Always trust a friend who once invited you to a whiskey tasting, even when he’s not inviting you to something that has nothing to do with whiskey. This confusing life hack I learned somewhere near Lake Ontario on Friday, July 25 at 2:37 pm, when my cell phone pinged, interrupting me from absolutely nothing.
Indigenous Music & Arts Festival.
I thought this might interest you, added the spirits specialist. Reading in between the lines, I sensed less of an invitation and more just simple information.
My interest had, in fact, been piqued, and I glanced around the room looking for an unsuspecting victim.
My daughter knew instinctively to stare at her phone—she’s learned that eye contact should be reserved for special moments, usually involving a ride and/or funding.
The son opted for another tactic—make eye contact but don’t actually listen. At the tender age of 17, he’s proven himself rather precocious in this regard.
That left just one, and with a facial expression completely devoid of any sort of joy, my wife agreed to a date.
Up near Lake Ontario, only a handful of days per year are uncomfortably hot. It just so happened that the Indigenous Music & Arts Festival was on one of them.
Never one to compromise my comfort in the name of education, I convinced my wife to start in the indoor facility, the one with Willis Carrier’s Western New York invention—air conditioning.
To make amends for lost intellectual opportunity, I started by buying a book designed for young people (though quite suitable, I learned, for immature middle-aged readers as well).
Then, hoping to further delay direct interaction with the sun, I struck up a conversation with Yvonne.
She told me about the region’s Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora). Her grandchildren were growing up on a Mohawk reservation a few hours away, where they were achieving fluency in the endangered Mohawk language.
Where exactly is that? I asked.
The answer, I found out, was complicated. The land was in New York State (US), Quebec (Canada), and Ontario (Canada)—the top of this map shows where the three converge. In other words, the arbitrary line drawn between the US and Canada had completely ignored what was otherwise a single Mohawk unit.
And that got me thinking—what if the arbitrary line didn’t exist?
I didn’t mean it in a Trumpian way—if I understood trade, tariffs, and the global economy, I sure as hell wouldn’t be a blogger. I meant it with regards to culture, as in the stuff that has little patience for borders anyway.
The answer, of course, was obvious. Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes by surface area, would be considered one of the greatest puddles music has ever known.
As shown here, the roots of its top 10 tunes would surround the entire lake.
On the southern side would be:
Oswego, New York, birthplace of Joey Belladonna, better known as the voice of Anthrax.
Rochester, New York, home of Lou Gramm—the frontman of Foreigner—and the late Chuck Mangione.
Buffalo, New York, home and resting place of Rick James. (The city of Buffalo is on Lake Erie but the metro area is very much on Lake Ontario, too.)
On the northern side would be:
Hamilton, Ontario, childhood home of David Byrne from Talking Heads (and birthplace of Tim Hortons!).
Toronto, Ontario, incubator of all sorts of legends like Rush, Neil Young, and Drake (sorry).
Kingston, Ontario, birthplace of the Tragically Hip—aka Canada’s band—and Bryan Adams.
I took a deep breath, thanked Yvonne, and promised myself not to blog about this.
Clearly, what began as one kind of experience had morphed into something else altogether.
That said, I did learn a few things, like how Indigenous culture is on life support and why Willis Carrier is my hero.
But mostly, I learned to always trust the whiskey guy.
