We all have to leave at some point in our lives.
Leave for school. Leave for work. Leave home. Start something new.
Where there is uncertainty, movement from the known into the unknown, there is also opportunity.
This is the story of people and the story of Ontario.
For Jun and I, the decision to take a sabbatical year from our lives as medical students, into a world of unknown, travelling across the province, meant leaving behind a lot of what we had come to call home.
But our path echoed the many people that have left, moved, and settled across Ontario. From the animals and plants, to the First Peoples, to the settler society, we see motion, growth, creativity, and leaving home.
Our province as we know it today was based on these movements – people leaving their homes and seeking out new lives following the path of nature, the fur trade, the Canadian Pacific Railroad, mining and forestry, energy extraction.
In all our travels across Ontario, the Railroad and its’ westward expansion in search of opportunity was a palpable reminder of this intergenerational movement. Of this unavoidable aspect of the human experience. Of leaving.
This is what inspired Railways West.
Early reflection:
thesongofontario.com/on-leaving/
released April 7, 2020
Lyrics, music, production by Matt and Jun