Canadianity

by Jeremy Taggart

  A few days in they realized that the girders wouldn’t be necessary for this well-behaved crowd either, so they removed them. So the story goes, a stampede of locals ran right past Kevin Spacey and swarmed Gordon Pinsent to tell him how they might be related. “Now, your cousin is my wife’s great-aunt.”

  Gordon was also apparently a little hard to find from time to time. On a movie that size, it takes a while to set up the shots. More than once when they were finally ready to go, Mr. Pinsent was nowhere to be found.

  Turns out he would be in a neighbourhood kitchen, having a visit and game of crib over tea.

  Gordon Pinsent. What a GD legend.

  Mike Stevens: A Bahddist Monk

  Torrens

  This story takes place in Labrador, but it’ll take me a little bit to get there. Polar bear with me. It’s worth the journey.

  There is a core group of us that travels north for the Peter Gzowski golf tournaments for literacy. Too many to mention, impossible to forget. Some of Canada’s best singers, poets and authors have donated their time to this great cause over the years. But one in particular embodies the spirit of Canadianity better than anyone I’ve ever met.

  His name is Mike Stevens and he’s the best harmonica player in the world.

  If you listen to TnT, you might recall we named Mike our Bahd of the Week on an early episode. His incredible and inspiring story goes something like this.

  He’s from Sarnia, Ontario, and worked in a petrochemical plant there in his twenties. His secret passion was playing harmonica, though, so on weekends he’d slip across the border and play in blues clubs. What he really wanted to do for a living was play bluegrass harmonica—an even rarer goal.

  When he started playing bluegrass, some audience members would turn their backs on him because harmonica isn’t a traditional bluegrass instrument. But his talent was undeniable. Even to hardcore heavies like Jim and Jesse McReynolds, who struck a deal with Mike. They couldn’t put him officially on the bill because their core fans would protest. What they were willing to do, however, was start playing “Orange Blossom Special” every night and then stop, saying that what the tune could really use is a harmonica. Planted in the crowd, Mike would hop up, burn the place down and they’d pass the hat for him.

  He was soon making more this way than Jim and Jesse were. His goal was to become the best player in the world and he was well on his way. He’s played the Grand Ole Opry more than four hundred times. He was in Dwight Yoakam’s band. Things were really happening for him.

  On a tour stop in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, in 2000, Mike picked up a local paper before the gig and read a story about kids sniffing gas in nearby Sheshatshiu. At the concert that night, he dedicated “Amazing Grace” to those kids and felt a tension come over the audience. Clearly, he’d hit a nerve by mentioning the story.

  After the gig, a local reporter approached him and told Mike he was from Sheshatshiu and would be happy to drive him out there the next morning so he could see firsthand how devastating this problem was. Mike agreed, and the next morning he found himself bombing down a rough gravel road on the way to a place that no longer felt like it could be in first-world Canada.

  As they arrived in the town, the reporter pointed out a group of eight to ten kids sniffing gas and slammed on the brakes. He told Mike to get out and do something.

  So Mike did the only thing he could think to do. He played the harmonica for them.

  At first they laughed at him, and then with him, and soon they were putting down the gas and asking him questions about his own life. He in turn asked questions about theirs. They were really connecting.

  In that moment, he realized the very reason he plays music.

  Back on tour, the next day the band arrived in Alert, Nunavut. A military official told Mike there was a phone call for him. It was As It Happens, the CBC radio show. Someone had videotaped Mike’s encounter and it had made the news. AIH wanted to hear the story from his perspective.

  Mike let it all hang out on air. He was still rattled, in shock and disgusted that people could live in these conditions in this country, and he was going to find a way to help. Seeing as how music seemed to really resonate with them, Mike suggested that if people had old instruments they wanted to donate, he’d find a way to deliver them.

  People responded to Mike and to the story. Soon he needed a transport truck to get the instruments up there.

  He started playing fewer gigs and using much of the money he did make to buy harmonicas to hand out to kids. As he put it, the kids who are in school aren’t the ones who need the attention. It’s the ones out in the woods late at night, sniffing gas, and with no desire to live, who need help. So those are the ones he seeks out.

