A Candlelit Dickens’ Village
Air Date: February 22, 2021
Episode Notes
#1 A Candlelit Dickens’ Village
February 22, 2021
0:00 Clare Fletcher, Bachelor of Arts and Science in Health Studies alumna
9:42 Josephine McMurray, Associate Professor, Business Technology Management
24:26 Olivia Rutt, Communications Officer, Communications and Public Affairs
One Market is hosted by Associate Professor Bruce Gillespie, Program Coordinator of Digital Media and Journalism.
Thank you to Serena Austin, One Market Research Assistant, Melissa Weaver for graphics, and Nicole Morgan for campus promotion. Music by Scott Holmes. We are grateful for the financial support from the Senior Executive Office.
Transcript
Bruce Gillespie 0:03
Welcome to One Market, keeping the Laurier Brantford community connected. I’m Bruce Gillespie. After a short winter break, we’re back for our third and final season of One Market. On this episode, we hear from a Laurier Brantford grad who is now a public health nurse working on the frontlines of the pandemic. Then, we learn about a research project that will help develop a better understanding of how long-term care home staff work with people who have dementia. And finally, we hear from a member of the team who produced the completely charming holiday video that turned Laurier Brantford’s campus into a paper made Dickens’ village. All that and more coming up on this episode of One Market.
Our first guest is Clare Fletcher, a Health Studies graduate from 2016, who’s now a local public health nurse. Since the beginning of winter, she’s been deployed to do contact tracing for COVID-19 cases, I started by asking her what her job would normally involve if there wasn’t a pandemic.
Clare Fletcher 1:04
The work I would normally be doing before being redeployed to public health, so when I started with public health, I was working on their Healthy Schools team. So, we were, kind of, going into schools and just meeting with kids and talking to them about mental wellbeing pertaining to COVID-19 and also pertaining to just, you know, the normal stressors of what it is to be kids. And then, we did have to pivot a little bit when the numbers got higher, and my team got redeployed to case and contact management.
Bruce Gillespie 1:41
Which I presume is what a lot of nurses are doing these days.
Clare Fletcher 1:44
Yeah.
Bruce Gillespie 1:45
There must be so much involved.
Clare Fletcher 1:46
Yeah, especially, I know, in public health, several nurses from other programs have very kindly agreed to temporarily, kind of, step away from that and just do what needs to be done right now.
Bruce Gillespie 1:59
So, what does that kind of day to day contract tracing actually look like? We’ve certainly read a lot about it in the papers. What’s it like?
Clare Fletcher 2:06
Yeah, you might have heard it in the news. Basically, what it looks like is, when someone, so because I work for the public health unit I work for, when someone in our health unit is tested for COVID. If the result comes back positive, it’s flagged in our system, at which point, it’s our responsibility to get in touch with this person, inform them of their result. And also kind of find out, like, who they may have seen, if they know where they may have gotten it from, and then just provide them with instructions in terms of how to isolate safely at home. And if for any reason they need, like, some assistance, or some provisions, or anything like that, we also set that up,
Bruce Gillespie 2:53
That must keep you really busy.
Clare Fletcher 2:55
It’s definitely, you never know how the call is going to go. You never know what, kind of, the next situation you’re going to have on the other end of the line is going to be. And something I’ve heard echoed from other nurses as well is what’s kind of difficult about this is we’re used to being able to be there physically for people. And some of us I know are finding it hard working from home because you don’t have that aspect of, like, physical touch and physical reassurance when you’re having these difficult conversations with people.
Bruce Gillespie 3:30
Now, that must be tricky, and especially because that’s how you think about nurses. It’s a person, sort of, there beside you while you’re getting some sort of care. It must be really different.
Clare Fletcher 3:38
Yeah, yeah. So, it’s definitely made a lot of us, kind of, adjust our practice in that way. But, I know that we’re all, like, we all know that what we’re doing is important and what needs to be done right now. Definitely looking forward to, at some point, hopefully going back and working in public health in, kind of, a more typical sense than this year.
Bruce Gillespie 4:05
No kidding. So, when you talk to people about their test results and, sort of, explain what happens next, have you noticed a change in the responses from, again, the fall to now? I mean, it seems like there’s so much more information that we know, today than we used to.
