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Hey, it’s Jordan. You all know that protecting the environment is important to us here at The Big Story. No doubt it’s important to you as a listener. So you might find it interesting to learn that plant-based drinks are better for the planet. They use less water, they produce less carbon. Going plant-based can cut your carbon footprint by up to half. If you’re looking to do your part with a switch to plant-based drinks, consider Earth’s Own. It was voted Canada’s best-tasting oat and Canada’s best-tasting almond. Plus, every pore of Earth’s Own supports their plant project, which helps get more plant-based ideas off the ground, bolstering the fight against climate change. So you’ve got something that’s better for the planet and better tasting for you. Give it a try and take a sip in the right direction. Find out more at earthsown.com. Hey, it’s Jordan. I’ve been hosting this podcast for four years now. We’ve done alright. More than a thousand episodes, a couple of awards, millions of downloads, lots of Canadian stories, and lots of fun too. But there was one thing missing before I finally felt like a real big-time podcaster. That’s right, a mattress to test and report on in ad breaks. And I am happy to report that day has finally arrived. Over the next little while on this show, you will hear my unfiltered thoughts on the Douglas Mattress, a made-in-Canada eco-conscious mattress that comes with a 120-night guarantee. Personally, as I record this, I’m on night five with this mattress and I like it a lot so far. That’s my very quick first impression. I’m not an expert, but it’s honest. I am also writing this spot while I work on the mattress, and this isn’t in any of their ad copy, but as somebody who’s been working from home for two plus years now, a mattress that is firm enough to both sleep on and work on is important to me personally. One major thing I’m looking forward to testing is the cooling gel foam that is meant to keep me cool on hot nights. We’ve got a few of them coming up as I recorded this, so we’ll talk about that the next time. In the meantime, they are having a big sale in honour of sponsoring The Big Story, and you can head to Douglas.ca/Thebigstory and get what many are calling Canada’s Best Mattress and follow along to see if I will eventually be joining them. That’s Douglas.ca/Thebigstory. You’re listening to a Frequency Podcast Network production in association with CityNews.
Jordan
It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places in Canada. It’s on all the lists. You can see for yourself. But that’s not the only list this place is on. The Magdalen Islands or Îles de la Madeleine are also on the list of places you have to see before they’re gone forever. Little by little, or not so little, erosion is reclaiming the shore of the Magdalen Islands, and homes and businesses and leisure spaces are being lost or left simply too dangerous to occupy. But this isn’t a story about the rising ocean or the inevitability of climate change or the hopelessness that can take over when you consider those things. No, this is a story about a beautiful place, about the people who love it and about how they’re going to save it no matter what. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Taras Grescoe is a writer based in Montreal. He has written for the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker and about the Magdalen Islands in Hakai magazine. Hello, Taras.
Taras Grescoe
Hello. How are you today?
Jordan
I’m doing well. Thanks for joining us.
Taras Grescoe
Pleasure.
Jordan
Can you take us to the Magdalen Islands? Like, where are they? How do you get there?
Taras Grescoe
Yeah, they’re kind of this scribble of sand in the mouth of the St. Lawrence river and the Gulf of the St. Lawrence located between the Gaspésie peninsula. So the easternmost point of Quebec and Newfoundland, they’re actually a little closer to Newfoundland than Quebec, even though they are technically part of the province of Quebec. To get there, you can take a car ferry from Surrey in Prince Edward Island. It’s about a five-hour trip. Or you can fly, as a lot of people do, from Montreal or Quebec City. And that’s how I got there, on a little twin-propeller plane. But most people, I’d say, tourists, arrive by plane these days.
Jordan
And so it is a little bit of a tourist spot, I guess. Can you describe it for us? Just give us a sense of the place, what’s it like?
Taras Grescoe
It’s more than a little bit of a tourist place. It’s a huge tourist attraction, especially among Quebeckers. So the population of the islands is only the archipelago. It’s twelve islands, six major ones that are connected by these causeways. The population is only 12,700, but if you can imagine, they get about 80,000 visitors a year. So basically, if you can imagine a small, small borough of Montreal or a small neighbourhood in Toronto, that’s the population of the islands, but they get about five to six times more visitors, and they’re mostly concentrated in the summer months. So it’s a place that’s really well loved and for a bunch of good reasons. The geography is absolutely incredible. If you’re familiar with sort of the Red Cliffs of Prince Edward Island, it’s a similar landscape, but there are these gossamer-like barrier beaches which enclose these kinds of inter-island lagoons. So the islands are kind of bathed in this constant wind, which makes them a really amazing place for kite surfers who come from around the world. It becomes sort of this sort of playground in the summer for people, especially from Quebec, but also some Europeans. So a gorgeous place, but with some very challenging geography.
