The Morningside Years

From 1972 to 1997, each weekday morning, Morningside host Peter Gzowski guided what he considered the most intelligent listeners in the country through three hours of the most intelligent radio programming in the land. He took us through the briars of political and social policy debate, entertained us with the best of Canadian music and song, challenged us with the mysteries of science, tipped us to the better books of the season and introduced us to their authors, gave us tested and mouthwatering recipes, read aloud our best letters to him, and took us off the beaten path of Canada to show us who and where we are.

The program lives on in The Morningside Years. In these pages – and on the accompanying free compact disk – you’ll find a collection of the most memorable items from the program’s years on air. Here you’ll rediscover Gzowski’s interviews with the stars of Canadian literature – Margaret Laurence, Robertson Davies, W. O. Mitchell, Alice Munro, Timothy Findley, and Margaret Atwood. The heartbreaking drama by Emil Sher, Mourning Dove, is presented in its entirety, as is the exceptional panel discussion of Louis Riel’s trial. There’s a chapter of the fifteen best letters to the program, as well as a mini-Morningside Papers – “The Sixth (and Definitely Last).”

There are photographs, too: a Morningside family album and a series of candid shots taken in the studio during what may have been the most exciting day in the program’s life – the day spent preparing for the 1997 Red River Rally. There are conversations with scientists, and letters from abroad and from the North. And, on the accompanying CD, among other memorable pieces, there are excerpts from a classic political conversation among Eric Kierans, Stephen Lewis, and Dalton Camp, a hilarious conversation with Stuart McLean, a moment with Margaret Visser, a new arrangement of “O Canada,” sung a cappella by Quartette, and an unforgettable discussion among all the Canadian women who ever swam Lake Ontario.

Dalton Camp, one of the most companionable fixtures of Morningside, contributes a funny and surprisingly tender foreword, but Gzowski has the final word in the book: an essay in which he reflects on what Morningside was and what it meant to him.

His retirement as host of Morningside in May 1997 occasioned a flood of affection for the man and accolades for his journalism that was unprecedented in Canadian broadcasting. Many lamented not just the passing of Morningside, but also the loss of a daily presence who, with the tools of unfeigned curiosity and simple courtesy, tended a vast field in which Canada’s tallest poppies thrived.

A priceless keepsake, The Morningside Years is Peter Gzowski’s salute to his listeners and an enduring memento of Canadian broadcasting at its best.