Clare Fletcher 4:19
I haven’t really noticed a consistent difference in response. It really depends on who we’re speaking to, and, kind of, what their background and understanding is. But, from there, we, kind of, depending on what their background and understanding is, provide health teaching and are able to find some, sort of, like, middle ground. Of course, sometimes people are frustrated, because, you know, we’re calling and we’re giving them news that they don’t want to get and also asking them to stay in their homes and kind of disrupt their lives. And so, it’s not always an easy conversation, but it’s definitely one that we’ve been able to navigate with people. And sometimes people are really happy to hear from us, and they’ve just been waiting to hear for what their results are, and they already have all their provisions ready to go. So, it really depends case to case. And that’s, kind of, what keeps each day interesting.
Bruce Gillespie 5:13
I guess you must see the entire gamut of possible responses.
Clare Fletcher 5:16
Oh, for sure. Because we’re, like, we are the ones that are essentially cold calling the public with these results, right. So, we don’t ever know what’s on the other line. I mean, sometimes it’s situations where someone does need emergency medical attention, and we facilitate that. And again, like I said, sometimes it’s someone who’s completely, like, they’re doing okay.
Bruce Gillespie 5:38
It sounds like a must be really stressful work. I mean, so what’s it like to, sort of, turn that off at the end of the day and try to resume a normal life?
Clare Fletcher 5:45
Yeah, it’s definitely, because I think for a lot of people that aren’t working in it, kind of, at the end of the day, like, watch the news or, you know, anything like that. But, to be honest, it’s my whole day. And so, by the end of it, I don’t really want to talk about COVID. And I don’t really want to talk about the vaccine, even though I’m really excited that all of this is happening. It’s kind of like you do need to take a step back. And I know that the recommendation for people in general has just been to not be, like, scrolling through social media all day, or reading the news all day. So, we definitely, like, my coworkers and I-.
Bruce Gillespie 5:45
Always good advice.
Clare Fletcher 5:45
Yeah, yeah. But, like, for us it’s not a choice. It’s just, that’s what our job is. And so, I’ve found that despite the short amount of time, I’ve been working with my colleagues with the city, we’re really good at supporting one another and, kind of, debriefing after work and being like, “Okay, this was a difficult case,” and just talking through it. And that really helps as well, because I think there’s no real way of understanding exactly the stressors of the particular job unless you’re someone who’s also in it.
Bruce Gillespie 7:00
Yeah, that makes sense. And I’m glad to hear there’s, sort of, a plan for that kind of support in place, because it’s such important work. And again, we rely on nurses so much to do this kind of work and so much else that I’m glad to hear you’re you’re being supported in that way that makes me feel good.
Clare Fletcher 7:12
Yeah, no, extremely supportive. Yeah.
Bruce Gillespie 7:15
So, when you graduated from the Health Studies program here in 2016, was this ever the kind of work you expected you’d be doing?
Clare Fletcher 7:24
No, I didn’t predict a global pandemic. I knew I wanted to work in healthcare, I certainly knew I wanted to do some sort of community work because during my time at Laurier Brantford I did a lot of outreach volunteering, like with the Norfolk Health Equity Community Committee, and YMCA Immigration and Settlement Services. So, I knew it was going to be something community based. Certainly had very high hopes to work with public health eventually, did not think that this would, kind of, be what that looked like. But, the other thing with nursing, and this is true of nursing regardless of the year, is you really do have to be able to, kind of, turn on a dime and adapt to things pretty quickly. I know it’s been a while since 2016. But, it’s still pretty amazing even sometimes for me to think, like, “Oh, like, I’m actually, I’m an RN now.” Like, sometimes when I call people and, like, introduce myself, it still seems, like, “Oh,” like, you know, “really?”
Bruce Gillespie 8:30
Well in that way to, to my mind, public health seems like a perfect place for someone with your kind of background from Health Studies because it’s such a, like you said, it has such a community focus. It’s so practical, you’re helping people in a really clear, direct kind of way.
