sort of taking a step back is, you know, classifiers have so much challenge and the system is is very challenging. There's no perfect system. But it really became apparent to me there must be a better way.

MG: And so just explain for people who don't know, I mean, being reclassified. What does that mean?

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: So that would mean for me that I'm assessed by my classifiers who are looking at the level of disability that I'm overcoming in my sport and I have a degenerative neuropathy, so I peripheral nervous system is breaking down over time. And I'm 46 now, and maybe I should have expected that there would be some decline. But there was there was a measured decline that scored me into Class C one from C to where I had been. And so that meant that I don't need like I only just surpassed that line. So that meant that I was now going to gain a classification where the bandwidth variance is quite high between athletes and that especially in that classification, because you have athletes, there's no there's no lower classification than that as far as like more impairment. So the the span of disability people that are overcoming in that particular class, probably even more than others, is huge. And I would be at the very top end of that scale. So I felt that I quite likely would be occupying podium spots where where other people that are overcoming more disability would have a better chance if I wasn't there. And and it just it was a very, very clear to me that another another podium is going to do nothing at this point to enhance better or change my life. I've had that. I've had a lot of that. And it's been wonderful. And it could be transformative to someone else who has had that lifelong career long dream and is working so hard. And I felt maybe overcoming more disability than me.

MG: That's a really selfless decision to make. I mean, that's that's there's there's really quite something to that.

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: Well, maybe, but like I said, I mean, I think quite some time ago, I probably could have realised it was a great time to retire when I wasn't so driven to get on the podium anymore and. I kind of lost quite, quite some time ago, it kind of lost that excitement and elation that can come from from realising that the the goal that many people have. I was caught up in the I mean, I love pushing myself. I love training. I'll never stop doing that. And I love the feeling of success. But really, I only could reconnect with how great it can be to make it onto that podium when I would see someone else beat me and get up there for maybe the first time on that top step and I would be able to relive that feeling through witnessing it more than I would feel that feeling myself anymore.

MG: Now you've gone through you. Well, you and you've gone through this a few different times. I mean, Sarah, this is the first time that you've competed in a Paralympics. I mean, how did you how did you end up with the discus of all of the sports that that you could have ended up competing in? What was it about discus that that brought you in?

SARAH MICKEY: I have a background as a competitive figure skater before I became paralysed in 2013, so I have always been a very competitive person, but a competitive person in individual sports is kind of like my niche there that I enjoy. So when the Alberta School Athletic Association integrated Para-sports into the high school athletics, I was convinced to try wheelchair racing originally for my school. And then the following year they integrated throwing events into the provincials as well. So onesided thrilling. I kind of just fell in love with it and I had early success when I did start throwing. So for me, it was something that I could feel the competitive drive with, but also still be successful a lot. And from there I just kind of picked it up and continued on from 2016.

MG: You say you fell in love with it. What do you love about this?

SARAH MICKEY: I love that you're constantly bettering yourself for the most part, because each throw you always have the opportunity to throw further than you previously did.

MG: And was it I mean, a transition? It's nothing really like competitive figure skating, but are there are there skills that you take from one to the other that you can apply or is learning like learning a completely new sport?

SARAH MICKEY: Yeah, I think it was, and in a way, learning a completely new sport for me. I did throw Javelin when I was still able bodied, so I did have some of the most motions of throwing. However, to get from a seated position is quite a lot different. You don't have the momentum to carry forward. It's really just a complete static throw. So yeah, I think having the competitive mindset already from figure skating definitely helped me, but it was like learning a new sport for sure.

MG: Tristan, you said something earlier about what Para-sport has given you. Just briefly, tell me about that. What is being a competitive cyclist meant for you as a person?

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: Well, it's many things, but I think the Paramount has been for me, it's helped me eliminate any fear that I was holding onto when my disease started to advance. And I started to think that I was losing the lifestyle of the athletic lifestyle that I was accustomed. So I also had a long sporting life and able bodied as well, paddle sport predominantly. And when the neuropathy started to come to change my body dramatically, I yeah, I had a lot of fear. And when I got into para cycling and with all of a sudden awakened to all these athletes, especially when it was international events, I started to see all these incredible athletes, maybe the best athletes I've ever seen because of the, you know, the athletic achievement and adaptation. I was just phenomenal that people what people were were were learning to do with with the impairments, you know, around the impairments they had. I realised that no matter what happens with my body, no matter where it goes, as long as I'm willing to, you know, be the best of human adaptation, which is something that as people, as humans were were amazing at, I can always find a way to do what I love. I just have to be willing to to adapt. And so ever ever since that really first international competition moment when I saw all these other athletes adapting and achieving amazing things, I have I have been able to kind of be free from any anxiety or fear, fear the embarrassment of my disease.

MG: What about for you, Sarah? What has sports meant for you?

SARAH MICKEY: Yeah, I think it's definitely been a huge thing as well. When I was diagnosed with my disease and then disorder that left me paralysed in my wheelchair, it took a lot for me. It was a long couple of years for me to kind of come to terms with it. I say about two years and then I finally got to the point where I was healthy enough that I could participate back and forth.

