Rich, ontario!
[cheering & applauding]
For a long time, known as the prettiest town in canada,
And it's not hard to see why.
You guys have a gorgeous park that's actually
Your town square, that's actually a circle,
Which is actually an octagon.
[laughing]
A long stretch of beautiful beach,
And a sunset so nice you ought to see it twice.
[laughing]
But folks, if you dig a little deeper,
The people here are real salt of the earth.
And if you dig even deeper...
[laughing]
You'll find real salt in the earth.
[laughing]
This little town is home to the world's largest salt mine.
[cheering & applauding]
However, in 2011, this town was hammered
By an f3 level tornado.
That is a tornado that measures on the fujita scale
Level three, which is crazy,
It is a sizzling fujita.
[laughing]
But I'm telling you, to be this pretty with
A touch of crazy, goderich, I think I'm in love.
[laughing]
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see that people have a sense of humour
About hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
[mc] mr. Jonny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find the funny
In the places you'd least expect it,
Canada's struggling small towns.
Towns that are against the ropes,
But hanging in there...
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is goderich, ontario.
♪
[cheering & applauding]
In 2011, on an otherwise lovely late summer afternoon,
Fate delivered a cruel...
Twist in the form of a twister.
[howling wind]
There was almost no warning.
And from the little bit of research I've done,
That's the thing about tornadoes.
They are the most sudden and unpredictable of storms.
Environment canada issued a bulletin at 3:48 pm,
Saying the tornado would hit goderich at 4 o'clock.
It hardly counts as a warning.
[laughing]
That's more like running commentary.
[laughing]
"goderich, alert!
This afternoon, you are getting struck by a tornado."
"oh my god, when?"
"no, you don't understand,
You are getting struck by a tornado."
[laughing]
♪
I talked to a woman whose house almost blew away.
Not the wicked witch of the west,
But the wick of west street willy's, pauline wick.
[cheering & applauding]
For years, pauline and her family had run
The beloved local restaurant and pub,
West street willy's, just off the town square,
And just a few minutes' walk from her home.
And both were destroyed by the tornado.
Tell me about when you realized it was happening.
Yeah, not a lot of warning.
It actually was a beautiful day,
Like today, at one point.
She was running some errands in her minivan,
But had stopped by her house.
And, she knew, suddenly, something was very wrong.
The temperature dropped a little bit, I think,
It just- it felt cooler.
It was coming quick, whatever it was.
♪
And you could hear this strange sound.
Many people have told me this, this weird sound,
A low buzzing sound.
And very- sounds very ominous, sounds very eerie.
Sounds like something that should happen on lake erie,
Not the like you're on.
[laughing]
She thought okay, "I'll just wait it out in the van."
And then eventually she thought
"no, I'll go into the house."
Made it into the side of the house just as it started to
Come right through our side yard.
Next thing, her minivan is impaled by a tree.
The tornado had ripped up a tree,
Sent it down through her windshield,
Through the dashboard, into the engine block.
She said later on, she opened her glovebox,
She could see the tree going down through it.
Would be pretty hard to get out your insurance, I guess.
[laughing]
Maybe the value of her van actually went up.
Like, for driving enthusiasts,
It's very hard to find a minivan with a stick in it.
[laughing]
I've seen some of the pictures, and her house,
Which was very badly damaged,
The corner room in the upstairs was obliterated.
It was her daughter's room.
Thank god, they weren't home.
It looked like somebody had ransacked the place.
The drawers had been opened and slammed shut,
Glass from the window, the tornado had blasted glass
Out of the window, and shards were stuck in the wall
On the opposite wall from the window.
But then amongst all this destruction right there
On the wall, perfectly preserved, untouched...
Poster of justin bieber.
[laughing]
I guess mother nature's a "belieber".
[laughing]
It really was only a short time period,
Like within a minute, it went through our area
On st. Patrick street and destroyed trees, buildings.
The destruction that the tornado caused is so random.
Some things were completely untouched,
And other things were flattened.
That's the weird thing about a tornado.
It's unpredictable in many ways.
There's a path of destruction.
That funnel of the tornado travels around,
It'll damage certain areas.
It's like that game plinko on the price is right.