Clare Fletcher 8:44
Yeah, and definitely something that I found, so the nursing program that I did at McMaster was open to students as long as they had the science course requirements from their previous degree. But, I have found it has been a huge advantage to me having both the arts and the science background. And that’s all from my degree from Laurier. So, yeah, I think it’s important for anyone going into healthcare to just understand that it’s not purely a science based field by any means, and having that well rounded background has served me well and certainly would serve others well in the future.
Bruce Gillespie 9:27
That’s great, Clare. Thank you for talking to us today. And thank you for everything you and nurses are doing for us today. We certainly couldn’t get through this without you. So, thanks for making time for us today.
Clare Fletcher 9:35
Thanks so much for having me today.
Bruce Gillespie 9:38
Our next guest is Josephine McMurray, an associate professor in the Business Technology Management program. She’s part of a research team that recently received a grant to study how people who live in long term care and have dementia are being managed, particularly during the pandemic. The focus of the research is what’s called a dementia isolation toolkit.
Josephine McMurray 9:59
This was created by, initially was was spearheaded by a colleague of mine, Dr. Andrea Iaboni, from the University Health Network. And she had noticed, I mean, first of all, we’re all aware of the disturbing number of deaths in long-term care for older adults who contract COVID. And she was really concerned about how people particularly were being managed if they had dementia, and probably about 85% of people who are in long-term care have dementia, or some type of cognitive disease of some kind. And she realized that what she was seeing, because she is a physician who works in the long term care sector, as well as being a researcher and part of the University of Toronto. She noticed that people were really having difficulty with the issue of isolating people with dementia.
And, you know, there are a number of things that you do if you go into a pandemic, you’re going to be looking to control a disease and to prevent it. So, in long-term care to prevent it, they stopped folks from, visitors from coming in, they screened staff. They brought in new policies, like not being able to work at more than one home, you had to have personal protective equipment, etc. And then, inside, there are ways of, sort of, controlling folks, or controlling disease spread inside. And some of that is just, you know, locking down, identifying suspected cases, isolating people who might have suspected cases, etc. So, this is particularly difficult when it comes to the population in long-term care because sometimes people with dementia don’t understand, you know, the context of why it is that they are having to be isolated. And for some people, they do wander, and part of the wandering is part of how they cope with their disease. So, that, of course you can imagine, is problematic. So, Andrea had noticed that there was also this impact that was being had on the staff themselves.
Bruce Gillespie 12:17
Hmm.
Josephine McMurray 12:17
And the impact was, because they knew what their own values were and what their responsibilities were, and they’re quite capable of, you know, assessing situations, have a sense of what is wrong and what is right, what a morally correct decision is. And they were finding themselves in situations where they literally were getting into this sort of moral distress. And this isn’t just the normal stress of, you know, increased workload, etc. It’s where you know that you have to potentially isolate somebody for their own good or for the good of others, but you know, that it’s going to have a negative impact on them because just the very isolation of that person might impact the quality of care, their quality of life, and potentially their health outcomes.
Bruce Gillespie 13:08
Oh, okay.
Josephine McMurray 13:09
So, she created this dementia isolation toolkit particularly because she wanted to try and address this issue of, how do you recognize situations where you are put in this moral distress, a situation of moral distress as a staff member because you’re doing things that sometimes don’t feel right? And then, how do you at the same time ensure that people with dementia have compassionate care and safe care? So, we put in a grant that was an Implementation Science Grant, they’re very quick, short turnaround. And it was a partnership of people, folks from CIHR, so tri-council is involved. But also, the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and some others came up with these quick grants where they wanted to be able to see some, you know, some very real impact in just a year.
Bruce Gillespie 14:04
Wow.
Josephine McMurray 14:04
Yeah, I know. So, we had to fashion these grant applications. And they were implementation science grants, which is where, I do work at, sort of, the confluence of management, health, and technology, and some of the work that I do is in implementation science and performance measurement. And so, there is going to be a technical component to this. Originally, though, it was just an implementation science grant. And so, we are looking at the implementation of this dementia isolation toolkit in three locations, two in southwestern Ontario, one in a small town, one in a rural setting, and then another in a large setting in Toronto. And the idea is that we’re taking, sort of, we’re taking a developmental evaluation approach. We have a very clear protocol and plan of how we want to go about it implementing and measuring how these tools are adopted and the context of each one of these different locations. But, in taking a developmental approach, we want to be able to have the people who are actually using the tool and implementing it having a very clear input and, sort of, an iterative process, where they help to determine how they’re measuring the success of something like this in the homes. And so, we’re at the very early stages of that at the moment, we have an REBN, and we’re waiting for ethics approval.