MG: And this was Lyme disease, right?

SARAH MICKEY: Yeah, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and then transverse colitis as well, which is what left me completely in my wheelchair. So for me, it was a very quick thing. It happened overnight. I didn't have time really to digest everything that was happening to me. So I think for me, a few years and other big things that helped me to overcome. But sport also gave me back a piece of my mental health that was severely struggling because of being in a wheelchair and kind of the same sort of thing just to see and be around other people that have disabilities and some severe and some less severe than what you're going through. And it kind of really puts things into perspective for you.

MG: One of the amazing things about Paralympics and the Olympics is that people, you know, those of us back home here who aren't anywhere near the athletes that you both are, we watch and we think about inspiration and young kids in particular, see you. And they think, well, she could do it. Maybe there's the possibility that I could do it. What are you hoping that the kids who will have watched your performances serve will have been thinking?

SARAH MICKEY: I hope that they can kind of grasp that knowledge, too, that anything is possible if you want to do it. Yeah, I think it's a really big deal, especially coming from someone that got into a wheelchair pretty young. I was only 15. So to have someone else to look up to, I think is a really big deal.

MG: Tristan, what are you going to miss the most about elite level competition?

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: I don't want to think about it right now, but they think it will be somebody, I think. Probably the thing I'll miss the most is being around a post competition when when people's performances have settled in and whether it's for my own performance or someone else's. But when there' that post race sort of camaraderie and celebration of what's been achieved when someone's had a great ride or a world record has been broken or whatever it might be. But just, you know, being in that environment where people are setting really high goals and achieving them. It's a pretty powerful environment to be in. And I think that's one of the things I miss the most.

MG: This is the end of your sporting career at that level. But, Sarah, you're just getting rolling. You have your eyes set on Paras.

SARAH MICKEY: Yeah, definitely, I am at the start of my career here in Para-sports, so I am excited and I do have my sights on Paris for sure.

MG: That's exciting. And we will watch you in those years ahead. In the meantime, and it's been great to watch you and congratulations, both of you. Not many of us get to represent this country abroad. And you've both done really well. Thank you very much.

SARAH MICKEY: Thanks so much.

TRISTEN CHERNOVE: Thanks.

MG: Tristan Chernove and Sarah Miceky, two of Canada's Paralympic athletes, just back from the Tokyo Games.

[Music]

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one, my name is Matt Galloway. Last week on this programme, we brought you the story of a woman in Wales who found a wine bottle with a message. Inside, she was out walking her two dogs by the beach. Amanda Tidmarsh told guest host Anthony Germain the message was from Craig Drover, a crab fisherman from Newfoundland.

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When we opened it, we have to oh, it was really tightly sealed and it was in like a Ziploc bag, a clear bag. So we had to unfold that and it actually put two little bits of sellotape on each end of the rolls, really tightly rolled up. So my son actually struggled to get the tape off. And then we opened that. We thought, whoa, oh my goodness, from Canada. I couldn't believe it.

MG: We should mention, we got the letter, read his name wrong last week. The letter was from Craig Drover. We have yet to hear from Craig yet. So, Craig, if you're listening, get in touch. We have heard from plenty of you, though, to go through some of your responses. I'm joined by the current senior producer, Karin. Marley Karin, hello.

KARIN MARLEY: Hi, Matt. And welcome back to the host seat. Thank you very much. Let's start with Robinson Clare from Gabrial BBC. She writes, My husband was a Coast Guard captain. He sent a message in a bottle from the grand banks in Newfoundland to honour my mother, who passed away in 2009. After many months, we figured that the bottle was damaged at sea. But 18 months later, it was found by a woman and her sister and a small fishing village in the south of France.

MG: Very nice. Janice Barnham in Fort Frances, Ontario, writes, My first successful bottle was thrown from a bridge into the St. Lawrence River in the summer of 1974. It was a blue Philipps milk of magnesia bottle. I got a reply quickly as it didn't go very far. Got washed up on the beach and Sarrell, Quebec. Buoyed by the success, I threw another bottle into the North Sea in the summer of 1976. This one from a beach on the northeast coast of England. And this one was found four years later by an English merchant seaman named Alan Pickering. He sent me a nice letter, which I still have, telling me of his many sailing trips to Canada. He wrote, I was on a working holiday on a fishing boat when your bottle was brought up in the nets. There were codfish eels, one 84 pounds. An 84 pound eel. Just think about that flatfish prawns and your message. Your letter was dry and I could understand every word.

KARIN MARLEY: Maori Celery and HULKA back writes In 1971, On the last leg of my Round the World road trip, I boarded a passenger ship in Sydney, Australia, bound for England via the Pacific Ocean, halfway across somewhere between the Cook Islands and Mexico. A friend who I had met soon after leaving Sydney took the bottle of champagne that I won in a contest. We wrote a message with our names, where we were from, where we were and where we were headed. We finished the champagne, took the bottle, inserted the message, sealed it with wax and tossed it overboard. That was the last I saw or heard of it.