Do you know what I mean?
Actually, it's a lot like the price is right
Because in the end, everybody's looking around
Guessing how much things will cost.
[laughing]
♪
Pauline said that she couldn't believe the help
That came from neighbours.
There were people everywhere, strangers...
People that I never thought knew us.
And they were cutting down what they could,
What they could manage.
♪
She said before there was any sort of official response,
She said people in the community were out
Helping each other.
A lot of them were from town and
A lot of them were coming from out of town too.
People putting friends together and saying,
"let's go see what we can do."
She said it was sort of comforting to hear chainsaws
All over town, people were helping their neighbours
Clear their lawns, clearing out parks and public spaces.
It brought out the best in people.
Like some people, she said, would make meals and
They'd make extra, and they'd bring it to
Individuals or families who were displaced.
You know, they'd show up and, "oh, you know,
I was grilling some extra barbecue and I brought
Some over to you because, you know,
I couldn't help notice your barbecue fly past my window."
[laughing]
One guy got caught in his second-story bathroom
'cause the tornado ripped out his staircase.
That's got to be pretty awkward.
[laughing]
"can someone bring some toilet paper upstairs?"
"no, there isn't any."
"there isn't any toilet paper?"
"there's no stairs."
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
I met your mayor, who did a great deal for
The community rebuild after the storm,
Particularly when it comes to the town square.
Now, mayor john may not be john mayer,
But his body of work is a wonderland,
Mayor john grace.
[cheering & applauding]
I was born and raised here in goderich.
As a teenager, where did you go to meet all your friends?
Right here in the park.
You can see the passion he has for the community,
In particular the town square.
The town square is the centre of our community.
Everything happens here. -Yeah.
♪
My first time there, there was lots going on,
It was great.
♪
And you can see all that and more just doing a ringer.
When we were old enough,
We got to drive around the park.
We did ringers after ringers after ringers.
You get into your car, you go,
You just do a lap around the town square.
See what's going on.
I'd drive my wife crazy by coming and doing a ringer
Before we actually go to her house.
-So, it's embedded in us. -Right.
I'm never sure how many lanes it actually is.
[laughing]
I feel like I've been passed on the inside and the outside.
But whenever I try to do that people honk at me,
And I don't think it's 'cause they know me.
[laughing]
Tell me what this place looked like
The day after the tornado.
It looked like a war-zone.
There was trees down, sidewalks pulled up,
There was cars rolled over.
One heartbreaking thing was,
All the trees in the town square.
The tornado had ripped them all out by the root,
The place was levelled.
The rebuild was an opportunity to improve
Things, make them better, ready things for the future.
We can build a community for not only the,
You know, the 21st century,
But look at the community, from your youth
To your seniors, to your retailers,
And the people that want to live in the downtown core.
All this was gonna cost a pretty penny.
And that meant some serious fundraising.
We're very grateful for everyone who donated,
From large corporations, down to kids doing...
Lemonade stands.
From all these initiatives, the town was able to
Fundraise almost $4 million,
Which is pretty impressive.
People seized this opportunity for change
While the ground was ripped up, you know,
People laid in a fiber optic network.
They built like a proper music venue stage,
The sidewalks were widened.
But, of course, the highlight of the rebuild
Had to be the parade of trees.
The idea was not just to buy small trees that
Would grow into a canopy.
We planted substantial trees.
Trees that would create a canopy
The day they were planted. -Right.
Trees so big that they had to be brought in
On their own flatbed or tractor trailer.
And they staged all these trucks with these huge trees,
A couple of kilometres outside town,
And it was a full spectacle.
People were actually crying when they seen those
Trucks roll in and drive around the square.
It was a very emotional day for a lot of people,
And myself.
These trucks came in one at a time with these huge trees.
And then, in the middle of them, ironically,
Pauline wick in her minivan came through,
But she fit right in,
She still like the tree sticking out of it.
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
Just because you're the prettiest town in canada,
Doesn't mean that people here are not deep.
Being a home to the world's largest salt mine means
People here have been almost half a kilometre deep
For almost half a century.
I went and I got a personal tour of the salt mine with
Processing manager, david church.
