Happy Halloween, 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 inaugural issue, we hear from reporter Ian Brown, who was able to indulge in his fascination with the Atlantic Ocean by going on his first overnight voyage on a sailboat down Cape Breton and across the Gulf of Maine to Mount Desert Island. All it took was a surprise call from a friend he hadn’t seen in almost two decades. There, he met oceanographers at the renowned Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography to understand how climate change is altering the Atlantic Ocean.
We also take a road trip through southwestern Alberta, where a transformation is afoot as it taps into resources it has in spades: sunshine and wind; ponder whether horror movies are the unlikely heroes Hollywood needs after the pandemic battered the entire industry; and more.
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Sailing the Atlantic to learn about climate change left me cold, in more ways than one
The Atlantic Ocean heaves around Here and Now, a racing sloop that carried The Globe's Ian Brown.Ian Brown/The Globe and Mail
Ian Brown pushes through sea sickness aboard a boat that moved “like a bucking Bronco” to chronicle his voyage on his favourite body of water, observing the “mysterious world underneath” alongside renowned oceanographers. “For every flash of clarity, there is an accompanying shadow of alarm,” he writes. When he set out to sail, Brown says he “imagined a luxurious, rollicking, sun-drenched” journey that would alert him to the perils of climate change while offering him reassurance of the ocean’s vast ability to “absorb man’s insatiable ambitions.” He says he was “wrong on all counts.”
Greetings from Alberta’s Energy Transition Corridor, Canada’s unlikely green power hotspot
Sheep hide from the sun at BluEarth Renewables Burdett Solar Facility project, County of Forty Mile, near the hamlet of Burdett, Alta., on Oct. 4.Guillaume Nolet/The Globe and Mail
Hello from the gusty southwestern corner of Alberta, a dominant a site for wind energy since the 1990s. Jeffrey Jones explores the province’s ever-growing Energy Transition Corridor, with 17 projects generating 1,032 megawatts, while following the newly completed Burdett Solar Farm facility developed by BluEarth Renewables Inc. These investments have made the province that’s long been known as the country’s fossil-fuel centre a green energy hot spot as well.
The doctor on a mission to turn the tide on Canada’s deepening health care crisis
Dr. Alika Lafontaine heads the influential Canadian Medical Association.
The stakes for Alika Lafontaine – and the rest of the country – could not be higher. Record-breaking wait times at emergency rooms continue to soar, health care workers say they’re reaching their breaking point and are leaving the profession, and millions of Canadians can’t find a family doctor and lack access to basic medical care unless they go to an emergency room or walk-in clinic. For the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, the mission couldn’t be any clearer: Now is the time for political leaders to make real, substantive changes to systems that have been floundering for decades.
Opinion: The decline of the Liberal empire
The Liberal Party was once anointed “Canada’s natural governing party” – and not without merit. For much of the 20th century, it was the world’s most successful democratic party: It won more elections and stayed in office longer than any other. But for a party that has won three elections in a row, it has been in decline for some decades, argues Jeffrey Simpson. Under Justin Trudeau, he writes, the party has decoupled from its historical moorings – and it’s paying the political consequences as some of its historical support vanishes.
Meet the Canadians finding an audience by catering to America’s far right
Steven Crowder speaks during his protest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at the Michigan State capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Oct. 2, 2020.Nicole Hester/The Canadian Press
Conservative Canadians have a long history of influence in the United States – that is shifting, as of recently, far to the right. Some have quietly become among the most prolific contributors to online forums for right-wing extremism. Canada has also itself become a haven for such views. Researchers have counted roughly 300 active right-wing extremist groups in the country, compared with about 1,000 in the U.S., where the population is nearly 10 times larger.
Want to live a fuller life? Then we need to start talking about dying
Illustration by Jaimie Shelton
The prospect of dying is scary. But for those who are part of a growing “death positivity” movement, it isn’t so scary that they can’t talk, laugh or even joke about it over drinks or dinner. Adherents say death cafés are just one one way for society to keep normalizing the process and to grapple with the kind of weighty stuff that all of us should contemplate – before it’s too late.
He the North: Masai Ujiri is the Toronto Raptors’ real MVP
Under Masai Ujiri, the Raptors have won more than they ever have in franchise history.anthony gebrehiwot/The Globe and Mail
Masai Ujiri is the face of the Toronto Raptors franchise. After all, he was the architect behind the team’s first NBA championship. He’s the executive who saw a “goldmine” in a franchise that many had dismissed as a small market. Ujiri has set the bar high for himself and his team, saying “failure is not an option.” To succeed as a team, he says, there can be no barrier between a business relationship and a friendship.
The terrifying truth about the bloody business of scaring you stupid
Filmmaker Ti West returns with Pearl, another chapter from the twisted world of X.Courtesy of A24
While the rest of Hollywood has spent the past 10 months anxiously worrying about the states of many genuinely concerning things – the blockbuster, the mid-budget adult drama, the children’s film, the big-screen comedy, the entire business of making and releasing movies, really – the horror industry is over there in a creepy corner, smiling. Horror is booming. But has it come to save the movie business in its most desperate hour of need?
Thanks for reading our first issue of Great Reads! Let us know what you think by e-mailing greatreads@globeandmail.com, and see you next weekend. – Beatrice Paez and Emerald Bensadoun