The year was 1979. Thunder Bay folk singer-songwriter Rodney Brown gave a deputation when Atomic Energy of Canada was in the process of doing consulting for its plan to bury nuclear waste near Atikokan, ON, and he gave it in the form of a song called "Freight Train Derailed" — which he has now re-recorded alongside local rock troupe the Honest Heart Collective to protest another burial plan.
Now, 43 years on, another consultation process designed by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has narrowed down its options for a $23 million nuclear disposal site to two communities: South Bruce (near London, ON) and Ignace — 150km north of Atikokan.
A community of about 1,300, Ignace citizens are concerned about the long-term environmental and health effects of the project, although others are convinced that it could help create jobs and business in the town's economic struggle, as per a CBC report.
The year-long consultation effort with communities and First Nations has been looking to see which site should host three million spent nuclear fuel bundles in a tunnel network 500m below the ground.
"The nuclear industry now, it's not the same kind of panel I saw in '79," Brown told CBC's Jon Thompson. "Now it's a marketing company." The musician drove from Thunder Bay to Atikokan to demonstrate against burying the waste in the area, which was facing mass unemployment following the Steep Rock Iron Mines closure.
"The Atikokan people weren't excited about [nuclear waste] either," the singer-songwriter continued. "But there were so many jobs lost there and everybody was desperate. They needed jobs and I'm sure it's the same kind of thing now going on in Ignace. Everybody's looking at money and jobs."
When advocacy group Environment North presented Brown the opportunity to shoot a music video so his protest song could once again draw attention to the cause, it seemed like the time to give "Freight Train Derailed" new life. The videographer then introduced him to the Honest Heart Collective's Ryan MacDonald, and they decided to join forces on an intergenerational re-recording of the song with both of their bands.
"Rodney was one of — if not the first — musician who inspired me to play music," MacDonald told CBC, as Brown was best known as a children's performer when the HHC bandleader was growing up in the '90s. "It was a big full-circle moment for me, working in the recording studio that I built with my friends in the Honest Heart Collective, to be recording the guy that got me into wanting to record music in the first place."
While MacDonald is now the same age as Brown was when the elder had written "Freight Train Derailed," the activist admits the battle he thought the movement was breaking ground on by the end of the '70s is still ongoing. "The older you get the more you see how things go in circles," Brown said. "When I was involved in all this stuff, I thought we were on new ground, new territory, but we weren't."
Watch the video for the 2022 version of "Freight Train Derailed" below.
Read Exclaim!'s review of the Honest Heart Collective's 2021 album More Harm.
Now, 43 years on, another consultation process designed by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has narrowed down its options for a $23 million nuclear disposal site to two communities: South Bruce (near London, ON) and Ignace — 150km north of Atikokan.
A community of about 1,300, Ignace citizens are concerned about the long-term environmental and health effects of the project, although others are convinced that it could help create jobs and business in the town's economic struggle, as per a CBC report.
The year-long consultation effort with communities and First Nations has been looking to see which site should host three million spent nuclear fuel bundles in a tunnel network 500m below the ground.
"The nuclear industry now, it's not the same kind of panel I saw in '79," Brown told CBC's Jon Thompson. "Now it's a marketing company." The musician drove from Thunder Bay to Atikokan to demonstrate against burying the waste in the area, which was facing mass unemployment following the Steep Rock Iron Mines closure.
"The Atikokan people weren't excited about [nuclear waste] either," the singer-songwriter continued. "But there were so many jobs lost there and everybody was desperate. They needed jobs and I'm sure it's the same kind of thing now going on in Ignace. Everybody's looking at money and jobs."
When advocacy group Environment North presented Brown the opportunity to shoot a music video so his protest song could once again draw attention to the cause, it seemed like the time to give "Freight Train Derailed" new life. The videographer then introduced him to the Honest Heart Collective's Ryan MacDonald, and they decided to join forces on an intergenerational re-recording of the song with both of their bands.
"Rodney was one of — if not the first — musician who inspired me to play music," MacDonald told CBC, as Brown was best known as a children's performer when the HHC bandleader was growing up in the '90s. "It was a big full-circle moment for me, working in the recording studio that I built with my friends in the Honest Heart Collective, to be recording the guy that got me into wanting to record music in the first place."
While MacDonald is now the same age as Brown was when the elder had written "Freight Train Derailed," the activist admits the battle he thought the movement was breaking ground on by the end of the '70s is still ongoing. "The older you get the more you see how things go in circles," Brown said. "When I was involved in all this stuff, I thought we were on new ground, new territory, but we weren't."
Watch the video for the 2022 version of "Freight Train Derailed" below.
Read Exclaim!'s review of the Honest Heart Collective's 2021 album More Harm.