And in the meantime, we are just gathering commonly available information about each one of these locations, so that we can get a sense of how ready each of the organizations is for change. And, you know, anytime you implement some new tool or technology, there is as much of a socio-technical component to this as there is just about the technology of either, you know, a toolkit or, you know, some sort of digital digital aid. So, we’re trying to get a sense of the context, and having frameworks to work from is, you know, incredibly important in implementation science, because without a structured approach, at least at the beginning, it can be very difficult to take into account all of the components that are going to impact on, you know, implementations of interventions. So, yeah, that’s where we are. And what we’re, you know, in these casual conversations we’re having with the homes, I mean, we’re finding out a lot about the context for the staff and how they have been managing the very real issues and challenges of delivering care in a long term care home.
Bruce Gillespie 17:02
It must be so challenging. I can’t imagine, and I think it’s interesting, and it’s obviously so timely, but I think a lot of us, were not completely aware of the kinds of issues that long-term care home’s even face before the pandemic unless you actually had a family member inside of one, right? They were, sort of, places most of us probably didn’t think too much about. But, I think the last year, they’ve been really top of mind with news articles. And as you said, some of the cases we’ve seen out there, but there must be so much to consider for people who work at these homes in terms of adjusting sort of patient care, and as you said, making those those, sort of, decisions between what is good care, but also, you know, how can we actually, sort of, keep people safe? Those are, it must be really tricky process and must be really interesting, from your point of view to, sort of, watch people, sort of, walk through that decision making.
Josephine McMurray 17:51
Yeah, it is. And we will see, you know, the value that comes from this decision making toolkit. I think, you know, whenever you bring in systematic ways of thinking, for people who are delivering care, it can be useful. But, you have to put this in the context of people who are already operating at a workload which is far in excess.
Bruce Gillespie 18:12
Right. That’s not a normal, kind of, time to be applying stress.
Josephine McMurray 18:16
Yeah. And they were already in a situation where they were very much, you know, working at the extremes of their capacity. And that’s just long-term care today anyway. I mean, it’s an incredibly complicated environment, I think. You have, you know, a high number, very high number of semi-skilled labour, incredibly caring people who work at the very front line, and most of those are personal support workers. And while they have some training, the work that they do is helping people with their activities of daily living. So, they are oftentimes the face of the home for the residents who are living in what is in essence, their home. You know, when we refer to sort of long-term care homes, I think we often don’t think about the home part of this. We think about the long-term care and we think about the complexity of the people who are in it, but they are people nevertheless, and this is their residence.
And so, the things that we do in that place can be, you know, we see them oftentimes as, you know, wanting to be effective and efficient. But, you know, there is a part of this which is around comfort and making sure that, you know, you are clean, and that you are distracted if things are bothering you, and all of the things that we automatically think about doing when we come inside our home, we feel safe and secure. And that’s the environment that I think a lot of long-term care homes are trying to provide now. I think there was a lot of focus for years on just, you know, delivering services.
Bruce Gillespie 20:01
Mhm.
Josephine McMurray 19:57
And you’ll hear now in the language in the homes that we are dealing with, and I don’t think they’re unusual, but they are unusual now that they are, you know, that they agreed to work with us on this issue.
Bruce Gillespie 20:09
Right.
Josephine McMurray 20:09
I think that sets them apart anyway. But, you know, they’re very particular about their language. And it’s easy to throw around, you know, talk like, “person centered care”, but they really are trying to implement that. And, you know, long-term care homes now, many of them, hopefully, most of them, have really active family councils as well. And the families are, I think we underestimate the amount of care that families provide every single day to people. Now there are people who have no family.
Bruce Gillespie 20:09
Sure.