[cheering & applauding]
Toughest minerals goderich mine is the largest
Underground salt mine in the world.
The initial drilling was for oil.
And in that drilling process, they found salt.
Looking for oil struck the white gold instead.
-Yes. -Tell me about how big it is.
The mining elevation is 1,800 feet
Below lake huron.
Take the cn tower and turn it upside down.
Right, not just to the bulge, I mean the whole cn tower,
Turn that upside down. That's how deep the salt is.
Now folks, I've heard of low sodium,
But this is ridiculous.
-Boo! -[laughing]
Somebody booed before I even had it out of my mouth.
[laughing]
♪
We got into the cage, the elevator.
We got in this enormous thing,
And we started going down.
This thing moves at a rate of 1,000 feet per minute,
And it still took almost two minutes to get down there.
I haven't experienced a shaft that big since
They gave family feud to gerry dee.
[laughing]
♪
You come out of the cage in this like,
Expansive space, and it's pretty cool.
Literally, 18 degrees year-round.
But it looks much colder because the powdery salt,
It looks like it's covered in frost.
It looks like a canadian winter also because
All the vehicles are caked in salt.
[laughing]
Dave said he's gonna show me this machine
Called a continuous miner.
So, I just assumed we were gonna walk there,
But we hop into this big side-by-side,
And we just start driving.
And we drive and drive and drive.
Apparently, it's almost 7 square kilometres.
It's about the size of goderich, itself.
It's the michigan salt basin.
The centre of the basin is in upper michigan.
The salt bed we mine is about 100 feet thick.
And the mining method is a room and pillar.
So, the rooms are excavated, and the pillars are
Left behind to support the earth above it.
Basically, just take out salt,
But leave big chunks as pillars,
And that's your support for the mine ceiling.
What is the salt used for?
Most of the salt from the goderich mine is
Used for highway de-icing.
They do mine table salt from this area,
From the same salt bed, is that right?
That's correct.
It's a different process in a different area
For the salt you put on food,
But that is also mined here in goderich.
Table salt at the evaporation plant,
At our sister plant, uptown in goderich.
And that's very cool to eat the salt that's-
It's locally sourced food, very trendy.
You could call that earth to table salt.
[laughing]
It's a massive operation. Biggest employer in town.
We employ around 600 people.
A lot of well-paying jobs for a lot of locals,
And will continue to for a long time, apparently.
David said they can mine 8 million tons of salt a year.
And I did the math on it.
Do you know how many boxes of salt that is?
Like your standard kitchen box?
I did the math. Yeah, it's over 7 billion.
Do you want to know how many dashes that is?
-Like... -[laughing]
Like, generous dash-
Uncalculable, uncalculable.
I tried to do it on my phone, my phone blew up.
[laughing]
My phone blew up more than the day my fans found out
They gave family feud to gerry dee.
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
I met a woman who opened goderich's first
Sushi restaurant, from west sushi, jane kim.
[cheering & applauding]
Jane didn't come from a culinary background.
She studied some english literature.
Yes, as soon as I graduated from university,
I was hired as a flight attendant in
Korean air force one.
-Korean air force one? -Yes.
Flying around with the korean president.
Not sushi, but definitely rolling with some big fish.
[laughing]
It was the first sushi restaurant here in goderich.
So, jane got these pictures printed up,
So people would know what they're ordering.
Like she said...
At the beginning, it was really confusing.
People order the salmon sushi.
So we made sushi and they, they want maki.
Right, yeah.
They think everything is sushi, like sushi,
Maki, sashimi, you know difference, right?
Sushi, maki, sashimi- the three are different.
She said, "some people don't even know the difference
Between sushi and sashimi."
I was like, "haha, really? I don't believe that."
[laughing]
I was like, "just tell me, just for fun, what...?"
[laughing]
Jane told me that her chef skills have
Now been surpassed. You're thinking,
"oh, it must be some, some hot new
Graduate from the tokyo sushi academy."
Close- local contractor, brad chase.
[cheering & applauding]
Brad's work is in window and door installation.
I got sent up here to fix the door.
The time it took me, I couldn't charge her.
I said, "I'm not gonna charge ya."
