The Jennifer Scott Quintet will bring an electric jazz program to the Yukon this weekend In one sense, Jennifer Scott’s newest CD, due to be released sometime in the next few months, is a fitting tribute to the Vancouver singer/pianist’s own musical upbringing. Titled Music for Bigs & Smalls, the album consists of what Scott calls …
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” One of the advantages of being both hard-of-hearing and slightly daffy is the luxury of nattering away to oneself when there’s no one else within earshot. I spend the majority of my time alone, which suits me just fine. Why I should I impose …
I was only six in 1949 when South Pacific, the musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (with help from Joshua Logan), was the hottest ticket on Broadway.
In my nearly 77 years, I’ve never spent an extended period of time in prison. Neither have I been marooned on a desert island with a single coconut tree, with or without a voluptuous cartoon female to keep me company. I have, however, enjoyed many solitary periods in the wild, on an epic cycling adventure …
Hand washing and hand wringing have much in common Read More »
I just finished a long-distance chat with my nephew. Really long-distance; he lives in Hong Kong. The line was clear, and the conversation lasted nearly an hour. The cost to each of us? Not a single penny.
I’ve lost all control of my indoor-growing habit. No sooner has one batch of oregano or rosemary emerged shyly from its earthy grave than I’ve planted three more to keep it company.
You’re seated comfortably in the Yukon Arts Centre, absorbed in the live streaming of a multi-layered interpretation of a Gothic horror/sci-fi story you’ve known for years. The person on your right is following an all-female troupe of live performers who frantically discard wigs, costumes, and the occasional animated puppet, as they move on- and off-camera. Meanwhile, …
Claire Ness was only six (or maybe seven) when she first saw the dark Canadian comedy called The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine. Still, it left a lasting impression, in part, because that Nakai Theatre production in the early 1990s starred her father, Roy Ness, and fellow Whitehorse actor/musician Trish Barclay in the title roles.
The Sam Taylor Trio will present an evening of jazz standards at the Yukon Arts Centre on Sunday, Jan. 26, as part of the Jazz on the Wing series. Besides Taylor, personnel will include Aaron Seeber on drums and Neal Miner on upright bass.
On the cusp of 1999/2000, I was gainfully employed as cabinet communications advisor to the Yukon government. As such, I inhabited the inner circle of the territory’s premier, whom we still called Government Leader back then.
Christmas promises to be white as a Bing Crosby croons. As we Canadians hunker down for the Yuletide to come, let us raise a wassail bowl to the fact we don’t live in Iceland.
Let’s face it, some folks get really ramped up about the season of festive excess that descends upon us every December. For many of them (even you, if I may be so bold), holiday prep starts months in advance. In extreme cases, as early as Boxing Day of the previous calendar year. Even the slackest of yuletide …
Sir Tom Stoppard is one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights and screenwriters, known for rapid-fire dialogue that also carries deep philosophical truths. Apart from his screenplay for Shakespeare in Love, he is perhaps best-known for his Tony Award-winning play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a philosophical comedy that brings two minor characters in Hamlet into the limelight. A quarter century ago, Whitehorse …
One person’s trash is another’s treasure. When Larry Fuller’s older brother brought home an upright piano a cousin was discarding, the “little kid” from Toledo discovered a passion that would take him to the forefront of North America’s jazz scene. “I just started playing it by ear and then I went on to have lessons and …
Ken starts talking about pushing up… mushrooms Never, in any previous column, have I considered the need to provide a trigger warning. Regular visitors to Geezerville are generally mature, clear-minded and emotionally stable enough to put up with whatever nonsense I spill into this 450-word frame. Nevertheless, I recognize that certain subjects are sensitive for some …
In the right sauce, mine could be a corpus delicious Read More »
This morning, Kyle showed up with his bulging leather tool belt, his cordless shop vacuum, and a clutch of 16x25x1 furnace filters. It’s one of those annual rituals I’ve come to both welcome and dread. As sure as fallen leaves and frosty pumpkins, a visit from Kyle heralds the unofficial beginning of the season that lies …
In praise of those who actually know what they’re doing Read More »
How do you solve a problem like “flibbertigibbet?” Unless you had a grandmother like mine, that’s a word you’d probably never heard before Oscar Hammerstein II used it to describe a postulant manquée named Maria in a musical he and Richard Rodgers wrote about a plucky family of Austrian warblers. It’s a fabulous word, especially when one pairs it …
Taking flibberties with the (Widdle) English language Read More »
Without question, Phil Dwyer was the only first-year law student at the University of New Brunswick in 2014 sporting an Order of Canada pin in his lapel. Odds are strong he was also the only frosh who could claim a 30-year career as one of Canada’s most in-demand jazz musicians. Or that his other option for …