Josephine McMurray 20:42
Perhaps have no loved ones. And so, they don’t have the kind of, you know, the kind of everyday care, but there are many, many people who have family who are coming in to deliver services and to support their loved ones in these long-term care homes. And so, as you can imagine, they too have a very, they are quite opinionated on how they think their loved ones home should be. And they try and do that by providing, you know, things that are familiar to the person that they care for, and by being there on an everyday basis. And so, they are actually very, very invested in this whole process as well. So, part of what we were doing, part of the dementia isolation toolkit, and I’m working with that group now as well, is developing ways of delivering distractions, and services, and items of interest. So, ways of actually keeping people active, and activated while they are in isolation. And, you know, when people go into isolation now, if you have dementia, depending on, you know, what that actually looks like, you know, there are a number of ways of dealing with that. What you tend to do is you start out with a low tech approach, which is, you know, you look at what have ways of talking with them, redirecting, distracting. Sometimes what they’ll do is they’ll put in door alarms, or, you know, they’ll actually have somebody sitting with a person. Of course, those are very high cost.
Bruce Gillespie 22:20
Yeah.
Josephine McMurray 22:20
And homes tend to move away from those. Sometimes there are, sort of, non restrictive barriers, like putting a chair across an open door, so there’s a visual. So, there are ways of, you know, keeping people, if they have to be isolated, in a room. And then, sometimes you, sort of, just move to cohorting, moving people all together, so they’re in a space, they’re all together, and they’re all all isolating together, sometimes that’s possible. But, then you get into these times when, you know, at the very extreme end, you have to use physical restraints to actually keep people from harming themselves, or other people. Or even pharmacologic management, or, you know, having to keep them actually in physical seclusion. So, the idea is, you make your intervention as appropriate as needed, but you start at the lowest possible approach, you know, the least, sort of, not destructive, but the least extreme approach to helping people while they’re in isolation. So, part of what this team is looking at is, you know, arts based interventions, and using technology to deliver different approaches, even if it’s just conversational. And we all know about the use of tablets, etc, that’s well established now. But, you know, for some people actually having conversations or, you know, interacting isn’t necessarily in their, you know, their basket of possibilities. So, we’re looking at ways to sort of, you know, of identifying programs, or interventions that have been used in other places that might be applicable here as well.
Bruce Gillespie 24:03
It all sounds fascinating, and again, so timely. I mean, what a great opportunity, from a research point of view, to actually talk to people and, sort of, track how they’re making these kinds of decisions in real time, let alone during a pandemic. So, we will definitely look forward to hearing more about this. Josephine, thank you so much for joining us.
Josephine McMurray 24:20
Thank you for having me, Bruce.
Bruce Gillespie 24:22
Our final guest is Olivia Rutt from the Communications and Public Affairs Department. She was part of a team that dreamed up a popular holiday video message released in December that turned the Brantford campus into a candlelit Dickens’ village made out of paper. I started by asking her how the idea came about.
Olivia Rutt 24:39
We we’re, kind of, brainstorming back, I guess it was in the fall, to what to do for the holiday grading this year. And we wanted to, kind of, embody that feeling of warmth and coziness. So, there was a group of us that just came together to brainstorm and out of that we had this idea that it would be, kind of, like, a fun idea to have a Dickens village of the Brantford campus. And it was kind of offhand, like, “Oh, wouldn’t that be fun if we could do this?” But, little did everyone else know that I fell in love with that idea. So, after the meeting, I grabbed this piece of paper, and a pencil, and some scissors, and I roughly put together this mock up of the Carnegie Building. And, yeah, we just, kind of, went from there, it kind of stuck.
Bruce Gillespie 25:28
So, had you built these kinds of models before?
Olivia Rutt 25:32
So, funny enough, the logistics of actually how to put together this paper building came from a project that I did in grade two.
Bruce Gillespie 25:43
Oh, going way back.