  For years, at his own expense and at great risk to his health, he’s made trips to some of the hardest places in the North, to share his gift of music and compassion. He founded a not-for-profit called ArtsCan Circle, devoted to spreading the music, instruments and hope throughout the North. He hand-selects musicians to go into communities, unpaid, to teach kids how to play.

  The program is in its second generation. Kids are using donated recording equipment to make albums for their bands and also to record stories by their elders in languages that are slipping away.

  Now, ArtsCan Circle is in more than a dozen communities, and Mike has personally bought and handed out more than twenty thousand harmonicas.

  That, to me, is the very definition of Canadianity. I actually produced a documentary about Mike called A Walk in My Dream. If you ever want to watch it, I’ll loan you the DVD. No late fees or anything!

  In the spring of 2016, I was honoured to present Mike with the Slaight Music Humanitarian Award at the Canadian Country Music Awards. It was so much fun watching him try—naturally—to deflect all the compliments and love coming his way.

  Newfoundland Gotta Do’s

  TREK to Fogo Island Inn. We’ll be honest, we haven’t been there ourselves yet, but it’s on da bucket list. Pictures look incredible and firsthand reports are out of this world.

  DESTROY dinner at Mallard Cottage. Alan Doyle’s brudder-in-law is the chef. It’s set in Quidi Vidi Gut, the most “You’ve gotta be kidding me, this is real?” of locations. Food is local, fresh and off-the-chain creative.

  CRUSH some cod tongues at Tavola. In keeping with the Great Big Sea theme, multi-instrumentalist Bob Hallett owns this joint. Small plates and tapas, but fried chicken too. They’ll serve whatever’s fresh any given night.

  DROP IN to the Woody Point writers’ festival. Our homie and CBC legend Shelagh Rogers is a staple at this event, which pairs live readings from famous Canadian authors (Lawrence Hill, Michael Crummey) with live performances by Canadian musicians (Ron Sexsmith, Stephen Fearing, Amelia Curran).

  BIRL into the Burl Gathering. This Hour Has 22 Minutes host Shaun Majumder has started an annual event in his tiny hometown of Burlington (population 350-ish). It combines good food with good times and great hangs in a remote location.

  SHOVE OFF to Dildo. Yes, there’s a town in Newfoundland called Dildo. Years ago, there was a movement afoot to change the name because it might be offensive to some. The townsfolk rallied and shot back, “We were called Dildo before that other thing . . . change the name of it!”

  The North: A Tundra of Fundra!

  Five Notable Bahds

  Ethel Blondin-Andrew. First Aboriginal woman elected to the Canadian Parliament.

  Godson. For the longest time, Godson held the distinction of being the only rapper in northern Canada. Solid flow, solid guy. J-Roc actually appeared in his video for “Like This/It’s Over.”

  Jordin Tootoo. Born in Manitoba, but the North can claim him as its own. NHLer and, more important, role model to young hockey players from all over the North.

  Nellie Cournoyea. Sixth premier of the Northwest Territories. She is known and adored everywhere you go in NWT.

  Tanya Tagaq. A throat singer from Cambridge Bay who’s taken her traditional
sounds, stories and songs to the masses.

  Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Whatchamiqaluit

  Torrens

  For twenty years, I’ve been travelling up north for the annual Peter Gzowski Invitational Golf Tournament for Literacy. It’s truly a privilege to get to see parts of Canada that so few people ever get to.

  I’m genuinely interested in seeing how people live in different parts of the country. I’ve gotten to drive dogsleds, eat muktuk (whale blubber!) and see how traditional prints are made. One of the most profound experiences of my life was lying on a deck in Yellowknife in the middle of winter, looking up at the northern lights, listening to a nine-year-old confess that she was worried her grandparents’ traditional language was fading away. It’s a magical, spiritual, haunting, devastating, gorgeous place.

