Happy New Year to all! One must admit that 2023 has been a bit of a ride regionally, nationally, and internationally. Regionally, Thunder By and northern Ontario have had a reasonably good year economically though many of the trends affecting the country and the world – the higher cost of living, homelessness and a general angst and anxiety about the future – are also part of life here. Sometimes, even the nature of “high tech” 21st century crime sometimes makes one wonder if the world has truly been turned upside.
The country’s economy has slowed but there is no recession yet. If anything, the Bank of Canada is not given enough credit for engineering what to this point has been a soft landing of higher interest rates, slower growth and falling inflation. As much as people complain about the cost of housing in Canada and the seeming inability to get things done, it also seems to be a feature of other countries such as the USA, the UK and Australia. Indeed, it is interesting how similar debates around housing issues are occurring in countries around the world. And of course, there is the international front where a definite challenge is underway from the CRINKs (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) in three specific theatres – Middle East, Ukraine and Taiwan – and in the Cyber world to the EU-Anglosphere-Asia/Pacific Western Alliance.
Still, much of the global turmoil seems far removed from Thunder Bay which is still in many respects still somewhat both removed and integrated with life in the rest of province and country. Air travel is still the quickest and most convenient way to get from here to anywhere but the pre-pandemic age of numerous, cheap, and conveniently scheduled flights connecting Thunder Bay to Toronto and ultimately the world has departed for now. As much as Thunder Bay is plugged into the modern world, we still seem to wait a long time for things other places seem to get much sooner. After all, we have been waiting for an Ikea and a Costco since at least the mid 1990s. As my running joke goes, Thunder Bay is probably a great place to wait for the apocalypse. When the world ends, it will happen at least ten years later in Thunder Bay.
Of course, as much as there seems to be constant change and
turmoil, after 33 years of teaching and research and nearly twice that number
of years being alive, one achieves a certain serenity from the patterns of constant
change. In many respects, one has seen it all. I reflect
that during my career, my teaching has gone from hand-written lecture notes and chalkboards
to electronic screens and PowerPoints while my research output was once typed
on a manual typewriter after organizing index card cards from research trips to the
library where sources were hunted down from a card catalogue. Today, I can surf
any number of libraries and digital sources for both data and output on my
laptop or iPad from the comfort of my own home. Writing - including blogging - is much faster than it ever was.
With all the new technology and social changes, one can sometimes start to feel like a dinosaur but the trick to avoid that fate is of course to maintain a curiosity and enthusiasm for the world around you, to see things in a different light, and to try new things. After all, despite the gloom, 2024 should be the quintessential Canadian year. A year of beer as we celebrate the year of 20-2-4s. What could be more Canadian than that? To a 2024 of hope and wonder and if things go off the rails, there is always a beer.