I love my cellphone. Let me rephrase that. I am addicted to my cellphone. I’m enslaved by it. In its absence, I feel abandoned, disoriented, slightly less than a whole person. I’m not addicted to the same degree as many others I encounter on a daily basis, who walk into traffic with their faces glued …
Walking past the library on a recent Friday evening, we passed a young woman pushing a stroller with a very young occupant. The baby was contentedly gnawing on one corner of a cloth version of Dorothy Kunhardt’s children’s classic, Pat the Bunny. (sometimes known as Sleepy Bunny.) Instant nostalgia. “That was one of my favourite books when I …
After an absence of two decades, eight low-rent vaudevillians trying to evade the secret police in their homeland have returned to Whitehorse. The Guild Theatre opens its 2019/20 season this week with a remount of the wacky comedy, El Crocodor, written by Vancouver playwright Peter Anderson. Describing it as “just the most ridiculous show,” director Allyn Walton …
Ken is back producing a performance on the stage of big dreams Six hours after I email this column to Danny Macdonald, and long before you read it in What’s Up Yukon, these words by Cole Porter from the 1948 Broadway smash, Kiss Me, Kate, will be part of my remembered experience: The overture is about to …
I recently wrote about my new vocation as a DIY coffin maker. OK, strictly speaking it’s not a coffin. It’s a casket. On a draped bier. Thanks to the braintrust at Google, I now understand that a casket is rectangle-shaped, whereas a coffin is tapered at the head and foot. (The sort of vessel from …
It may be ugly, but someday I might call it home Read More »
Ken goes on a mission to find some beat up wood panel on the cheap for art Things sometimes turn on a dime. Recently, with only three days’ notice, my summer job as a kiddie-train engineer suddenly vanished in a puff of steam-engine smoke. I won’t dwell on the details, except to say I was …
They say the fastest land mammal of all is the cheetah, capable of running as fast as 120 km/h without breaking a sweat. But “they” are wrong. “They” have obviously never applied a stopwatch to a squirrel the moment it is released from a live capture trap. As a gardener and freshly minted rodent hunter …
Opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. Except Adam and Eve, reportedly. Even a casual glance at Facebook, Twitter, or similar social media platforms confirms a disturbing fact: opinions are actually far more numerous than belly buttons. Anyone can have an unlimited number of the former, but usually just one of the latter. Many …
The last entry in this space provided a platform for a more-or-less true tale of undeserved punishment recalled (and still resented) from the mists of time. That column began with an innocent reference to the ancient wisdom about exercising care when using the letters ‘P’ or ‘Q’. While these are both perfectly serviceable, well-established members of …
P and Q can make for some perky Saturday hookups Read More »
“Kehheth” had some problems with his ascenders when learning to write as a child, leaving evidence on the wall. Anyone who has ever worked in a printing shop, or who has helped teach a youngster learn how to print the alphabet, knows the importance of minding your Ps and Qs. And your Bs and Ds, …
As Granny said, mind your ascenders and descenders Read More »
I was 12 years old in 1955 when my oldest brother, Robin, went away to university. As siblings in a close-knit family, we had shared many delightful (and less-than) hours around the dinner table. But the six-year difference in our ages meant we weren’t bosom pals. In May of 1961—the year stubby beer bottles came …
The German term zeitgeist is generally rendered in English as the spirit of a given time, as shown in prevailing thought or customs. (Think, perhaps, how Carnaby Street reflected the social values of mid-1960s Britain.) In 2019, are Yukon audiences ready for an evening of music and comedy that offers a glimpse at the zeitgeist of contemporary …
[two_third] With the stage still in darkness, a disembodied voice expresses the speaker’s dislike for plays that require theatre-goers to interact with performers who break the traditional fourth wall. When the lights rise on the latest Guild Theatre production, the speaker does precisely that, by addressing the audience directly. For the duration of the evening, …
The allure of even a well-crafted, lightweight shovel begins to pale after days upon numberless days of snow upon snow upon snow. There is wisdom in the old saw that everybody likes to complain about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. I have no quarrel with that assertion, and harbour no ill will …
Vocalist-bass player Katie Thiroux brings her jazz trio to Whitehorse for a Jazz on the Wing concert
Tokyo-born comedian Aiko Tanaka is one of the visiting performers featured in this year’s Yukon Comedy Festival, in both Whitehorse and Haines Junction Ricard Eden makes no apology for putting the focus of the Yukon Comedy Festival on the performers as much as on the audience. “We obviously want to bring up talent that residents …
Fawn Fritzen hasn’t always considered herself a feminist. The Whitehorse jazz singer/songwriter wasn’t using that term in 2013 when her first CD, Bedroom Voice, came out. Or in 2016 when she released her second album, Pairings. She certainly didn’t think of herself that way in 2011. That’s when an invitation from Jazz Yukon gave her fledgling career a …
At the age of nine, Tomáš Kubínek gave his first performance before a group of experienced magicians. Four years later, he had an agent. He would soon make his circus debut with a duo of Brazilian clowns.
