ABOUT THIS EPISODE
NASA closed out thirty years of space shuttle missions the same year Vancouver's streets filled with flipped cars after a Stanley Cup Game 7 loss. 2011 packed in more than it gets credit for, and laying it side by side makes that obvious fast.
Stephen Harper won a federal majority that spring. Jack Layton led the NDP into official opposition for the first time in the party's history months later. Meanwhile people were still sharing music through file-sharing sites that don't exist anymore, and an iPhone in Canada was still something not everyone had.
One listener's message cuts through the nostalgia entirely: a stepson starting 25 months of chemo that year, treatment so severe it required two hip replacements afterward. He's cancer-free today, building a career as a sous chef, a reminder that behind every throwback year are real people who lived through it.
Topics: 2011, space shuttle, Canadian politics, Vancouver riots, technology in 2011
Originally aired on 2026-07-16