MG: We'll give you the last word to Paul Cameron from Grafton, Nova Scotia. As someone who picks up hundreds of kilos of garbage off the Bay of Fundy shore, I sincerely ask everyone not to send messages in bottles in the ocean.

KARIN MARLEY: Maybe not as romantic as the other letters, but probably good advice.

MG: Never throw a bottle in the ocean.

KARIN MARLEY: Yeah, I did. And travelled maybe 200 metres, but I made a friend at the cottage a few doors down, so that was very nice.

MG: Successful, even though he thought perhaps it wasn't Craig Drover who sent the message that prompted our story. If you're listening, get in touch. Of course, if you're not Craig Drover, we'd be happy to hear from you either way. But if you're Craig, there's there's something there's more to the story that we need to hear. So get in touch. The email address is thecurrent@cbc.ca. Here again, that's The Current all one word at CBC Dossie. Karen Marle, thank you. You're welcome. My name is Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio one. I spent the last few days of my summer in British Columbia in the interior of that province. Not on vacation, though. You likely heard about the village of Lytton in B.C. This set a village that set temperature records temperature close to fifty degrees over the course of some days in the summer. And then the entire village burned in a wildfire in June. I went with members of our team to find out what the village looks like now, how those who fled the fire are coping and what it takes to rebuild a town from nothing. This is what it was like to drive through.

[sc].

Litten, so we are just crossing the bridge coming into the village of Little, which was burned to the ground and a wildfire that just kind of came out of nowhere for many people. So we're just going across the Thompson River now and all you see in front of you there are trees that are all burnt out all up the hills, but beneath the trees. Is the remnants of the town and there's nothing left, there are burnt out cars and trucks, a building that all because it's made out of cinder block, has survived, but nothing else is there. There are tables, chairs kind of scattered around. And these cars, it looks like, got something out of a movie set in many ways. We can't imagine that this was a thriving town. And yet on the other side of the road are buildings that haven't been touched at all by the fire. So there are is, you know, a school playground, what looks like a basketball court. There are signs that say no stopping because the air is still really bad. On one side, things are completely burnt out. On the other side, some things are touched and then some things aren't there. There's the foundation and an old brick wall with a fireplace. That's all that's left of a building on this. On the left side of the road, the signs are burnt out, twisted metal from the roof of a building, huge pieces of wood. It's all fenced off. Nobody's allowed to go in. It's astonishing to see you just see that the scale of the destruction, there's literally nothing left. The town has been literally reduced to ash and what couldn't be burnt pieces of metal, an old bench that's on the sidewalk there that was torched up. Trees, that there's just small pieces of wood that are left over. This was the old grocery store. Which is just a shell of a building next to an empty space where there was a building, the Lytton AGmarket, and you can see the shelves in the store are still there. The one wall which has a mural from the first station that's attached to this town, um, is still intact, but the rest of the store is gone. And in the middle of all of that, all of the burnt out areas are sunflowers that are growing up and are blooming in the midst of the destruction. It's incredible.

MG: That's just the beginning of what we saw in yhtton as you drive through the town, there are signs that are outside saying you can't stop, no motorcycles are allowed and you cannot rule down your windows because there are concerns. I mean, it smells, but there are also really concerns around some of the toxins that could have been released from this fire. We met many of the people who lived in those homes and had to flee literally with the clothes on their back. You'll hear the rest of that coming up this week on The Current and our documentary on the town and its recovery efforts. It was astonishing to see what this fire has done, its news that that made it all around the world and people have wondered what the future of that town is. There is a future, but it's complicated. And so you'll hear all about that coming up tomorrow on the programme. This is the first time that I was actually able to get out of Toronto this year to tell a story. I mean, we did interviews with some of those residents on the phone in the wake of the fire. It sounds obvious, but it is completely different to be there and see it in person. The smell gets kind of caught in the back of your throat. You look people in the eye as you talk to them about what they went through and what their hopes and dreams are doing, that having those face to face conversations is something that hopefully will be able to do more of on this programme this season. Fingers crossed. And pandemic willing. Next week, I'm heading on another plane to Halifax. We're going to speak with people there about health care in the midst of this election. The area around Halifax, just outside of the city, we'll be talking to people about how difficult it is to find a family physician and what they are looking to see from elected officials in the remaining weeks of this election. And again, conversations that you could have from a distance. But there is a very different discussion that happens face to face. And so in a strange time in this country where we're all going through difficult, different things, we want to do that more often and safety willing. We will be out heading across this country in the weeks and months to come and hopefully will be coming to your community sooner rather than later. In the meantime, that's it for The Current for today. Coming up next on CBC Radio one, it's queue. Alanis Morissette is back with her first album in eight years, celebrating the 25th anniversary of her huge hit record, Jagged Little Pill. She sat down with Tom Power to talk about her career, how her songwriting has changed over the years. Her life certainly has changed as well. That's coming up on CBC Radio one in just a few minutes. It's great to be back. I hope you had a wonderful summer. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

The Current Transcript for September 6, 2021

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Experts answer your questions and concerns about the return to school

Prescribing nature: Research suggests the outdoors are good for your mental health

A look at the unique challenges of this Paralympic Games

Monday September 6, 2021 Full Transcript

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