Here, as elsewhere, we’re on the January/February cusp. For all practical purposes, that means gardening season is still a few months off.
Lonnie Powell’s passion for percussion dates back to a childhood night in B.C.’s Kootenay region, when he attended a wedding reception with his mother and watched a “really animated” drummer strut his stuff.
By her own admission, Jodi Proznick, an award-winning bassist and member of Triology, has enjoyed an “incredible performing career, and had opportunities really beyond anything I could have imagined for myself at the beginning of this journey.”
When the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Brian Fidler, invited her to direct Durang’s wildly successful 2012 comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, McLean leapt at the opportunity.
Edmonton comedian Lars Callieou at a Comedy Monday Night gig in Calgary. Callieou will make a return appearance at the Ride For Dad Comedy Night at the Coast High Country Inn, January 17–19. PHOTO: James Moore Canadian comics Lars Callieou and Derek Seguin will share headlining duties at the annual Ride For Dad Comedy …
The time-honoured English tradition of the Christmas pantomime (known affectionately as just “panto”) was not part of my childhood. For the benefit of those of us who weren’t weaned on this particular theatrical fare, it’s important to bear in mind various traditions, tropes, and stereotypes of an English-style panto.
Every now and then, a fella happens to hit the sweet spot, even if it is more by good luck than good management. I rest my case on a recent example. Early in the week, I casually mentioned to “Herself” that it was time to consider remounting the winter tires on her modest chariot, and …
After more than two decades as a jazz guitarist, Sheryl Bailey still invokes the name of a player who first inspired her love of the genre, but who died when she was just two years old. “I got into jazz when I was about 15. I heard Wes Montgomery on the radio. I just fell …
Genevieve Fleming is counting on Whitehorse audiences to take in the upcoming Guild Theatre production, even if just to indulge in some cold-weather Schadenfreude. In one sense, the Vancouver-based director suggested in an interview, staging French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, No Exit, is like holding a mirror up to our own society. “We, the …
It’s official. Apart from a few hardy species that relish cold weather for some absurd reason, backyard garden 2018 has now been decommissioned. Several less-hardy species—tomatoes, peppers, et alia—clung valiantly to life in their wheeled, rodent-resistant enclosures much longer than I had expected. But once the overnight temperatures headed into negative territory on a regular …
After two acoustic solo albums, Bluesman’s Plea (2011) & Here on Earth (2014), Brandon Isaak’s Spiritual Undertones marks a departure.