Jordan
Right. And that brings me to why we’re talking to you today. They’re a lovely tourist destination. Why are they on lists of places that you must visit before they disappear?
Taras Grescoe
Yeah, Time magazine listed it as one of its top ten places to see before they disappear. And that is because of a couple of interlocked phenomena. One of them is the question of sea level rise. The other is the fact that islands are actually subsiding, so the level is going down relative to the ocean. And that’s not the case in sort of the mainland of Quebec or the mainland of Canada, where the land is rebounding after the disappearance of the glaciers. The Magdalen Islanders weren’t affected by the Laurentide ice shield. And that’s one issue. The other issue is that storms are getting more frequent and more violent and they’re having a big effect on the coast there. It has a very fragile coastline. Beaches are all of this beautiful sort of powdery quartz that squeaks underneath your feet, but these beaches are actually what remains of the coastline that’s being washed away by, as I say, more frequent storms. You can actually see the coastline eroding in some places. When I visited it, I talked to residents there who would show me videos of being on hikes along the coastline and its crumbling. If you go up to the side of the cliffs, you can actually use a car key and just scrape them away. So it’s very fragile.
Jordan
What is it about the storms that do so much damage? What kind of storms are we talking about here?
Taras Grescoe
So, the first time I went to the islands, it was in 2019, and it was about a week or two after Dorian, the big storm that hit the Atlantic coast of North America. One of the strongest storms to make landfall. And by the time it reached way up north to the Magdalens, it had been downgraded from a category five, but it was still strong and it really hit the coast of Magdalen Islands hard. So when I was around there, when I got there, there were buildings that had been completely destroyed by the winds. There were boats that were washed on land. They still have a strong fishing industry there. And the most dramatic thing, I think, is just the way that the roads and bicycle paths, even along the shore, had sort of disappeared into the ocean. So it’s a place with not a lot of land and not a lot of places for residents to go. So that’s why it’s like one of the places that sort of became a poster child for sea level rise.
Jordan
So what’s happened to some of the community as the sea kind of rises and encroaches upon the land? Like, what problems have they had so far?
Taras Grescoe
I’ll give you a couple of examples. I mean, they’re kind of dramatic. There’s one building called the Édifice Cyrco, which is in sort of the downtown of the islands, in a community called Cap-aux-Meules. And there’s an A&W there, except the A&W in this building is now closed because if you kept on going through the drive-through after you’d collected your root beer and mama burger, you’d fall into the ocean. It’s basically the storms and the encroaching seas have washed away the parking lot and the driveway behind the A&W. I went to a campground there and people were camping next to this sort of hole in the grass and I looked down the grass, down through the hole and of course, there are fences around to prevent people from going in. But you could see a drop of about five or 6 meters and the waves rolling in beneath it. It’s really incredible to see. So these things make for a really spectacular landscape. I went there and I rented a bicycle and rode a ten-speed bike all around the island exploring all of the nooks and crannies and it’s very tempting to get close, but you realize it’s actually quite dangerous. Often you’re like walking on an overhang. I went to some really spectacular cliffs and it felt like I was sort of at Land’s End because on either side there was a plunge of dozens of meters down into the waves and you can see the ground, these sort of fissures in the grass-covered cliffs underneath your feet. It was remarkable. And as I said, I just run into residents and they pull out their iPhones and show me images of cliffs crumbling above them or below them as they’re walking along paths. So there are a number of ways to adapt. And the article I wrote in Hakai magazine that was republished in Walrus deals with a variety of strategies, both official and unofficial, the people there are taking to cope with the new reality.
Jordan
Let’s talk about those strategies and maybe we’ll start with the unofficial one that painted such an image in your piece. Can you tell me what was one of the first things they tried? I guess they were trying to save a dune. Can you explain that?
