In the America's with David Yetman

[DAVID YETMAN] In addition to being Canada's largest city, Toronto is home to a weird exposition of graffiti {AUCTIONEER NOISES} And nearby, a number of decidedly different Mennonite communities.

It also features some surprising events: a contest of steel bands and Canada's biggest festival, Caribbean Carnival in August.

[ANNOUNCER] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Robert and Carol Dorsey.

The Gilford Fund, Arch and Laura Brown, and Hugh and Joyce Bell.

[DAVID] I'm in Toronto, Canada's largest city.

Its located on the northern shores of Lake Ontario.

It's also home to a very unusual celebration: Caribbean Carnival in the summertime.

{CARIBBEAN SINGING} The festival is led by ex-patriots from the Caribbean, mostly from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, who have emigrated to Canada in recent decades.

Rather than enduring the icy blasts of Canadian winter, during a traditional Lenten season, sponsors have selected August 2023 as the date for this massive party.

Revelers bring an explosion of music and dance in a traditionally restrained atmosphere of Canada.

[MUSIC BOOMS] I'm standing atop the Scarborough Bluffs, a high point on the northern shore of Lake Ontario.

It's about 15 miles from downtown Toronto.

Toronto is located where it is because there is a small harbor that boats could get into.

The nature of Lake Ontario is such that there aren't many harbors and there aren't many places where larger ships could put in.

Lake Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes by area, but even so, Lake Ontario is the 13th largest lake in the world.

{WAVES CRASH} Although Ontario has more than 500 miles of boundary with U.S. only a few miles are actually on the land.

The rest are on water.

My home state of Arizona has two natural lakes.

Ontario has over 200,000.

{ENERGETIC GUITAR STRUMMING} The skyline of the city of Toronto is a pretty good indication of its economic power.

As a matter of fact, the province of Ontario is responsible for about a third of Canada's gross national product.

The tallest building is the CN Tower, which also happens to be the tallest building in the world, outside of Asia.

{STEEL DRUMMING} On Sunday morning, in downtown Toronto, the happening place is St. Lawrence market.

{STEEL DRUMMING} If there's one thing that Canada is known for throughout the world, it's the maple leaf.

And the maple leaf, of course, is the great tree, but it also is an emblem of maple syrup.

And Canada produces the best.

And a lot of it.

You know, seeing all this meat reminds me that Toronto used to be known as Hog Town, and I think that's associated with bacon.

In this busy part of St Lawrence Market, I know that I can find a traditional identifying signature Toronto dish.

And there it is.

Peameal-style bacon.

Here is the bacon.

It's cut from a pork tenderloin and originally it was actually rolled in brown peas, for various reasons that didn't work.

So now it's corn, which is better preservative and the traditional peameal sandwich is several cuts of that on a hot bun.

The popularity of this cannot be overemphasized.

If you're really Canadian, you like a peameal bacon sandwich.

{FOLKY GUITAR BEGINS} Toronto is internationally renowned for its ethnic diversity, perhaps the greatest of any city in the world.

Within an hour's drive of the metropolis, farmers from another era retain ties to their old customs.

We have the fortune of speaking with a mennonite authority on his people and their background.

[JERRY HURST] Mennonites from Switzerland and Germany primarily settle in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

When they started running out of land there and when the United States looked a little too hawkish and going to wars for Mennonites who are pacifists, they look to come north of the border under British rule, away from the United States.

They found land here in Waterloo County and bought it up and settled here.

They are small family farms.

They want to work.

Average Old Order mennonite farm would have 5 to 7 enterprises on the farm.

Most will have a barn.

They'll feed cattle or some kind of ruminant animal on hand corn that they grow here.

Many grow produce, fruits and vegetables, some flowers, some make quilts.

{AUCTIONEER NOISES} All the different kinds of Mennonites, read the same Bible and have the same beliefs.

We have different sets of self-imposed rules, most of which impact use of technology.

So I try to live modestly within the times and with use of technology.

Other types of Mennonites will try to be modest by not using certain technologies.

So Mennonites believe strongly in being modest.

Certainly the plained communities value plainness and simplicity because they don't want to be worldly.

So that shows in their small farm size, horse and buggies instead of cars.

The farm I own is not mine, it's God's.

I'm just charged to look after it.

So things like the Elmira Produce auction show, how well they run that business, not just to their benefit, but to the benefit of the community as well, because that serves as a food hub for hundreds of farmers who may not be Mennonite.