It’s confession time in Geezerville. I recently spent my allotted 450 words in this space musing about some of the beguiling delights to be found in the “be” section of the dictionary. Among other things, I wrote that the verb “to be” may be “substantive, copulative or auxiliary; sometimes active, sometimes passive, sometimes subjunctive.” Immediately …
Fate has a habit of steering flute and saxophone player Jane Bunnett in unexpected directions. If tendinitis hadn’t forced a break from her intense piano practice regime, for instance, she might not have gone to San Francisco and met Charles Mingus’s pianist, Don Pullen, who would become her mentor, friend and musical collaborator. If she …
To be, or not to be. For advocates of plain writing, Shakespeare’s most famous monologue is a touchstone. Its opening sentence consists of nine one-syllable words in a row, followed by one containing just two (depending on whether one reads “question” as two syllables or three). It’s a simple sentence, based on a four-letter infinitive …
Wren Brian was just 10 years old when the first X-Men movie came out in 2000. The film’s opening scene, set in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, triggered a fascination with the Nazi Holocaust that remains with her today. Until a single one-hour history lesson in Grade 12, however, the Whitehorse-born playwright had …
It’s a comedy about the darkness of parenthood. That’s how Emelia Symington Fedy describes Motherload, the collectively-created play she and three castmates are bringing to the Yukon Arts Centre’s mainstage on October 13. Fedy traces the play’s conception to a specific outing with her infant son, at a time when she was grieving her own …
I’ve already mentioned how easy it was to provoke calls on my radio open-line show in Charlottetown in the 1970s, by inviting listeners to share either recipes or gardening tips. One desperate morning, I stumbled across a topic that lit up the switchboard for three days before I had to call a halt. I started …
The Guild Theatre will launch its 2018–19 season this week with Lawrence and Holloman, a darkly hilarious two-hander by award-winning Canadian playwright Morris Panych. First produced at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 1998, it later inspired a film by the same name, starring Ben Cotton and Daniel Arnold, which drew mixed critical and box office response. …
Cory Weeds credits the influential jazz label, Criss Cross Jazz, for his initial introduction to long-time friend and musical collaborator, David Hazeltine. In the mid-’90s, the Vancouver sax player, impresario and Juno-winning producer had finished his studies at the University of North Texas and returned to his home roots. Before long, he was spearheading a …
One of the more interesting jobs I’ve ever held was hosting an open-line show (we secretly called it “open-mouth”) on a private radio station in Charlottetown, PEI. Unlike some parts of Canada—especially B.C., with its tradition of brash (often infuriating) talk-radio hosts such as Jack Webster, Raif Mair, Christy Clark and others, mid-’70s PEI was …
Advice to the unwise: I have the questions, if you have the answers Read More »
Mary Sloan was only vaguely aware of the 2005 smash Broadway musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, when she learned that the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Brian Fidler, had picked it as this year’s season finale.
At risk of being considered treasonous, I have never once worn skates while also carrying a hockey stick.
When a band calls itself Peripheral Vision, you might be excused for thinking it’s a rock group, or possibly a folk/roots, or even bluegrass ensemble. But you’d be wrong.
I need a little help here, folks. Valentine’s Day has already come and gone, but it’s left me in a bit of a quandary.
Kevin Kane (left) and Bryan Potvin on a break during a Northern Pikes recording session in Calgary earlier this month. Kane & Potvin will perform at the YAC on March 2. PHOTO: Don Schmid If he hadn’t been so exhausted from a 23-hour train ride, Kevin Kane might have joined forces with fellow singer/guitarist Bryan …
In days past, we had people like Sir Winston Churchill, a world-class orator and master of the insult We all know nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. My concern is that the noble art of the insult is also on the skids these days. When I was a kid, one of the worst taunts you …
Jen Hodge had just spent five hectic days in Asheville, North Carolina, rehearsing every day and performing late into every night as part of the massive celebration of swing music known as Lindy Focus XVI. Despite the grinding schedule, the Vancouver jazz bassist and singer considered the Christmas-week event “a really incredible experience” that allowed her …
Lust, grief, denial and repression (not to mention demonic possession) in the bible-belt town of Cypress, Texas. Oh, yes. Don’t forget the puppets. These are all elements of the Guild Theatre’s upcoming production of Hand to God, a dark comedy by Robert Askins, who actually grew up in the Houston-area community in which he set …
In the hyper-sensitive world of childhood, an ill-chosen word can sometimes have a devastating impact, even if no harm is intended. I’m not talking about the kind of taunting, bullying talk that was unfortunately common on the playgrounds of my youth and is still far too prevalent today. I mean a casual, harmless remark – often …
No matter how you wish to phrase it – “act in haste, repent in leisure” or “what goes around comes around” – the piper will eventually show up to demand payment. My wallet is considerably lighter this week because of one such lesson.
Is it character, circumstance, or the choices we make that determines our lot in life?
This is the conundrum that lies at the heart of Good People.
Anyone who has attended a Kim Beggs concert, or listened to one of her CDs, knows that the subject of death often shows up in her lyrics. It certainly did on October 12, during the sixth of 41 stops on her current two-month marathon tour. Earlier that day, the Whitehorse singer-songwriter and her tour partner, …
The email said Jeremy Pelt was between engagements in Europe and China, with just a “sliver of time” of time for a phone interview from his New York City home. For the first few minutes, the answers were terse, non-committal, perhaps a bit jetlagged. Or maybe he just wasn’t into it. Asked about his earliest …
Just for the heck of it, let’s take a look at three English words that, on the surface of things, appear to have a lot in common.