Olivia Rutt 25:45
Oh, yeah, way back. And I don’t even, like, it’s, like, a core memory maybe. So, I don’t really know why it stands out. But, we were learning about 3D shapes. So, what we were tasked to do was to build well known buildings in my hometown, in southern Wellington, by using shapes like cubes, and cones, and pyramids, and stuff. Anyway, so we had to actually make the shapes out of paper. And so, when you’re cutting the shapes out, they have like little tabs, and then you fold them, and glue them together so that they turn into a 3D shape. So, that’s, kind of, where the inspiration came from to build this paper village. They’re kind of a mix though, they’re not, like, fully 3D. They’re almost like a paper lantern where you put the lights inside, and it, kind of, glows out from there.
Bruce Gillespie 26:38
And to my mind, that is the complete charm of the effect, because when you watch the video you, sort of, see the first building, you think, “Oh, that’s really cute. It sort of looks like a campus building.” But it’s not quite, it didn’t hit me at first that it was, until you see the next building, you’re like, “Well, wait a second. This is our campus.” The lights are flickering inside, you’ve got this lovely, warm glow. And, I mean, how many buildings did you do? Like, there must be at least five or six of them.
Olivia Rutt 27:00
There’s five. So, we did the Carnegie Building, the RCW building, just the one entrance of One Market since One Market is huge. SC Johnson Building and the Students’ Union Building,
Bruce Gillespie 27:18
Which is amazing because those are all our buildings that have very unique looks to them. They’re instantly recognizable, even in a ,sort of, you know, paper version. Like, you once you knew what you’re looking at, the first one is like, “Oh, I know exactly where this is.” And then the next one comes up and I just, it was so well done. And I can’t believe you don’t do this every day because they look so professionally well done. I think if I picked up a piece of paper the output would look very different.
Olivia Rutt 27:44
Well, I have to say that the idea definitely, kind of, came about in this way. But, it was definitely a team project. We had Jessica Hillis from the Creative Services to kind of put together this beautiful aesthetic around it. John Turnin was the videographer. And of course, the behind the scenes work from Beth Gourney and Melissa McCauley just really helped pull it off. And of course, Heidi Northwood was the star.
Bruce Gillespie 28:15
That’s right, starring Heidi Northwood. Yes, exactly, a previous guest on One Market, we will definitely put the link to the video on our website for folks haven’t seen it.
Olivia Rutt 28:23
Sure.
Bruce Gillespie 28:23
It’s just the most charming thing. Because again, we start to see this little village of houses all glowing, then we see, sort of, Heidi curled up by the fireplace in the reading lounge with her copy of How to Pronounce Knife. It just, it’s perfect.
Olivia Rutt 28:36
We wanted something that was cozy and warm. And I think we really tried to convey that in everything about this video. And of course, you know, we can’t be on campus. So, it was a way to kind of bring the campus spirit back to us when we’re celebrating apart.
Bruce Gillespie 28:54
It was fantastic. And that’s exactly what you achieved. So, well done.
Olivia Rutt 28:57
Oh, thank you. I was absolutely floored by the amount of positive feedback we received. It just, yeah, it was amazing.
Bruce Gillespie 29:04
Now the other thing we wanted to talk to you about was something else you do in your off hours, which is, and again, I’ve known you for years because you’re a former student in the DMJ program. But, you’re also a longtime travel blogger. So, I was curious to know what it’s like to be someone who is used to traveling and writing about it so much when in the last year you have not been able to go very far. What’s that been like?
Olivia Rutt 29:26
Yeah, it’s been different. I think because I was never a full time travel blogger. I didn’t, I wasn’t this, like, digital nomad living in Bali eating smoothie bowls, you know?
Bruce Gillespie 29:38
Right. That’d be lovely.
Olivia Rutt 29:40
Yeah, right? It was very much a passion of mine. I really like to embody this idea of planning, and travel, and photographing. And so, Ontario was just another place for me to explore and, you know, it sucks. Like, it’s been changing, the travel industry has changed so much since the start of the pandemic, like, I don’t think we can think of cruises, or going to a theme park, or music festivals without thinking of this pandemic. But, I had actually been traveling in Canada and in Ontario for quite some time and writing about it. So, I’ve been blogging since 20, oh gosh, 2013, just after I graduated university. But, more seriously as a travel blog rather than, like, a travel diary, I guess, since 2016. But, yeah, so about Ontario, I’ve written about some, kind of, lesser known places, Ontario. And that type of content was a huge hit this summer. For example, a couple of years ago, I had written this piece called “52 Day Trips From Toronto For Every Type of Traveler”. And in it I talked about, you know, different foodie places to go to, different beaches, adventurous places, historic places to visit all over Ontario. It was kind of hard to limit it to just 52, I don’t know why I did that. Anyway, so even though I’d written it in 2019, it was 2020 that just, it kind of blew up. It had over 50,000 views over the summer.