  Plus, as a Canadian, I feel so much pride that this breathtaking lunar landscape is part of our country too. You don’t even realize how you take trees for granted until you’re up above the tree line. Imagine the price of wood in a place with no trees. The cost of a tomato or lettuce that had to be flown in. Everything is at a premium because of shipping costs.

  The trade-off is spectacular, though. Caribou steaks, Arctic char, muskox jerky. Plus, drive fifteen minutes out of any town and you’re in the wilderness. Not like “go for a stroll in Tilley hats on a nicely groomed trail” wilderness, more like “there might be a wolverine around so we should be careful” wilderness. For a “southerner” like me, it can be equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.

  The northern lights will make you believe in a higher power. Maybe that’s why Inuit people are so spiritual.

  We shot two episodes of Street Cents in Iqaluit all those years ago. The only thing I really remember is a parody called Hudson Baywatch.

  The first time I went to Yellowknife was in 1992 for Caribou Carnival, and I was immediately captivated by the people and the place. Yes, it’s cold, but it just makes you that much more thankful for the sun when it does shine.

  In many ways, Yellowknife is like any other city. It’s got hustle and bustle, busy professionals running to meetings, organized chaos. But it’s also got a unique heartbeat. The population is transient, to a degree. Some folks are just there on short work or study terms, and some people are just passing through on their way to far more remote places to work or hunt.

  You meet a curious assortment of southerners up there. Some moved up just because they love the outdoor lifestyle. Others, you can tell, are on the run from something or someone. Still others need to make money fast. Time and time again, you hear the same story about people who came up for a week in 1986 and never left. Or left but just couldn’t get it out of their system and had to come back.

  You also hear the stories about people taking jobs up there, getting off the plane and getting right back on it. It’s not for everybody, but those who do like it, love it.

  There are real opportunities in Canada’s North for those who are ambitious, adventurous and spirited enough. I remember going to a dinner party on that first trip to Yellowknife with a bunch of people in their early twenties, and they all seemed so together. So-and-so was the manager of recreation for the city, so-and-so was the deputy mayor. The region seems to attract people who are wise and accomplished beyond their years.

  If you’re ambitious or motivated, you can write your own ticket. Good pay, isolation benefits. There’s a lot to like about life in the North aside from how spectacularly beautiful it is.

  Those who are from there know this and take great pride in the geography that surrounds them.

  One night at a house party in Holman, I was introduced to a First Nations guy who was going polar bear hunting the next day with a bow and arrow. You can imagine how jazzed the interviewer in me was to learn this. I couldn’t help myself.

  “Are you scared?”

  “How do you find them?”

  “What if you miss?”

  “Do you get a second shot?”

  “How do you get it home?”

  “Why go alone?”

  “What will you eat?”

  “What will you wear?”

  He was politely indulging my questions but wasn’t really engaged. I could tell that something was bothering him about my outrageous level of interest. Finally, the guy who had introduced us pulled me aside and told me that in his culture, you never talk about a hunt beforehand, out of respect for the animal.

  Whoa. Cool. Respect for the animal you’re hunting.

  The relationship between animals and people in the North is a special one. They coexist and are codependent, almost like they respect each other’s ability to survive in that harsh climate.

  Schools encourage families to take their kids out of class for a couple of weeks and go live “on the land,” fishing and hunting, learning traditional survival methods. Schools embrace the culture as part of a child’s education. I just love that the surroundings up there inform every aspect of a person’s existence. What they eat. What they wear. When they sleep.

  The first time I went to Whitehorse was for a Gzowski tournament in the summer, when there’s almost twenty-four hours of daylight. This poses a whole different series of challenges than when there’s round-the-clock darkness. Your body doesn’t want to sleep when the sun is shining. You need blackout curtains. You come out of the bar at closing time and there are kids running around, playing tag. It doesn’t make sense to you, but their parents figure they’ll sleep when they’re tired.

  There are three cities in North America where I’ve instantly thought, upon arriving there, “I could live here, no problem.” One is Chicago. One is San Francisco. The other is Whitehorse.

