It all started in the ‘80s. It was the Cold War, and we in Peterborough were consumed by nuclear dread, frightened by the remote possibility the Russians would nuke Darlington on the lakeshore and we would suffer unnamed damage from fallout.

At the time, a filmmaker named Terri Nash had made a 30-minute documentary for the NFB entitled “If You Love This Planet,” which everyone was watching. Not only that, but four bright teenagers — two boys and two girls from Montreal in a group called Students Against Global Extermination (SAGE) — got an old van and undertook to drive across the country showing the film and speaking at town halls and in school gyms.

The peace movement in town put out a call for billeting families, so John and I volunteered our top floor. One of the boys was the filmmaker’s son, Seth Klein, the brother of eminent writer, Naomi Klein (of “The Shock Doctrine,” “No Logo,” and “This Changes Everything: Capitalism........

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