Good morning, and welcome to the weekend.
Grab your cup of coffee or tea, and sit down with a selection of this week’s great reads from The Globe. In this issue, we ponder what we risk losing as humans when we become detached from our historical roots; speak with residents from a former fishing town divided over whether to resettle; and investigate why Indigenous-run healing lodges are struggling despite being shown to reduce incarceration rates and promises from Ottawa for funding.
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Healing lodges help reduce Indigenous overincarceration. Why has Canada allowed them to wither?
Conrad Johnson works out in the gym of the Stan Daniels Healing Centre in Edmonton. He arrived here after a decade in prison for a gang-related killing committed when he was 15.JASON FRANSON/The Globe and Mail
For years, successive governments have pledged to expand the number of healing lodges – a made-in-Canada idea in response to rising rates of Indigenous incarceration. Study after study has shown that those who are released from there – instead of traditional prisons – are less likely to return to criminal life. Though they have been proven to lower rates of recidivism, healing lodges remain scarce, underfunded and underutilized across the country.
Shopify’s growing problem with customer retention
Shopify saw an explosion in the number of stores joining its platform as lockdowns drove many traditional small businesses to pivot to online sales. But new data show many of those stores did not last.Chris Wattie/Reuters
Shopify soared to popularity as one of the easiest platforms on which to launch an e-commerce business, and the company attracts a high volume of new store sign-ups. But, it faces a growing problem with customer retention. A Globe and Mail analysis reveals stores on Shopify Inc. shut down or left the e-commerce platform at an increasing rate in each of the past three years, with just 34 per cent of stores surviving a full year on average.
Hispanic Americans reliably voted Democrat. But as midterms loom, Republicans sense an opening
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, centre, poses with supporters on Oct. 1 in Harlingen, Texas. As Democrats embark on another October blitz in pursuit of flipping America's biggest red state, Republicans are taking a swing of their own: Making a play for the mostly Hispanic southern border.Eric Gay/The Associated Press
Democrats have long counted Hispanic Americans among their most reliable voters. But there are signs of change in a key Hispanic area of the country that may spell trouble for the Joe Biden White House as the pivotal midterm elections approach. National tracking firms say Texas’s 15th district now leans Republican. The shifting political fortunes in this corner of southern Texas haven’t gone unnoticed. The Republican Party is investing heavily in ads, with the district’s Republican candidate outspending her Democrat rival by a factor of nearly three.
Stay or go? Newfoundland town divided over prospect of resettlement
Residents of Gaultois, a once-bustling fishing community in Newfoundland, are facing a divisive vote over the future of their home.DARREN CALABRESE/The Globe and Mail
Only a few dozen people remain in Gaultois, N.L., which was once a booming fishing town that had its own bank, sawmill and so many kids there wasn’t space for all of them in a pond hockey league. It’s long been a holdout in Newfoundland and Labrador’s efforts to phase out the province’s most remote communities. Now, those left face a vote on a contentious plan to take provincial compensation and leave.
Sense of history anchors us to this Earth. Future generations might lose it if we’re not careful
A 19th-century plaster cast of ancient Egyptian art on display at the British Museum.CARLOS JASSO/AFP/Getty Images
Studying history gives us roots: a context for our existence. It gives us the footing we need to deal with the challenges before us such as climate change, rising inequality and political and social upheaval. No other subject helps us to understand so comprehensively what it is to be human, Trilby Kent argues. And yet, an entire generation may be at risk of operating from a position of historical ignorance.
A glimpse into life as a Hutterite – through YouTube
Amy Walter runs in the school gym at Spring Point Hutterite Colony in Southern Alberta, which has rules for how members of the religious sect should use smartphones and the internet.LEAH HENNEL/The Globe and Mail
Giselle Waldner’s YouTube career is unusual – she says she doesn’t know if there are others from her community who do what she does. Hutterites aren’t critical of technology in general, but smartphones are a whole other beast: the internet is vast, much of its content at odds with their values. Still, across the Prairies, colonies are striking their own balance between maintaining their traditional way of life and cautiously embracing modern technology.
How two Kashmiri cousins leveraged their Instagram likes into a bona fide travel business
Amir Ali and Rayan Hussain sit in shikaras, boats distinctive to the Kashmir area, on Dal Lake in Srinagar.Sharafat Ali/VII/The Globe and Mail
Life for cousins Rayan Hussain and Amir Ali took a turn in 2017 when they met a photographer who encouraged them to take photos of their beloved home region, Kashmir. Years later, the pair have transformed an active social media following into a career guiding tours of “the real Kashmir.”
Bryan Trottier tried to quit hockey, but 25 years and six Stanley Cups later, he is a Hall of Famer
Bryan Trottier once tried to quit hockey when he was a teenager, but his father, Buzz, nudged back into the sport.John Lehmann/The Canadian Press
Some books are so Canadian it can be hard to credit them. Hockey Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier’s memoir, All Roads Home: A Life On and Off the Ice, has that true-north cadence that now sounds as though it is from another millennia, never mind century. Trottier talks about the only time he has ever tried to quit hockey, when he was 16 years old and playing in the Western Hockey League. Looking back on the pain he has experienced throughout his life, he says “the darkest moments – those are the ones that make you.”
Thanks for reading and see you next weekend. - Beatrice Paez and Emerald Bensadoun