The word nostalgia was coined by Johannes Hofer in the 17th century to describe what was viewed as a dark omen, or even disease, suffered by Swiss mercenaries who were homesick. The term was derived from two Greek words, nostos (“homecoming”) and algos (“pain”). While its inherent meaning has not changed, it no longer carries a negative charge. Quite the opposite, in the 21st Century nostalgia is now a booming commodity celebrated and encouraged as a soothing antidote to… almost everything.Whole industries have arisen from dust to satisfy the thirst our culture demands from nostalgia; from re-boots, re-makes and re-imaginings of popular film, television, book and comic book series to the ongoing exploitation of any Toyetic or soft-line IP that once haunted our brains like ghosts. For me, the most challenging aspect of the nostalgia-gasm enveloping our culture was how little of it was homegrown, especially considering the etymology of the word nostalgia itself. While we all grew up immersed in Americana, there were always Canadian alternatives in the cultural industries. Why should American nostalgia dominate the retro renaissance? Where were the stories behind our stories? The concern led me to create an online hub called Retrontario nearly two decades ago. A place to recognize local nostalgia at its most ephemeral and fuzzy: be it a ‘70s era Beer jingle, a vintage tattered school textbook, an old fast-food menu, or an episode of a local news broadcast, I felt they were all worthy of our collective remembrance (and possibly, reverence). Thankfully, so-far the ‘20s has witnessed a sea-change when it comes to the recognition of Canadian nostalgia, most noticeably in documentary form. In September, Lisa Rideout’s Degrassi: Whatever It Takes (2025), about Toronto’s globally adored television franchise premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where last year Mike Downie’s The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal (2024) and the year prior Robert McCallum’s Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe (2023) both won the festival’s People’s Choice Award for documentary (this year’s TIFF also featured documentaries about John Candy, Lilith Fair, and the Toronto run of Godspell).Every day it seems as if our phones, via insidious social media, are scrolling through more classic Canadian pop-culture content, triggering even more dopamine receptors from long dormant synapses and hopefully happy memories. We might just have collectively conquered an awkward shyness or inferiority complexion that somehow we didn’t have our own rich ecosystem of nostalgia here in Canada worthy of celebration.It is in this electrifying new era that I am most excited to deliver my book ImagiNation – The Golden Age of Toronto Kids’ TV, covering an abundance of nostalgic local material for which there was virtually no representation anywhere, as well as bolstering the already sterling reputation of many of our beloved stories and people. A new day has dawned. Let’s keep the momentum going! Also, to best avoid the fate of the Swiss mercenaries, never forget that “the past is a place of reference, not residence.”,