She said, "okay, well how can I repay you?"
She said, "I'll make you lunch.
You can have lunch for free."
She made me up a dynamite and a maki,
And that's the first time I've ever had sushi.
Yeah.
And he noticed that she was short-staffed that day.
She had students for her staff,
And they were going off to college and university.
♪
So, what did he do?
He rolled up his sleeves and started
Rolling up some seaweed.
And before you know it, he's throwing
Some shrimp, some avocado, cucumber...
Boom goes the dynamite roll.
[laughing]
Lovely, look at that.
That's some good looking sushi, I think.
[whispering] maki, this is maki.
-Maki, oops. -Maki.
-Good looking maki. -[laughing]
Brad, do you still do door and window installation?
Still with my company for installation.
I'm management now. I don't have to
Hurt my body anymore, so... [laughing]
It's not like he's gonna leave his other job.
This is just "tempura-ry".
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
For any place to say that it is the prettiest town
In canada, that is pretty bold.
But, I'm not going to call your bluff 'cause I've
Seen your bluffs and they are really pretty.
-Hi jenna. -Hi, how are you?
I had a chat about beaches, bluffs,
And double sunsets with goderich tourism manager,
Jenna ujiye.
[cheering & applauding]
You're involved in tourism here.
How's that going?
People are visiting here, and then coming to live here.
So, we've had a unique couple of years.
♪
The other day, we were looking down from
Atop the bluff, and it looked like
The caribbean ocean.
But even better, it's not the caribbean, so...
No traveler's diarrhea.
[laughing]
Which I hate, I hate the traveler's kind.
Whenever I go down to the caribbean,
I'm like, "no, no, I won't have the traveler's."
When it comes to diarrhea,
I came down with a case of my own.
[laughing]
Jenna said this marketing scheme that she's been
Working on now is the double sunset challenge.
How do you explain to somebody that there are
Two sunsets in goderich?
It's because of the bluff, the 200-foot elevation.
You've got these 200-foot-high bluffs.
And you've built all these staircases that go
Up to the top of the bluffs.
You can come down here to the beach, watch the sun go down,
And then run as fast as you can 200 feet up,
You can then, again, watch the sunset.
I wanted to test this out.
I wanted to see if it, if it actually worked.
♪
And I did it, I watched the sunset.
Beautiful, and then I start booting it up the stairs.
[cheering]
Go, jonny, go!
♪
[groaning] I didn't bring my puffer!
And, it wasn't too long before I was like,
"oh, my god, I don't know about the sun,
But I'm definitely starting to see stars."
[laughing]
Seeing lots of stars, and that's what I really
Had to focus and tell myself...
I've already seen it once, it'll be-
[laughing]
Great the first time, great the first time.
-I know how this ends. -[laughing]
♪
I ran up, I got up the rest of the stairs.
And it's true, you can look out, and it's...
It all works out, you can see the sun again.
Of course, the sun isn't actually
Setting the second time. You understand that?
You know it's the angle.
Just like everything in this town,
It's best with a pinch of salt.
[laughing]
♪
This is a place of big water, big salt, big storms.
And now I'm a very big fan of ya.
Like an octagonal square, you're back in a rare form
As the prettiest town in canada.
Like a minivan with a stick, you're as rare as it gets,
Like a sun that sets twice in short time.
What you've been through is tough,
But like the stairs at the bluffs...
In the end, it's well worth the climb.
Beautiful beaches and a lovely town square
Are back but the effort was great.
Some lost all they own, some even lost their homes,
When the twister brought a cruel twist of fate.
But goderich learned you can't just click your heels
And pretend the wicked wind hasn't blown.
No, you roll up your sleeves
When your community believes,
As in this place, there's no place like home.
Thanks for coming out, everybody!
You've been great, thanks so much!
[cheering & applauding]
It was awesome, it was so great.
Beautiful, excellent.
♪
It really showed the spirit of the community.
And, and the jokes were right on.
♪
[harmonica]
It got to the heart of the community,
And how we respond to...
To disaster, the resilience of the community.
♪
How the community came together to help each other
Is a fantastic story.
Thank you, johnny,
For blowing the roof off this place...
With laughter.
♪