Assessing Climate Change Vulnerabilities of Ontario's Rural Populations

Climate change causes considerable challenges for both urban and rural communities. Our study aimed at enhancing the understanding of climate change effects on rural populations. The study was promoted in Middlesex County library locations and on Middlesex County’s social media accounts; all residents of Middlesex County were eligible to participate. Through this method of convenience sampling, we successfully recruited 40 rural residents and conducted five focus group sessions. The study was conducted in Middlesex County, in southern Ontario, Canada, which provided a good representation of southern Ontario's rural communities. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data collected in focus group discussions. Focus group discussions yielded four main themes and provided valuable insights on several climate change-related topics. The four identified themes are: frequent extreme weather events, access to food and safe drinking water, protection from vector-borne diseases, and living in a rural community. Our results indicate key parameters to address the climate change issues for rural residents and lead to a series of recommendations to revamp climate change policy at local, provincial, and federal levels. Study Participants commented on the need for adaptation skills concerning the physical and mental health aspects of increased indoor activity (avoiding natural spaces/pollution). This could also be an indicator/opportunity for future health programming and funding to support new realities. Future research is needed to develop effective local solutions with collaboration among government, business sectors, and rural residents.

Mid-Century New Jersey: The Garden State in the 1950s

Leanne Manna reviewing "Mid-Century New Jersey: The Garden State in the 1950s" at the Cornelius Low House/Middlesex County Museum.

Introduction

On 25 May 1963, readers of The Middlesex County Times (Southall Edition) were taken aback by grisly news: the local Scout movement had recently lost as many as thirteen boys, all leaders of troops whose parents had fled to further suburban towns. W.J. Hubbard, the District Scout commissioner, acknowledged that “this was understandable”, because “they feared that their children’s education would be held back”. The explanation given was quite straightforward: “We are losing many Scouters who have been living in that part of the town occupied by our Indian friends”....

Interview with Nick Papadimitriou

Nick Papadimitriou is a British author, whose widely acclaimed novel Scarp was published in 2013. He is also the author of Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Barnet, Finchley and Hendon (2009). Papadimitriou designed the Middlesex County Council website in 2007, and in the same year he helped provide material for Will Self’s The Book of Dave. in 2009, John Rogers made a film on Papadimitriou’s life and thought, called The London Perambulator. From 2009 to 2011, along with Rogers, Papadimitriou hosted Ventures and Adventures in Topography, a radio show on Resonance FM. Papadimitriou calls his walks and writing ‘deep topography,’ and is in turn described by his professional colleagues as a ‘deep topographer’, distinguishing his field of research and literature from ongoing trends of psychogeography.This interview was conducted on a rainy afternoon, in a small café at Golders Green, near Hampstead Heath, in London.

“One Piece of Land to Cling on To”

This concluding chapter studies the Hassanamisco Reservation. Edward Pratt, the executor of John Wompas's will, wasted no time attempting to cash in on his acquaintance with the land-rich Indian sailor. On November 3, 1679, safely landed in New England, Pratt registered his deed for eight miles square of Nipmuc land with the Middlesex County clerk. However, Pratt and the other Englishmen who held deeds to Wompas's land and benefited from his will battled with colony authorities and Wompas's Nipmuc kin for nearly a quarter of a century, interrupted by wars and several changes of government. Despite the self-serving efforts of Pratt and his associates, Hassanamesit remained in Indian possession well into the eighteenth century. A few acres of Hassanamesit—the Hassanamisco Reservation—are still held by Nipmucs in the twenty-first century, and the legal documentation of that possession leads directly back to the will of John Wompas.