And four hundreds of buyers and resellers who aren't Mennonite.

{AUCTION NOISE} [DAVID] Here's a sign we don't often see: Horse and buggy parking only, but it's a sign of the importance of the Mennonite conservative transportation in this highly productive country.

[JERRY] So this would be a working carriage similar to a pickup truck, two people on the front stuff in the back.

The closed-in one would be like a sedan or a and you see longer ones that are sort of like like a minivan for a family to be in.

{GUITAR SWELLS} [DAVID] In the Mennonite country, the government has set aside extra wide shoulders that a horse and buggy can easily fit on and ride parallel to the tarmac, it shows respect for the great traditions here.

But it also enables the farmers and their families to ride safely with their traditional means of transportation.

[JERRY] Produce Auction cooperative is owned by Old Order Mennonites.

{AUCTIONEER YELLS} So that's one of the 33 different kinds of Mennonites in the area here.

So they operate the auction but any farmer can grow and sell here.

Any reseller can buy here.

So the buyers are our grocery stores, are farmers market vendors.

Are restaurants--are it's a wholesale auction.

{AUCTIONEER YELLS} [DAVID] They are renowned for the high quality of what they produce a cornucopia of varieties.

We have tomatoes, we have broccoli.

We have young apple.

Small apples look like crab apples.

We have these marvelously uniform and beautiful bell peppers.

{AUCTIONEER YELLS} {FOLK MUSIC CONTINUES} [JERRY] All three congregations share the cemetery, the parking lot, cooperate together.

So this meetinghouse had Old Order Mennonites whose families are buried here.

They use the horse and buggies.

Markham Mennonites who drive cars, but they have to be black, are in the cemetery.

And then our more modern Mennonites in here as well.

[DAVID] You tell me this is a school and there are two different doors here.

Tell us about that.

[JERRY] This is an older, Mennonite-operated parochial school.

So it will have two rooms.

There's a junior room for grades 1 to 4 with one teacher who has the same grade-eight education in a similar school and a senior room for grades 5 to 8.

Again, with a teacher, the system that they have here is is all designed to help the people be able to grow up and run their own business.

So it's more of a mentorship than a lot of book learning.

[DAVID] So there's not a high emphasis on getting an education so you can get more education, so you can go to university and-- [JERRY] They don't want to go to university because the university education just gets them a better job.

They don't want a job at all.

They want to run their own business.

So until grade eight, they're learning reading, writing and arithmetic.

Then after that, they're working with their parents for a while, learning their trade, learning how they work.

Then they're working intentionally for somebody else who's not their parent, perhaps learning other different businesses until they decide themselves which business they want to be in.

Till then, their parents have saved up enough money to buy a shop, a farm, a store, whatever it is they want to operate.

{DOOR SQUEAKS] I've got a number of things in here.

You'll see there's quilts here made by members of the community.

Got baking ingredients and things for the community so you can buy a twenty-pound bag of flour and sugar.

All sorts of rices.

They have some coloring books for kids.

So those would be the ones that are acceptable to them.

They value plainness and simplicity.

There's two things they're allowed to show color and creativity in, and that would be flowers, which you see in their gardens and quilts which sell for a great value.

It's it's ironic now that Mennonites made quilts to use leftover material to be frugal, but now they're sold for decorations for large amounts of money.

So some of these products here, you see maple sirup, they'll be from some different farms.

Each of these different labels with a folksy name is a different set of Mennonite ladies or Mennonite individuals.

So their products are sold.

[DAVID] Theyre making these in their home or right around there, and they bring them here to sell right with their own label.

This is the irresistible part of the store.

This is actually this is pastries bakery.

[JERRY] Yes.

Mennonites love yeast baking and I love blueberry pie.

When you go to Carnival, you will not see any Old Order Mennonites anywhere near the city of Toronto.

{FOLK MUSIC CONCLUDES} [DAVID] From the nearly tranquil life of the Mennonites, we return to Toronto's urban life and all its energy.

First through a popular market area.

If you go down to the commercial center of Toronto, Toronto's a huge city, over 2 million people in the city itself, four or 5 million in the metropolitan area.

You will find all the commercial, high rise, successful businesses you'll ever want to see, but not many people.

But if you come to Kensington Market, some artists have moved in.

Ethnic groups have moved in.

Canada is to great extent a melting pot of nationalities.

And especially in the urban areas where people from all over the world came and from they can make a living.

