By Izzy Ross, Interlochen Public Radio

This coverage is made possible through a partnership with IPR and Grist, a nonprofit independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

The beginning of “Climate Sisu” is familiar — footage of trash floating in the ocean, aerial views of dry earth, and heat maps of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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Points North is a biweekly podcast hosted by Daniel Wanschura and Morgan Springer about the land, water and inhabitants of the Upper Great Lakes.

This episode was shared here with permission from Interlochen Public Radio. 

Tom Wall is a West Michigan rock star who uses plants as bandmates.

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The Great Lakes region is known for its abundance. Vineyards flourish near the shores of lakes Erie and Michigan.  Maple trees flow freely with sap that is made into syrup every spring.  And of course, Great Lakes’ freshwater fish like perch, walleye and whitefish make their way onto our dinner plates.  

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Making a film about water came naturally for award-winning documentary filmmaker dream hampton, though water and the environment has not traditionally been her emphasis.

hampton made Freshwater after coming off a hectic schedule in 2018 and 2019 during which she made three films. It was, she decided, a time to shift her focus, a time to be still and reflect.

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Editor’s Note: “Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A direct descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, she lives and works in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her two books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and she is at work on a children’s story.

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We are at a choice point when it comes to our relationship with water, says noted water expert Peter Gleick.

We can continue on our current path, which has evolved over centuries and includes unsustainable water use and ecological destruction. Both further worsened as we grapple with the effects of climate change.

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Eat Your Heartland Out is a Taste Awards nominated  program about the intersection of food and culture in the American Midwest. The show is produced by the Heritage Radio Network, a leader in culinary audio storytelling and distributed on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), which provides content to public radio affiliates across the United States.

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In his book “Great Lakes Champions: Grassroots Efforts to Clean Up Polluted Watersheds,” John Hartig looks at how 14 Great Lakes residents are working to restore some of the region’s most degraded areas. While significant challenges remain, there is much to celebrate, including the return of sentinel fish and wildlife species, lower contaminant levels in fish and wildlife populations, and greater public access to these waters.

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TORONTO (AP) — Gordon Lightfoot, the folk singer-songwriter known for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84.

Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available.

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If you want to peg the date when humans began the trek to modernity facilitated by a relationship to water, start 10,000 years ago, says Giulio Boccaletti, author of Water: A Biography. That’s when nomads became settlers, began farming and their existence started to depend on rivers and streams.

The book continues through the millennia to modern times when America constructed the Hoover Dam and created the Tennessee Valley Authority which Boccaletti says “became a model for the world.”

Boccaletti is a scientist and an honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at University of Oxford.

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