Cathy Stubington doesn’t mind being in the shadows when she does a show. In fact, she prefers it.
Have you heard the one about the farmer’s daughter, the music teacher, the composer and the jazz singer? It’s not a joke. They’re all the same person: Karin Plato. Although she has called Vancouver home since 1985, Plato grew up on a grain farm near the tiny (current population: 129) community of Alsask, Saskatchewan. That’s where …
With the exception of sports figures, Max Fraser contends, Canadian heroes seldom get the respect they deserve. The Whitehorse filmmaker and military history buff wants to help change that, especially when it comes to a larger-than-life former Yukoner, Joseph Whiteside Boyle. “I’m still trying to figure out this character, Joe Boyle, because I’ve never met, …
The first week of September, the mice fled the fields and snuck indoors, as mice are wont to do. It happened in the quiet hours of one night. The day before, the kitchen drawers and cupboards were spotless. The next, they were festooned with rodential calling cards: the kind a not-so-observant eye might mistake for …
NOTE: After this story went to print, we were informed that this event was postponed until Friday, February 16th, 2018, 8pm. They met as teenagers at an improv comedy club called Lucifer’s in Calgary, Alberta. Now, more than two decades later, they’ve just launched their seventh season performing together weekly for a coast-to-coast-to-coast audience. Peter Oldring and …
To hear Hugh Kitchen tell it, operating a Northern aviation business seems a lot like trying to romance a porcupine. Besides needing opportunity, courage and excellent timing, “you have to be flexible and fast on your feet.” Kitchen ought to know. He’s been involved with Whitehorse-based Alkan Air for the past 35 years, both as …
Ann-Marie MacDonald’s award-winning comedy Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) has been around for almost 30 years, but Brian Fidler and Clare Preuss are convinced it will still play well to contemporary Whitehorse audiences. “I think it appeals to the core audience of the Guild that likes a good Canadian classic show, and that loves Shakespeare,” …
It’s the age-old debate about the chicken and the egg. Sometimes, we simply don’t know what is cause and what is effect. This is especially true when it comes to matters that touch on personal feeling. As a for-instance, do you love cream of broccoli soup because your Grandma used to make it? Or do …
Tamir Hendelman’s list of players who have inspired him as a performer and composer includes unsurprising names such Evans, Davis, Corea, Hancock and Peterson. But how many other jazz musicians could also such early influences as a grandmother continuously humming everything from Yiddish songs, to opera, to Frank Sinatra in the apartment below? Or, for …
Until very recently, I had never heard the expression “hitchhiker’s thumb”. Oh sure, there was that weird guy in Grade 9 named Pete Moss, who had double-jointed thumbs. He also had a habit of turning his eyelids inside-out, a truly gory sight that the girls in the class generally found disgusting, but the boys considered …
One of my favourite pastimes is exploring the origins and meanings of common English words and expressions. Our language is such a hodge-podge (dare one say “hotchpotch”?) of thefts, borrowings and adaptations from others, that an etymologist can go haring down many a rabbit hole trying to plumb the depths of a simple phrase. English …
Thoughts of Hitchhiking Sometimes Follow Strange Trails Read More »
It’s been 30 years, or thereabouts, since I first ran into the iconic Canadian folksinger-songwriter-poet who goes by the simple – but exotic-sounding – name of Ferron. There was no reason she should remember me. I was just a volunteer driver for the Edmonton Folk Festival, shuttling performers to and from the airport. But I …
Not many art forms can trace their origins back to a single year. But according to Toshi Aoyagi, program officer for the Japan Foundation, Toronto, the popular theatre genre known as Kabuki started in exactly 1603. And it’s still going strong. Aoyagi will be in Whitehorse this week to introduce Yukon Arts Centre audiences to …
The way some people talk, you’d think farmers’ markets were a recent invention by eco-conscious millennials spurred to action by reading a book about the 100-mile diet. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have been hauling their goods to communal selling and trading places ever since humankind began the transition from hunting and …
Which brings me to one of Canada’s neatest little music festivals. To protect my sources, I won’t identify it, except to say it has been an annual event in southeastern Ontario for more than four decades. But this year, the festival’s very existence may hang in the balance. Not because of financial irregularities. Not because …
As family reunions go, the event I attended in Ontario’s Georgian Bay district on a recent weekend was a fairly small-scale affair. At its peak, a mere 24 people were in attendance. Officially, it wasn’t really a reunion, just a gathering in Canada’s quintessential cottage country to mark my oldest brother’s 80th birthday. Judging by …