One of the attractions that ethnic minorities have is that they can come to Toronto, and Canada in general, and find other people from, of their nationality and find ways they can settle here.

They can live.

We've seen how the Mennonites transform the landscape into their fields.

Here is an automobile transformed there with the tomatoes growing here.

We have an assertions growing here and a strawberry plant.

I think the entire vehicle has been dedicated to nature.

{LOUD STREET NOISE} The market bustles with music, food and different languages.

But it doesn't quite compare us for the high energy output of steel bands.

{LOUD STEEL DRUMS} Im listening to the warm up to a huge performance of steel bands and percussion.

The steel bands are fun as they are well known to the musicians themselves and to people who are involved in them.

Comes from a long history of percussion.

Going back to Africa.

Slaves, when they were brought to the Caribbean, brought that tradition with them.

And, although the Masters made every attempt to suppress that music as every other part of the culture, somehow the slaves, in private, hidden managed to maintain their percussive abilities, which are astounding.

In the 1940s, after World War Two in Trinidad, some people discovered that old steel drums, when cut off near the top, could be tuned to provide an exquisite musical sound.

{STEEL DRUMMING SWELLS} [WENDY JONES] Pan Fantasy Steel Band is celebrating 36 years this year.

The band started out as a youth group and we saw an urgent need to foster youth leadership skills through the performing arts.

The instruments itself are able to gravitate and play any octave, any scale of that music.

{STEEL DRUMS CONTINUE} Every band has a different makeup, so you must have your front lines.

Your front lines are tenors are the ones that sing.

And behind that is your alto pans, which we call seconds or even the double tenors.

We have a double set, and behind that we have the cello family, which can range from anywhere.

In my band, we have the quadraphonics, we have three pans, we have four pans.

And then in the background we have what we call the tenor basses.

And then we have the six basses and nine basses, and that is a whole family of instruments.

Its so wide.

{STEEL DRUMMING} We have a lot of connections with the Caribbean and not just in Trinidad, but in many different islands.

So which is a good thing, But we have a wide range of West Indians in the band.

{STEEL DRUMMING} You can do Zouk, you could do afrobeats, you could do any sort of beats within the band.

The instrument itself has evolved and because of where it evolves from, the roots of emancipation coming down, that evolution has given us that opportunity to seize our African ancestors roots of spirituality, of the drum itself.

When you hear it, it gives you that beautiful music within your soul.

And that's what we dance to when you see us playing and we're dancing, we're feeling the beat.

And that beat takes us through the music.

{STEEL DRUMMING} Carnival started with steel bands.

Steel bands were the only parade on the roads in Trinidad in the beginning.

The mass came after, so the beats of the steel band and the drums actually were the first connection to the carnival.

Here in Toronto, had the same vision as in Trinidad.

Let's bring the culture to Toronto. And they did an amazing job and they've kept it alive all these years.

{DRUMS CRESCENDO, FADE} [DAVID] The bands perform into the wee hours.

In the early morning, the city is tranquil, ideal for taking in one of the world's great exhibits of public art.

{CALM GUITAR PICKING} Graffiti Alley has become a really major tourist attraction in Toronto.

We're filming early on a Sunday morning, so there's not a lot of people here.

The alley is more than a thousand feet long.

It covers more than two blocks, which present a lot of surfaces and a lot of challenges to artists who then show what they can do with an otherwise drab and uninteresting space.

{MUSIC CONTINUES} Not only do we have it on the sides of a garage, no less, but on the ceiling, so we actually had to have scaffolding in here.

The artist lying like Michelangelo on his or her back.

{LAUGHS} This entire three-story building on two sides is one huge mural graffiti, and the artist has a great sense of humor, but also an excellent balance of various colors.

And it's neat to see how the artist has actually incorporated the natural features of the building into the design.

And the bricks become part of the depth that gives it a tiny bit of three dimensionality.

This actually is an example of a two dimensional graffiti turn into a plastic art.

I mean, we got a phone booth with a hand in it and a telephone pole that has become a quilt and an electrical box that is something out of science fiction.

The artist must have a tremendous amount of fun doing this, but also it shows they can see anything in a ally like this and turn it into art.

And that's a complement to the artist.

{GUITAR CONCLUDES} {HORNS HONKING} It's carnival time, Caribbean carnival time.

We are in the beginning of an enormous parade.

Only it's not in Rio de Janeiro.

It's not in Port of Spain, in Trinidad.

It's not in Kingston, Jamaica.