Taras Grescoe
I was interested in the sort of the soft methods that they’re using because the whole attraction of the Magdalen Island, Îles de la Madeleine is their natural beauty. They have these about 300 sandy beaches. They have some sort of historical communities that have buildings, old sort of salting sheds that have been turned into tourist attractions. A variety of natural and human-made landscapes and they’re trying to preserve them all. One of the ways they’re trying to deal with saving natural landscapes like dunes, for example, it’s just by building up the dunes. And one simple way of doing that is they’re taking lobster traps. Now, there’s a big lobster fishing industry there and strangely enough, because of climate change, it’s gotten even better for them. A lot of lobsters, because of changing water temperatures, have migrated north from the Gulf of Maine and they’re having these bumper crops of lobster. So they have a lot of extra lobster traps, and they’re taking used or no longer functional lobster traps made of wood, stripping them of all their plastic stuff and then laying them down in the dunes in lines and then dumping sand over them. And the sand naturally accumulates on the lobster traps, creating an additional layer of protection. Now, this is very useful in protecting, as I say, natural landscapes. There’s another method that they’ve embarked on, and that’s called Shorefront Armouring, where they lay down gravel and rocks. There’s a thing called rip rap, which is sort of small and medium-sized rocks. A lot of this stuff has to be imported from outside the islands because the islands don’t have a lot of rocks of their own. It’s a very sandy environment. So they’re being barged over from Newfoundland and the results are getting mixed reviews. A lot of the people on the islands fear that was also going to be ugly because they’re basically building a wall of rock around some of these communities in areas where they have a lot of heritage buildings. And frankly, it’s ugly. The reason that the people come to the Magdalen Islands is for this sort of incredible feeling of untouched natural beauty. So the big question is, will the Magdalen Islanders continue with the soft approach where they’re protecting dunes and trying to work with the changing tides, changing storms, or whether they’re going to opt for an approach that’s becoming much more popular around the world? And the Shorefront Armoury.
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Hey, it’s Jordan. I’ve been hosting this podcast for four years now. We’ve done all right, more than 1000 episodes, a couple of awards, millions of downloads, lots of Canadian stories, and lots of fun, too. But there was one thing missing before I finally felt like a real big-time podcaster. That’s right, a mattress to test and report on in ad breaks. And I am happy to report that day has finally arrived. Over the next little while on this show, you will hear my unfiltered thoughts on the Douglas Mattress, a made-in-Canada eco-conscious mattress that comes with a 120-night guarantee. Personally, as I recorded this, I’m on night five with this mattress, and I like it a lot so far. That’s my very quick first impression. I’m not an expert, but it’s honest. I am also writing this spot while I work on the mattress, and this isn’t in any of their ad copy, but as somebody who’s been working from home for two plus years now, a mattress that is firm enough to both sleep on and work on is important to me personally. One major thing I’m looking forward to testing is the cooling gel foam that is meant to keep me cool on hot nights. We’ve got a few of them coming up as I record this, so we’ll talk about that the next time. In the meantime, they are having a big sale in honour of sponsoring The Big Story and you can head to Douglas.CA/thebigstory, and get what many are calling Canada’s best mattress and follow along to see if I will eventually be joining them. That’s Douglas.ca/thebigstory
Jordan
Right. And that’s something that several big cities have begun doing, right? So it’s an established practice. But in town, I guess, as you talk to these folks, how do they weigh those choices? And what’s that discussion like in terms of should we do this and armour our community, or does that ruin it? Like, I imagine that must be quite a debate.
Taras Grescoe
It is. I went to a public meeting at a local community center, and there was a lot of concern. One thing, though, I don’t think there’s any questioning on the Magdalen Islands that this is happening and this is a big concern. Back in 2004, they introduced a buffer zone, one of the first communities in Quebec, perhaps Canada, to do that, where they said there’s no new construction allowed close to the shorefront. I forget how many meters. It’s a couple of dozen meters from the shore. And that’s a great idea, but there are a lot of houses that are really close to the shore. So the people at the public and the media attended were mostly interested in the details. What would their cherished communities look like after they trucked in all of these rocks? And in a lot of cases, they were concerned about the appearance of it, having more informal conversations with people. They were like, well, you know, the reality is we might have to move. I talked to one guy who does this great comic book called Nessifil who’s kind of like the asterisk of the Magdalen Islands, and he’s got a shop in one of the most vulnerable areas. He lost $10,000 worth of graphic novels when the waters rose after Dorian. And he said to himself, you know what? I love this place. I love the fact that tourists come to this little area where my shop is, but I might have to move. And a lot of people are saying that. Interestingly enough, though, I was kind of curious about the psychology of the people who are just, like, sticking and staying in place. So I talked to a lot of people who just, like, had these