“Shack Tales” NACC “Crossing Bridges” NWT Tour

Leela, Diga and I flew back to Yellowknife from Halifax on that Monday and I got to sleep in my own bed for one night.  The next day I joined Ben Nind, ED/AD of the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, NACC ( http://www.naccnt.ca ) to begin a four community “Crossing Bridges”, tour of “Shack Tales” to Norman Wells, Inuvik, Hay River and Fort Simpson, sponsored by Canadian North Airlines,  between April 17 – 23.

Norman Wells, NT – April 17/12

The most amazing phenomena when one travels this far north is how the light changes, there is nothing to compare to the sunrises and sunsets you experience this high up the Mackenzie Valley or up to the Beaufort Delta.  This is especially true in the spring time of the year when there is a tangible energy hit from being out on the land on a sunny, spring day.

Mackenzie Mountain Sunrise, Norman Wells

We arrived in Norman Wells in early afternoon, checked into the Heritage Hotel, another NACC sponsorship, met up with all around tech and go to guy, Mark Colier to pick up the sound system for the night and get it over to the Dennis A. Drolet hall.  Again, it’s almost like mercenary presenting, taking over the community hall and transforming it into an intimate theatre environment.

Drolet Hall, Norman Wells

Drolet-hall-set-up

Drolet-hall-stage

I am no stranger to this hall, I had spent many hours free lance sound teching for boring yet important meetings nor to Norman Wells as I have played there many times backing up Yellowknife Chanteuse, Tracy Riley since the mid 90’s.

The evening’s performance of “Shack Tales was loose but in a good way, the show seems to have found its pace and groove, the sound was great and Ben ran lights for the evening.  I couldn’t have asked for a better first show to start the tour.

An audience perspective of the show:

I just returned home from an evening out where we attended Pat Braden’s Shack Tales.

I cannot say enough about the amazing evening he provided.

Pats ability to weave his music and amazing stories of Life and History together ,

to make you laugh , choke up , smile and nod in recognition of so many of the pieces

is truly an evening not to be missed .

He and his presentation is a northern Treasure.

Well Done Pat , Well Done NACC.

Mackenzie Mountain Sunset, Norman Wells, NT

Inuvik, NT – April 18/12

Wednesday morning, we jumped on Canadian North again and flew to Inuvik, checked in to the Mackenzie hotel, again, another NACC sponsor then crossed the street to our Venue, the “Our Lady of Victory” church.  I have been travelling to Inuvik since I was in high school and never have set foot in this church.  Seems I had to wait 50 years.  The inside of the church is visually stimulating but it is the acoustics of the domed room were heavenly!

Our Lady of Victory Church, Inuvik, NT

I ran my Stick and Bass through a mini amp called a Philly Jones, 100 watt dual channel Bass amplifier with 2 five inch speakers.  The sound of this amp was amazingly flat and true, not a lot of juice but enough that I had to turn it down.  I didn’t use a microphone that night either and that was also liberating.  I had to work the voice some but I had some fun playing off of the natural 2 second reverb.  A good friend, Bob Mumford brought out his Aurora College class of aboriginal teachers in training to see the show as they were in a storytelling component of the course.  Another friend I have not seen in 25 years suddenly appeared in the audience.

After the performance, we were visiting in the church when my friends Steven Kakfwi and Marie Wilson stopped by with Sean Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, all of them in for a chiefs meeting that day.  I played my “Up There” piece for Sean so he could hear the acoustics of the room.

Performance night at Our Lady of Victory Church

I am beginning to observe the cycle or routine that happens from the artists perspective when they travel from town to town, performing the same show to a different audience each night.  The audience and artist(s) arrive at a common place at the allotted time, audience is entertained by artist(s) and magical moments of interaction are perceived by both through the performance but the true, one on one interaction takes place when the respective jobs are done and audience members feel comfortable enough to walk up to me to share their own stories of life and for some, their life in the north.  The richness in these heartfelt interactions and sometimes, intimate encounters are what make the shows memorable for me and the stories I hear resonate far beyond my own self contemplation and criticism of the performance that night.  I read a quote once from Randy Newman I think it was where he referred to this as a “soul cheque”.