It's in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Summertime.

Carnaval has always been associated with Lent, the 40 days of fasting and self-denial, the three days before.

Traditionally, are wild parties facing the prospect of not much fun for the next 40 days.

Also traditionally is celebrating the liberation of slaves or the way slaves liberated themselves.

The people from the Caribbean and South America are used to having Carnival the very hottest time of year In the early 1960s, there was a massive migration of Caribbean people to Canada, which had relaxed its immigration laws.

These people formed large groups who knew each other and were from the same cultural background and said, We need to have Carnival. But in Toronto, at carnival time, the temperature is below zero, so why not move it to summertime?

So here we are in August in Toronto, with the greatest celebration north of the Caribbean.

Carnival in Toronto.

[DR. RITA COX] Well, you are celebrating a festival that is 66 years old in Canada.

This carnival comes out of the Caribbean.

Out of the African experience.

It's a Trinidad style carnival.

It started as a little celebration, of our carnival practices.

It goes over our history of slavery, of oppression.

And what we celebrate is our resistance and triumphs over oppression And when we dance, we dance because we've overcome.

When we sing, we sing because we have overcome.

We put on costumes and decorate.

And in the beginning, the costumes go to make fun of the aristocratic colonial aristocrats.

And this is what the result is a joyous celebration which still says, This is about emancipation. It's about emancipation.

It's also about our love of each other.

It's also about inclusiveness.

It's all of us.

And let's celebrate together.

Let's join together.

Yeah, it's become the biggest festival in North America.

And no longer are we just the Caribbean.

We have people from all over the world who joined in the celebration.

{CARNAVAL NOISE} [JANAIAH RIDE] I'm the Queen of African Dancers.

This takes a lot of effort and work and love and dedication.

So this took about 3 to 4 months to make.

[HANCE CLARK] It's basically a celebration of global heritage, Caribbean culture and everybody coming together.

It's just a loving experience.

This beautiful womans Italian.

Im from St. Vincent.

It's one of many islands, its a Caribbean diaspora.

And we are just we just welcome everybody.

[PERFORMERS] My girlfriend here, right, she's from Ethiopia and I'm from Trinidad and Tobago.

I grew up with carnival culture.

My dad's a pan pioneer in Toronto, and we introduced the the culture of Carnival because it's one that unifies, brings people in, and also brings the idea of unity among African diaspora.

I am from Ethiopia, born and raised in Canada, but there is some type of connection, ancestral connection hearing the steel pan, listening to the Soca music that really feels deeply ingrained.

All the different components are from the tradition of resistance.

So when people are trying to express themselves to resist colonial rule or oppression, and the way also that instruments were banned from colonial places in the early fifties and sixties, and so Caribbean people fought to find different instruments, say it be stilts, steel drums, they use bamboo way back.

Everything was banned, and the resilience of the instruments and the materials and the costumes is shown through all of the variety that people use.

And so that's where it comes from.

We're born here, but the roots of where we came from are here.

Its a really, really lovely festival, celebration of the best of the Caribbean.

You see that going on on stage, portraying all different islands, come together as one.

Its a great, great, great performance.

High turnout, bigger bands, bigger costume, but this is growing.

Toronto is growing.

Caribbean is growing.

{DANCE MUSIC BOOMS} [DAVID] And as I walk up and down the streets and watch the various parades and the various exhibitions and carnival here, it's hard for me to imagine that I really am in Canada with a Caribbean celebration, with strong South American influences as part of our International Heritage of the Americas.

[CARNAVAL ANNOUNCER] ...show them how tribal does it.

Toronto Carnival 2023.

{MUSIC, YELLING} [DAVE] Join us next time, In the Americas, with me David Yetman.

The great Maya archeological site of Copn Honduras lies near a town renowned for macaws.

We have accessibility to Copn not often available to outsiders.

The uncovering of a hieroglyphic staircase.

[GUEST] The inscriptions are giving us the historical background... [DAVID] and a tunnel deep inside the pyramids, leading to a recently uncovered mural.

In St. Lawrence market, I'm trying and successfully becoming Toronto.

Originally, Canadian Bacon was exported from Canada to England and then to the United States, and it's very hard to find this in the U.S. and I have never heard of peameal bacon before.

Now, I have.

Wow, what an addition.

[ANNOUNCER] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Robert and Carol Dorsey.

The Gilford Fund, Arch and Laura Brown, and Hugh and Joyce Bell.