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    • Reclaiming Indigenous Place Names
    • Looking Under the Hood of the Constitutional Mechanics of Aboriginal Law
    • Being in Good Relations
    • Decolonizing Water: A Conversation with Aimée Craft
    • A place for Indigenous peoples on Canada’s top bench
    • OPINION: The 10th Session of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
    • R v Daybutch
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    • dancing around the issue
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    • Stratford Festival Forum explores oppression and how it shapes individuals and society
    • Gerald Stanley acquittal
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    • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Is Canada Living Up to It's Commitment?
    • Law student plans to wrap herself in First Nations heritage at graduation
    • Soon-to-be lawyer wins right to wear regalia when she is called to the bar
    • New lawyers honour their culture
    • Christina Gray To Wear First Nations Regalia To Ontario Bar Call
    • First Nations law student gets OK to wear regalia to call to bar in Ontario
    • Names erased: How Indigenous people are reclaiming what was lost
    • ‘Shift in perspective:’ Indigenous place names moving Canada from colonial past
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Christina Gray

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Christina Gray

  • About me
  • Blog
  • In my own words
    • Rights & Responsibilities: Implementing UNDRIP in B.C. and in our own Communities
    • Reclaiming Indigenous Place Names
    • Looking Under the Hood of the Constitutional Mechanics of Aboriginal Law
    • Being in Good Relations
    • Decolonizing Water: A Conversation with Aimée Craft
    • A place for Indigenous peoples on Canada’s top bench
    • OPINION: The 10th Session of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
    • R v Daybutch
    • 1,000 Families Project: Christina and Family
    • Christina Gray: Why I wore regalia to my call to the bar
    • National Aboriginal Day Celebrations
    • Here's how you can help ensure recognition for Indigenous athletes
    • Time for reconcili(action)
    • Report finds Kinder Morgan proposal violates First Nation legal principles
    • Across Canada ceremonies remembered stolen sisters
    • Timeline: Burnaby Mountain pipeline protests
    • Is the grass greener for Grassy Narrows?
    • dancing around the issue
    • New Musqueam House Post at Allard Hall
    • Sweetgrass
    • Joseph Desjarlais Interview
  • In the media
    • Five Freedoms: Freedom from Oppression
    • What are the Indigenous 'Big House' Laws that Jody Wilson-Raybould Invoked?
    • Stratford Festival Forum explores oppression and how it shapes individuals and society
    • Gerald Stanley acquittal
    • Who Did Your Ink?: Christina Gray tattoos her brother's art
    • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Is Canada Living Up to It's Commitment?
    • Law student plans to wrap herself in First Nations heritage at graduation
    • Soon-to-be lawyer wins right to wear regalia when she is called to the bar
    • New lawyers honour their culture
    • Christina Gray To Wear First Nations Regalia To Ontario Bar Call
    • First Nations law student gets OK to wear regalia to call to bar in Ontario
    • Names erased: How Indigenous people are reclaiming what was lost
    • ‘Shift in perspective:’ Indigenous place names moving Canada from colonial past
  • Contact

Ode to Ontario

September 18, 2016 Christina Gray

 

Last week I shamelessly canvassed my friends for their favourite songs about Ontario. I took their responses and went on a music quest to put together this playlist, as an Ode to Ontario.

You might be able to tell it’s a little sentimental, romantic, or even stereotypical. And you are exactly right. It’s a challenge to not choose songs that are stereotypical or conjure feelings of love, longing, loss or images of the cold long winters in some way.

I inadvertently began thinking about an Ontario playlist when I was watching the Tragically Hip’s Bobcaygeon video incessantly on repeat. After weeks of doing this, I finally realized that I needed to make a playlist that consists of more than just Bobcaygeon.

If you haven’t seen the Bobcaygeon video before, let me describe it for you. It’s basically Hip-frontman Gord Downie dressed up in a cop outfit and later seen pining after this girl in a shabby-chic apartment in what is assumably supposed to be the Kawartha's township. There’s snow on the ground outside and it’s a scene that probably everyone, who isn’t from Vancouver, thinks of when they think of a Canadian winter.

I can honestly say that I was never really much of a Hip fan growing up. Instead, I was too busy listening to Notorious BIG with songs like “Mo Money, Mo Problems” which was more relatable to my life growing up in East Van than songs about rural Ontario. I can't say that my family sat around the radio listening to the Hip like we did the Jays’ games in the '90s. 

This past month was different. My friends and I, along with millions of Canadians from across this country got together to huddle around the computer where we streamed the Hip. We did this because it was Gord Downie’s last performance ever. As most Canadians are probably aware, or should be, sadly Mr. Downie was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer and thus across Canada we collectively tuned into their final farewell performance.

Having never really given the Hip more than two plays consecutively, I was strangely and suddenly overcome with a feeling of great loss during and after this performance. I also felt an incontrovertible yearning to connect with a type of Canadiana reminiscent of another day.

This is exactly what this playlist represents, ‘Canadiana of another day’. These songs aren’t new by any means—honestly, they’re mostly all old. The newest song is by Afie Jurvanen (who goes by the moniker Bahamas) with Can’t Take You With Me. The oldest one is by Stompin’ Tom who probably impacted all these music makers in some way.

I want to thank those who put forth many of these songs about Ontario. 

Mahsi cho,

Christina

In Music Tags 90s pop, Bobcaygeon, Canadiana, East Vancouver, Eastvan, folk music, Gord Downie, indie, Kawarthas, Music, Ode to Ontario, Ontario, singer-songwriter, The Tragically Hip, Vancouver
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