Hay River, NT – April 20/12

Thursday morning saw a rather drastic change in the weather, a drop of at least 15 degrees and some blowing snow.  I took care of some business in the hotel and met Ben for a fast but healthy and substantial lunch at the Cafe Gallery where we met some of the folks who had been at the show the evening before and the conversation and stories continued to be shared.  We hoped on the Canadian North flight back to Yellowknife, was met but Treena who ferried us over to the Buffalo Airways terminal ( http://www.buffaloairways.com ) for our flight to Hay River aboard the famous DC3 and its equally famous pilot, Buffalo Joe McBryan of the Omni productions hit, “Ice Pilots”. http://www.icepilots.com

loading up the DC3 in Yellowknife

The terminal was bustling that day with 35 people on the standby list.  They were all trying to get across Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River as the ice crossing on the river had gone out and thus, all road traffic into Yellowknife at a standstill with the exception of mail and food which is airlifted across the river by helicopter each spring.  This will be the last year for this bizarre and inconvenient exercise as the new bridge is expected to be complete by this fall.  I liken the experience of travelling on a DC3 as a ride on a Harley with wings, the sound and the vibration from the piston engines, the smell of the wood and leather seats all make you wonder at the amazing history that this aircraft has been a part of.  The flight is at low altitude and you can easily see the features of the lake, flying over the Mirage islands, squinting for the end of an endless ice pressure ridge running across the north arm of the lake and basking in the warm,, evening sunlight streaming in through the windows, comfortable in knowing that you are flying in one of the safest airplanes ever built.  If the engines were to ever fail, the DC3 has one of the largest wingspans enabling it to glide for a long time which was utilized by this very airplane in the second world war when they would indeed kill the engines and glide over a drop point so as not to alert the enemy. Also comfortable in knowing the pilot at the controls, even as he reads the daily paper on the flight over, Joe McBryan is one of the last in a breed of northern pilots that have lived and flown over decades, transporting all manner of goods from pianos to pick up trucks, from birthing mothers to medi-vac patients to wayward touring artists just trying to get to the next town.

We checked into the Ptarmigan Inn,(http://www.ptarmiganinn.com) another NACC sponsor, ate dinner and relaxed that evening, catching up on some rest after a rather hectic and intense week of travel.

Again, I am no stranger to Hay River.  I have travelled there since I was in high school band, playing outside for the grand opening of the Arctic Winter games in the middle of March, when it was so cold, frozen fingers tips pressed gingerly on icy saxophone pads, Bass strings and the Brass players were in danger of having their lips freeze to their mouth pieces, wearing little more than our thin blue band sweaters.  More recently, the NACC festival of stories has made Hay River a mainstay in the tour schedule for the last 5 years, performing at the Museum in the older section of town, close to the southern waterfront of Great Slave lake.

Ben and I met up with all around tech and go to guy Dana Cross, (thankfully, every community has one) on Friday afternoon to set up at our venue, one of the two theatres at the Riverview Cineplex, owned and operated by the Rowe family that also owns a large construction company in the south Slave district and who have also become a sponsor of the NACC outreach program by closing down their theatre on a performance night and donating the facility.  The theatre holds just over 100, the acoustics were very dry but with the help of Dana, dialed in an appropriate storytelling ambience from the stage.

Riverview Cinema complex, Hay River, NT

Riverview Theatre

That evening, we had many ex pat Yellowknifers in the audience along with a handful of the town’s matriarchs who all seemed to get the more subtle references in the show to the quirks of living in Yellowknife’s old town.  The audience was the most responsive yet outside of Yellowknife and again, had a wonderful time sharing stories after the show.

7 AM Saturday morning, we were the first at the airport to catch our  DC3 back to Yellowknife for about a day and a half lay over before our next and last show.

Fort Simpson, NT – April 23/12

Ben picked me up from the shack late in the afternoon and we headed back out to the airport to catch our Air Tindi flight to Fort Simpson. Our mode of travel that day was on a Cessna Caravan flying over the Horn Plateau and some of the most magnificent country in the NWT.  The flight took about 1 ½ hours, flying low enough again to see the east arm of Great Slave lake  and the gentle rise of the land as you reach the plateau. Whenever I travel up north, I am also in awe of the immense landmass this territory encompasses.  You can fly for hours and hours, travelling at a couple hundred Km an hour, and the land and the millions of lakes goes on and on and on and the south western NWT is some of the most pristine and spectacular country you will ever see.

We landed at the airport in Fort Simpson around 8 PM, taking in the warm, sunny evening and being treated to our first glimpse and sound of Canada Geese, always a welcome and sure sign that spring has finally arrived.  We picked up our rental truck, headed into town and checked into our B&B for the night, the Mackenzie Rest Inn (http://www.mackenzierest.ca) and finished off the evening with a #2 combination meal at the Panda Cafe, the only restaurant open at 9 PM on a Sunday night.

Mackenzie Rest Inn, Fort Simpson, NT

I have been to Fort Simpson many times over the years, again, as a sound technician for regulatory board hearings or making the 8 hour drive from Yellowknife on hot summer days to perform at the annual Open Sky Festival.  The town has the laid back, easy flowing vibe of many of the communities on the banks of the Deh – Cho (Mackenzie River).