  It’s the best of all worlds. It’s clean yet cosmopolitan. There are a lot of outdoor activities, but there’s also a huge arts scene. There’s work and fun to be had.

  There’s even a Starbucks.

  One afternoon, at the suggestion of the owner of the hotel where I was staying, I rented a car and drove from Whitehorse to Skagway, Alaska. Me, the open road and some Gord’s Gold blasting out the windows of my Ford Explorer. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t moments when it was hard to see the road because of the tears in my eyes. The majestic mountains, Gord, the open road, my love of this country . . . it was almost too much Canadianity to bear.

  Speaking of bears, I spotted a couple on the side of the road and slowed to take a picture. Several other cars had pulled over too. The bears seemed oblivious. They were just basking in the afternoon sun.

  I rolled my window down to snap a quick picture, and the guy in the car behind me got out and came flying up to my window.

  “What the hell are you doing, man? Do you know how fast a bear can run? Put your window up. That thing will be over here and in your car before you know it!”

  All I could think was “Then I guess you’d better get back in yours, bahd.”

  You pass the world’s tiniest desert on that drive, near the village of Carcross. It’s about the size of a Ford Festiva. The world is full of wonders, eh, bahds?

  Aside from the cities, these northern Gzowski trips have taken us to small towns with intriguing names like Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, Hay River, Holman and Inuvik. Part of what we do on these literacy trips is visit schools and daycare centres, seniors residences and shop classes. We divide and conquer, sharing what we know. In my case it’s a bit weird, because I’m not known as a singer/songwriter. I’m not a poet. I’m not a standup.

  Ever notice how, in the country, everyone barters. He fixes your vehicle, you do his plumbing. She does your electrical, you do her painting.

  I have no skills to barter.

  So when I go to schools, we rap. “I’m not a rapper, but I play one on TV” is how it starts. Then I tell them that Dr. Seuss was the first rapper in history. Then I do a couple of J-Roc verses and try to bleep the swears. Then I get them to write and perform rap songs about what they know.

  Sometimes they work in groups, sometimes alone. Sometimes their rap
s are about polar bears or hockey, sometimes about suicide and how painful it is to lose a loved one.

  There have been moments that make my heart explode and others that leave me feeling crushed. There is a depth to northern souls, and you can see it in their eyes.

  One moment in particular, fifteen or so years ago, I was at a school in Rae-Edzo, outside Yellowknife, a community that’s now called Behchoko.

  It’s a school where the population fluctuates depending on the weather. When it’s very cold outside, there could be four hundred kids there. They come because it’s warm. When the weather is nice, there might be forty kids there. The rest are off hunting and fishing and occasionally getting into mischief.

  On this particular day, I was there to talk up literacy on behalf of my broadcasting idol, Peter Gzowski. It was going okay. We were discussing favourite books and why reading is important. As usual, the ones up front were attentive and participating. The ones in back were joking around and restless.

  So on a whim, I asked a kid in the back row why reading is important. He was a class-clown type who had chirped me a couple of times. Quite well, I might add.

  He rolled his eyes at my question, then paused for a moment and said, “Because reading can take me places I can’t go in my room.”

  Kaboom. The entire gym burst into applause and Mr. Mouthy was beaming with pride. I’ll never forget it.

  A few years back, Barney Bentall, Russell deCarle from Prairie Oyster and I visited a jail in Iqaluit. Most of the inmates are good dudes who made a couple of bad decisions. In some cases, they’d commit a serious enough crime in the fall to get a sentence to last the winter, which is both heartbreaking and shrewd—a warm place to stay with three square meals a day. Genius.

  Since, as I’ve mentioned, I lack an actual trade, I mostly stand at the back of the room and watch these musical monsters share their enormous gifts with delighted audiences. Barney and Russell are warm, magnetic cats.

  I was watching them play the Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire” when an inmate approached me and asked if I wanted to do a bump with him in the bathroom. I’m a little slow on the draw and more naive than you might expect, so I honestly thought he meant some kind of exercise.