Oh my god.
Bruce Gillespie 31:28
Insane. So, I think people, yeah, I think people have been really rediscovering their backyard, which has been awesome to see since Ontario is so beautiful, and we have the term range of places to visit.
I think that’s so true. And that’s what I’ve always liked about your travel blog, that there’s so many local places to explore, because as someone who grew up in northern Ontario and then came to this part of southwestern Ontario, relatively recently, there are all sorts of places I’d never heard about. I didn’t know there were, sort of, growing up in northern Ontario, I didn’t realize there were sandy beaches anywhere in Ontario. So, the climate, the terrain changes so much from place to place, there really is a lot too here, especially these day when people are staying close to home. These kinds of backyard vacations totally makes sense.
Olivia Rutt 32:12
We have, in Ontario, we have the longest freshwater beach in the world and the second longest freshwater beach in the world. So, that’s kind of cool.
Bruce Gillespie 32:23
Wow. But, it must be hard too, I mean, because you’re used to traveling so much. It must have been hard this past year, on top of everything else, to really not be able to do as much of it as you normally would.
Olivia Rutt 32:33
Yeah, I had a couple of trips that were planned in 2020 that I had to cancel, which, you know, sucks. But, in the grand scheme of things, it is what it is. I, you know, I miss traveling, I absolutely do. It’s kind of my creative outlet, I guess you’d say. So, yeah, it’s definitely been tough. But, I think I’m kind of excited to see how travel is going to be reintroduced into society, since so many countries have closed their borders and vaccination schedules are different for every country. So, I’m kind of eager to see how travel has changed and whether we can implement these sustainable practices to, kind of, curb some of the things that were going wrong with travel, like overtourism, for example. Yeah, just I’m really eager to see how it turns out.
Bruce Gillespie 33:32
When things finally return to normal, where’s the, what’s at the top of your travel list? Where’s the one place you want to go next?
Olivia Rutt 33:40
Oh, man. That’s a tough one. One of the trips I was supposed to go on in 2020 was to France. So, that is kind of my number one. But, honestly, if I could go anywhere right now, I feel like it would be New Zealand.
Bruce Gillespie 33:59
Yes.
Olivia Rutt 34:00
They seem to have things under control there.
Bruce Gillespie 34:02
That’s right. Besides the fact that everything is under control, it seems like a beautiful country, lovely people. I think we all want to be there.
Olivia Rutt 34:08
Totally, absolutely. It was on our list to go do, like, a camper van trip through New Zealand. But, I never thought I’d want to go to a place so badly right now.
Bruce Gillespie 34:22
Yeah, no kidding. Olivia, we’re gonna put a link up on our website to your travel blog so that people can check it out. Thank you so much for talking us today. It’s been great to hear from you.
Olivia Rutt 34:31
Yeah, no problem. I’ve enjoyed it. And I miss seeing you on campus.
Bruce Gillespie 34:36
Yeah, likewise, one day soon, hopefully.
Olivia Rutt 34:39
Hopefully.
Bruce Gillespie 34:41
You can find a link to the holiday video on our website. You can check out Olivia’s travel blog at mywanderingvoyage.com.
And that’s a wrap. Thanks for joining us. We hope it’s helped you feel a little more connected to the Laurier Brantford community. If you liked what you heard, tell your friends and colleagues. You can subscribe on Apple, Google, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts. Worried about missing an episode? Sign up for our newsletter. You can find the link on Twitter and Facebook @onemarketLB. One Market was created and produced by Bruce Gillespie and Tarah Brookfield. Music by Scott Holmes, graphics by Melissa Weaver. Our research assistant and intern is Serena Austin. Thanks for listening, keep in touch.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai