This American town runs an annual festival celebrating Canada. It hit different this year
Channon Mondoux grew up in Windsor, Ont., married an American and eventually made a home with her family in Kalamazoo, Mich. On Saturday, Mondoux helped host the fourth annual Can-Am Peace Jam, a festival celebrating Canadian culture and the longstanding ties between the two countries.
Founder, a Canadian living in Michigan, says current tensions just make her more determined
Catherine Zhu · CBC Radio
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As It Happens6:06This American town runs an annual festival celebrating Canada. It hit different this year
Channon Russette-Mondoux, grew up in Windsor, Ont., married an American and eventually made a home with her family in Kalamazoo, Mich.
But she never lost her connection to Canada — and she’s now turned that tie into an annual celebration.
On Saturday, Russette-Mondoux helped host the fourth annual Can-Am Peace Jam, a festival celebrating Canadian culture and the longstanding ties between the two countries.
That sense of cross-border friendship comes at a time when relations between Canada and the U.S. have been anything but smooth, amid an ongoing trade war and U.S. President Donald Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state.
In Kalamazoo, though, the focus holds onto the hope that Canadians and Americans can still come together.
This year's event featured Canadian and local bands playing hits by artists including Rush, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette, Avril Lavigne and Nickelback. There was also a curling demonstration, arts and crafts from local vendors, and a genealogist helping festivalgoers trace their Canadian roots.
Russette-Mondoux spoke with As It Happens host Nil Köksal about why she started the festival, what the Can-Am Peace Jam means to her community and why she believes it’s important to keep it going.
I know this is a labour of love for you but I wonder after all these years whether this year, this weekend, felt different.
Sometimes it's hard. It is hard because I love my homeland so much, which is the impetus for this really, and I think when it gets harder out there, it drives me harder to keep going.
You designed this as a celebration, but I wonder in this moment how people are reacting?
Americans, for the most part, are completely devastated over what is happening with Canada. The average person on the street is mortified to hear the things that are being said, to see the policies that are being enacted.
The festival is absolutely not about politics; it's about people. But I am also involved in my community, and I became a U.S. citizen for the sole purpose of being able to vote, and I am committed, just like I was in Canada. I was committed to my country [and] I'm committed to community here.
The name has changed from the Canadiana festival to the Can-Am Peace Jam. You were calling yourself a peace officer. When did you decide to make that change?
We started out as Canadianafest for the first two years, and then in 2025, when there was a lot of rhetoric starting to come out, and I knew the minute I had heard the words — 51st state coming as a joke or [Mark Carney as] the governor of Canada and all that coming out — I knew right away that we were headed for a mess of trouble.
I made a point of it [among] all this chirping going on out there [to say] ‘Let's put that away because what we do is joyful’ regardless of what anyone else says. We're gonna come together, regardless of what anybody else says.’
We called it the Can-Am Peace Jam but what we realized is that the Canadiana Fest became the organization — the celebration of Canadian culture became the organization — and the festival became the Can-Am Peace Jam, because we do things all year round.
We're doing hockey watch parties, poutine parties, Boxing Day parties. We even supported the very first street hockey program in inner-city Kalamazoo.
The vice mayor of Kalamazoo takes part [and] was a judge at the best butter tart contest at the festival. That's one of the things that happened on the weekend. What are some of the other events?
Traditionally, we have a poutine competition called the World Champion Poutine Competition, and we've had six, seven, eight food trucks competing with various kinds of poutine. This year, unfortunately, they had to step back because we had to move the festival indoors after the realization that the storm front that was coming through on Saturday would have just shut us down.
We pivoted and reached out to a community businessman named Harvin Sandhu Singh, who happens to have ties to Canada, and he agreed to let us come into his 30,000 square foot facility in downtown Kalamazoo and use it for our festival, and so we were lucky enough to pull it off.
Do you ever have people who aren't fans of what you're doing and push back at the idea?
You're always going to hear somebody chirping about something, right? I mean, the internet is the internet. I think everybody looks for an opportunity to say something negative about something else. We're not Pollyannas, we know that there are people out there who have drank the Kool-Aid, that totally believe everything that comes out of the administration, and so they have a bee in their bonnet.
They're looking for something to be angry at. Considering the level of messaging that comes out of the White House, I'm shocked it hasn't been more.
I could tell just even from our conversation that this is emotional for you. Like a lot of people, as you said, you have two places that you call home. Does a time like this make you miss Canada more?
Yeah. It's hard sometimes and sometimes you just wanna hear the lilt of a Canadian voice, sometimes you just want to hear that more gentle approach, sometimes you wanna be standing in line and having a conversation, and you can fall into things that you grew up with, things that you're familiar with, and also just the attitude about not being so harsh, and that's what I think is a big difference between Canada and the U.S., is that Canadians are more laid back, but they're also a very fierce people. We're tenacious. We don't give up.
Oh God, I hope this will be over soon.
When this is over, and we will look back, and there've been other times, we've been through similar situations [like] during the depression, there were heavy tariffs put on Canada, [which] actually backfired like it's doing this time.
We have been through tough times in the past, and we can get back to being friends again, but I don't want to let a year go by without celebrating my homeland, and I'm not gonna hide, not gonna run.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Zhu is a writer and associate producer for CBC Radio. Her reporting interests include arts and culture, science and social justice. She holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of British Columbia. You can reach her at catherine.zhu@cbc.ca.
Audio produced by Emma Marshall. Q&A edited for length and clarity.
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