The next morning, Monday, we headed out to check out the venue for that evening’s performance at the Open Sky Gallery in the basement of the “John Tsetso Library”. (http://www.openskyfestival.ca/ ) We met with Lynn Canney who helped us to set up in the gallery and in short order, I was ready to go.  We were not sure how many seats to put out for the performance as this was the first time NACC had presented an event in Fort Simpson so, this was the first of what will be many NACC sponsored performances in the community as the theatre is committing to bringing each of the season’s performers out to these same communities I have toured in the years to come.

John Tsetso Library, Fort Simpson, NT

Open Sky Gallery, Fort Simpson, NT

About 15 people came to see “Shack Tales” that night and were enthralled with the show, maybe not knowing quite what to expect from a Storyteller but all got the point of the show and I had a great time reconnecting with friends and hearing their many stories of life in the Deh Cho. ( see article from the Slave River Journal on my Press page)

"Shack Tales" billboard, Fort Simpson, NT

It was another 7 AM call to be at the airport to catch the Caravan back to Yellowknife, bringing a close to the tour that took me from the eastern coast to the northern coast of the country over the course of 12 days.  Returning home, I have a huge gratitude of thanks to NACC, to Ben Nind for handling road manager duties and to Treena Riles who co-ordinated the tour, (her first time ever) and to the many local and regional sponsors and volunteers for getting on board and investing in the arts and artists and into the health and well being of their communities.

Mahsi Cho!

NACC Crossing Bridges poster

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“Pride of the North” at Imperial Theatre, St. John, NB

Pride of the North poster

Ok, so a bit of a back story to this show; Leela Gilday (www.leelagilday.com) and Digawolf (www.myspace.com/digawolf) have performed and jammed together in various combinations and permutations over many years in clubs and at local and regional festivals and events, have watched each other develop our respective careers as performing touring artists and have put it all on the line for our careers.  Through exposure at various provincial showcase events, made possible with support from the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre (NACC) (www.naccnt.ca ) Mentorship Program, all three of us have showcased at these events and met many Theatre and Festival Presenters, booking agents, managers and other industry professionals. Sometimes through these showcasing and networking initiatives, the expected result can sometimes pleasantly surprise us all.

Enter Peter D. Smith, General Manager of the Imperial Theatre in St. John, NB (http://www.imperialtheatre.nb.ca ) who has garnered a reputation as a maverick and visionary amidst the fold of theatre and industry professionals in the country.  Peter has watched the three of us showcase over the last 4 or 5 years and in the fall of 2011, contacted Debbie Peters of Magnum Opus Management (MOM)( www.magnumom.ca ) and proposed hosting a performance at his venue to spotlight this trio of the crème de la crème of NWT performers in a night titled, “Pride of the North” on April 14, 2012.  This event was also co-sponsored by the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre.

We managed to pull together rehearsals over February and March, through some crazy touring schedules, bringing our strongest material to the set list.  There were some electric moments in rehearsal where we knew that this collaboration was going to be something special.

Flying from Yellowknife to the East coast can be challenging and grueling.  It took us 14 hours to fly to Halifax and another 4 hours to drive to St. John, this route taken to ensure that our instruments made it and also to relieve some of the cost of expensive inter-island air travel.  After an entertaining breakfast in Truro, driving through the picturesque Nova Scotia and New Brunswick country side, we arrived at Mahogany Manor (http://sjnow.com/mm/) in the heart of St. John to give our sleep deprived bodies a chance to rest.

Mahogany Manor

Saturday afternoon, we met up with Technical Director, Jim Wilson, who escorted us to St. Joseph’s hospital where we did a short set for about 30 seniors in the palliative care unit then onto sound check at the Imperial where we were warmly greeted at the theatre by Angela Campbell, Manger of Development for the Imperial.  The concert was set up as an “on stage performance” but the tech crew spared no effort or expense in setting up an awesome sound system, in the finely tuned ears and hands of Shelly Brown complimented by the lighting design of Stephan Splinter.

Leela and Diga on stage at sound check

The evening’s performance was a treat for performer and audience alike.  With Leela’s powerhouse vocals and songwriting to Diga’s guitar wizardry, haunting stories and songs delivered in his native T’licho language and with my stories and songs from my shows “A Place to call Home” and “Shack tales”, along with a reading from my dear friend, Rene Fumoleau, we all backed each other up to present our material with fresh and sometimes unexpected results.  There is something to be said for almost under-rehearsing new material, so that when it hits the stage, there is a level of spontaneity that makes for a surprisingly pleasant performance experience, never before and sometimes never again to be repeated.   We were honored to receive a standing ovation following our rousing “Mahsi Cho” finale and enjoyed meeting and hearing personal stories from the audience, many of whom had also lived or experienced the north, appreciating the opportunity to have it reflected back to them in story and song.

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