houses or cottages next to the shore. I wanted to find out what the hell they were going to say. There’s one couple, two women, one in her 70s, I think, and one in her early 60s. They were a couple. And they had a place that was really within 20ft of a rapidly eroding shore. They’re kind of famous for having pictures of their houses taken by Quebec media outlets because it is quite dramatic. So they spend tens of thousands of dollars of bringing in big boulders to protect their property. But when I talked to them, they had also done tons of work on their house. So they built this really solid concrete basement and they said they could go into the basement when there were storms and kind of ride out the storms. A lot of people on the islands have these double windows that are very storm resistant. They won’t break during storms. So this is a form of sort of domestic armouring, if you will, against the coming storms. And I was thinking about it. The woman was saying, well, you know, I’m not going to be alive for that much longer. I’m in my 70s and this is where I have a beautiful view and this is where I want to spend the final years of my life. And I could kind of see that. There’s a famous place in British Columbia, I think it’s called the Wickaninnish Inn, where people go to view storms. I was interested in the psychology of it. The logical reaction, of course, and what the administrators on the island, the municipal politicians, are trying to do is to encourage people not to build near the shore or to retreat in the long run is probably the most sensible approach. And it’s not just houses, of course. There’s like sewage treatment centers, there’s the hospital. The city hall is very close to rapidly eroding cliffs, so it’s a huge issue and all of them face uncertain futures, especially if the big fear is realized and that is a major melt of Antarctica, which is the wild card in all this. The ice atop Greenland and Antarctica really seriously starts to melt thanks to some kind of feedback loop in the atmosphere or rising ocean temperatures. That’s where we’re going to see a big problem for cities around the world.
Jordan
For the bigger cities that are really stepping this up and armouring their shorelines, it makes sense to continue to do absolutely everything you can and to just coat your city and walls of rock to keep this out. For smaller communities like this archipelago, at what point does it become easier to pack up and leave? It’s one thing to talk about moving houses, but you’re mentioning like, moving sewage plants, moving hospitals to a place where you may have to move them again. There is a tipping point here where this is no longer viable. Right?
Taras Grescoe
Yeah. Well, the advantage that the Magdalen Islands have, it was settled by Akkadian people after the Akkadian explosion of 1755 and there’s a lot of history there. There’s a lot of love from the rest of Quebec. And I think last year the Magdalen Islands got about a third of the entire climate change adaptation budget of the entire province of Quebec for a community of 12,700. And there is room to adapt and there is time to adapt, so that is possible. The question is whether you actually ruin the charm and the attraction of these places. I think as you say when there is serious real estate involved on the New Jersey shore, in most of England, most of the shores of England are now armoured. Most of Japan, there is hardly a natural beach left in Japan. Those places are going to continue to armour. There is a problem with armouring, though, and it’s important in the Magdalen Island context, because when you armour a part of the shore, that is, when you put up rocks and barriers, it just redirects the energy of the waves to somewhere else. So if you’re defending a place like New Jersey Shore or the Miami area, you might want to do that because so many people come to those beaches and love that area. But you have to be conscious of the fact that you’re just shifting the problem somewhere else. And other natural beaches and shorelines are going to be affected by the energy of the waves that are redirected from the hardened part. And armouring is really going to destroy what people come from all over to enjoy the fragile beauty of these islands.
Jordan
Which is why you see it now before it’s gone.
Taras Grescoe
Yeah, I’m really happy that I saw them when I did. And although I have to ask myself, are we part of the problem? Are we loving these islands to death? They already have trouble dealing with all the tourists coming in and you have to ask yourself, in getting there and visiting these islands, am I contributing to the problem? I took an airplane to get there. People who take boats also bringing their cars, that kind of thing. You’re obviously contributing to climate change, your emissions when you go there. So, for me, it’s kind of a fraught place. I guess there’s a kind of a disaster tourism mentality where people might be inclined to go to check these places out before they do disappear. I hope not.
Jordan
Taras, thank you so much for this. It’s fascinating.
Taras Grescoe
Yeah, real pleasure. Thank you.
Jordan
Taras Grescoe writing in Hakai magazine. That was The Big Story. For more from us, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Listen, it’s going to be the weekend, you have plenty of time to take our listener survey. There’s a big button at the top that says Survey. You can click that, spend about five or ten minutes giving us your thoughts, your opinions, your criticisms, whatever you want will be most appreciative. You might even win a tote bag. What a life. You can find this podcast wherever you get your podcasts. It doesn’t matter, it’ll be there. You can ask your smart speaker for it by saying, play The Big Story podcast. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. Have a safe weekend and we’ll talk Monday.
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