I was just leaving Toronto, merging into highway traffic under a sign that read “401 West London,” when I began to hear comments emanating from the backseat.
The first was a woman’s plaintive call for help—then came an angry snort of indignation from a Russian-speaking man, followed by a declaration of victory from a voice I knew to be that of an Afghan warlord. Suddenly, my car was alive with the chatter of dozens of voices, many speaking different languages. Filling the air with pleas, opinions, arguments and accusations; punctuating their speech with tears, laughter, empathy and rage. All of them competing to tell their stories, demanding that they be heard by me.
There was, of course, no international entourage travelling in my SUV; no one was there except me. But I was carrying dozens of cardboard boxes that contained interview tapes, transcripts and powerful memories from my decades as a journalist. As I drove, I was suddenly overwhelmed with recollections of those who had spoken to me over the years. There had been so many encounters I had forgotten most of their names. But perhaps I had also pushed their stories out of my head because they were just too painful or disturbing to retain. And now their ghosts were vying for my attention as we sped down the 401.
I was headed to a rendezvous with Amanda Jamieson, an archivist at Western University, who was eager to get hold of my files before they all fell into useless decay. The material in the boxes had been mouldering in my basement for years, long after I had left work as a globe-trotting field reporter and settled into the comfort of studio life as co-host of CBC’s As it Happens. I don’t know why I saved those crates; I suppose I couldn’t bring myself to toss out the collective humanity that was now pouring out from the backseat.
Among the cast of characters in those files were the good, the bad and the ugly—generals and judges, soldiers and politicians, the victors and the vanquished. There were the survivors of war, upheaval, ethnic cleansing, drone attacks, terrorism, tsunamis and forest fires. I had met them in Europe, Africa and Asia. But there were also the voices of people I had talked to in every part of Canada and the United States where I covered elections, natural disasters, gun violence and the fallout from the 2001 attack on the twin towers in New York City. As I packed it all up for the trip—between dusty sneezes—their stories surged into my consciousness. And now their voices were haunting me as I drove to London.
What occurred to me on that drive is my clear memory of travelling in the opposite direction decades earlier, newly graduated from Western. On that sunny September day in 1981, as I followed the signs that read “401 East Toronto,” I had a dream of becoming a journalist along with a seemingly impossible expectation that I would do exactly what I ended up doing—touring the world, telling people’s stories.
I arrived in Toronto that fall, bright-eyed and naive, full of questions and curiosity but also with critical faculties—essential qualities honed during my years studying English literature at Western. That education served me well as a reporter. Now decades later, I was returning with my harvest, the work of a lifetime, back to the place where I had started, both as an arts and humanities student and as a reporter/editor for the student Gazette.
The irony was not lost on me, when Amanda toured me through the archives in D.B. Weldon Library, that the building had been my home away from home while I studied and dreamed of my future. Here I was again in that concrete bunker, watching as a hydraulic lift carried what I had achieved since I left Western up to the shelf where it will be stored for years to come.
Anyone can go and review what’s there. But be prepared. My files have a lot to say.
Carol Off, BA’81, LLD’17, is an award-winning journalist, documentarian, author and was 2023/24 visiting lecturer in Western’s School for Advanced Studies in the Arts & Humanities. Her latest book, At a Loss for Words: Conversation in the Age of Rage, explores how words like democracy, freedom and truth have been distorted and weaponized, and asks if we can reclaim their value.