Welcome to Don River Radio!

In Episode 1: Remembering the Don, DRR host Dylan Gauthier interviews environmental historian Jennifer Bonnell (author of "Reclaiming the Don: An Environmental History of Toronto's Don River Valley") about the past(s) and future(s) of the Don River as remembered, forgotten, and frequently (re)imagined through recent history.

Guest Bios

Jennifer Bonnell is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at York University, where she teaches courses in Canadian, environmental and public history. She is the author of Reclaiming the Don: An Environmental History of Toronto’s Don River Valley (University of Toronto Press, 2014) and the editor, with Marcel Fortin, of Historical GIS Research in Canada (University of Calgary Press, 2014).

Bonnell’s articles and essays have appeared in Environmental History, The Canadian Historical Review, The Journal of Canadian Studies, and Museum & Society, and as chapters in Sandberg, Bocking, and Cruikshank’s Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region (L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History, 2013) and Desfor and Laidley’s Reshaping Toronto’s Waterfront (University of Toronto Press, 2011), among others. She has also contributed to a variety of public history projects, including documentary film and television projects for the Evergreen Brick Works and Metal Dog Films, and research and public engagement work for LabSpace Studios and No9 Contemporary Art and the Environment. Her research has received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Federation for University Women among other sources. She is currently working on a new book, Foragers of a Modern Countryside: Honeybees, Agricultural Modernization and Environmental Change in the Great Lakes Region.

About the Podcast

Don River Radio is a ten-part podcast series and call-in hotline on the history, evolution, and future of the Don/Wonscotonach River, hosted by Mare Liberum co-founder Dylan Gauthier with invited guests.

Host: Dylan Gauthier (https://dylangauthier.info/)

Our collective is Mare Liberum (http://www.thefreeseas.org/)

Our project is In Which We Draw A People's Map of the Don River donriverradio.ca

We are hosted by Evergreen Brickworks and Waterfront Toronto and supported by ArtworxTO year of public art

Our audio engineer is Tom Upjohn

Special thanks to our collaborators Shannon Gerard and Maria Hupfield

Music by JANTAR

Project Curators: Charlene Lau, Chloe Catan, and Kari Cwynar

Land Acknowledgement

We respectfully acknowledge that the sacred lands through which the Don River flows are the traditional territories, homelands and nunangat of the respective First Nations, Métis Nations and Inuit who are the long-time stewards of these lands. We acknowledge that Toronto is built on occupied Indigenous territory – the traditional homelands of the Wendat (Wen-dat) and Petun (Pah-toon) First Nations, the Haudenosaunee (Ho-den-O-Show-nee), and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory is governed by Treaty 13 and is subject of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek Confederacies and allies to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

Episode 4: Art at the Confluence (with Queen Kukoyi, Nico Taylor, and Jay Havens)

Don River RadioBy Don River RadioAug 05, 2022