He was a foundling on the streets of Edmonton – a golden cocker spaniel whose hair was so matted with burrs that much of it had to be shaved off. It was my 6-year-old daughter and two of her friends who brought him home, after he had attached himself to them on the playground. Of …
It was a strange encounter that still has my brain abuzz. I was walking home from the grocery store in my current city of residence southeast of Whitehorse. My route took me past the site where small men and large machines have been toiling for months to build a massive parking garage. As the work …
The emptying-out of Yukon’s schools signals the official start of that much-anticipated annual ritual: the Summer Holiday. We all know the narrative arc of that story. For the first little while, the kids are bursting to be outside every moment of the day, burning off the pent-up energy held hostage inside the classroom for months. …
Recently, I waxed nostalgic about my beloved first bicycle, a cherry-red Raleigh three-speed that went missing (temporarily, I still insist) on an August day in 1953. But another bike held just as big a place in my heart for the 19 years or so that I owned it. It was a Twiddle. To translate: it …
Did I just miss skipping and hopscotch season? Marbles and jacks? No matter. For me, this is, and always will be, bicycle season. I don’t test my mettle on the pedals very much these days, but I confess to having a lifelong passion for bicycles. It began on my ninth birthday, when I received a …
At the age of 82, Peter Steele says he has very little memory of his own parents. That’s partly why he decided a few years ago to write his autobiography. “I didn’t want my own kids to able to say the same,” he explains. “I thought I had enough interesting stories that I’d like them …
I’m sitting in my skivvies, contemplating what pearls of wisdom to cram into a 400-word space. As I advise my writing students, when you feel stuck, start with a word. Any word. Today, that word is “engagement”. In my days as a working journalist, I was supposed to remain officially objective, unengaged, a step removed …
Until fairly recently, I had no interest whatever in the idea of writing a book of memoirs. Like most people, I assumed nobody would care to read about the life journey of a nobody-in-particular. After all, autobiography is the purview of politicians, movie stars, generals and other colourful scoundrels. If I ever had the hubris …
Somebody once said a gardener is just a philosopher with dirty hands and an aching back. Well, maybe nobody actually said that until I just did, but I believe it to be so. Of all life’s pursuits, few can match gardening when it comes to bringing body and soul together. Why? Because it’s hard to stay mad …
John Stetch was already part of the New York City jazz scene when he first played in front of classical pianist and teacher Burton Hatheway in Fairfield, Connecticut back in 1993. Hatheway, who is still teaching at the age of 87, didn’t mince words. “Do you want to be serious?” Stetch recalls the maestro asking. …
When Michael Heney was just 14, he ran away from the family farm in the Ottawa Valley to work for an uncle who was building a portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) near Georgian Bay. His father quickly dragged him home to finish his education, but four years later he was off again, determined …
Recently, I was meandering through my trusty Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (shorter, as in not quite as gargantuan as the Encyclopaedia Britannica). This is a habit I acquired in my youth, but indulge less frequently these days, usually when I’m trying to curb my morbid addiction to Facebook. I hadn’t probed far into this two-volume …
Is That Thing Called a Knick-knack, or Bric-a-brac? Read More »
Until a couple of years ago, there was a wonderfully entertaining fantasy writer by the name of Terry Pratchett. Perhaps there still is, somewhere on an alternate plane of reality, since Sir Terry Pratchett succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease in the Earth year of 2015 at the tender age of 66. Let me be clear: I …
It was a dark and stormy night a few weeks back. Dark enough and stormy enough that one might be forgiven for thinking the End Times were nigh. It began with little fanfare, when the evil OS known as Windows 10 (aka the pale rider of the digital apocalypse) blithely informed me it had taken …
Was That an Update, or a Sign of the Apocalypse? Read More »
Al Cushing may be leaving, but he’s not going anywhere. When he steps into retirement at the end of this month, one aspect of the Yukon Arts Centre’s evolution during his nine years at the helm pleases Cushing the most. “I think the highlight is that the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) has gotten closer to …
What does it take to make a puppet show that is also a stage show and a live-action video all in one? A script, a bunch of performers, some music. Lights, cameras, action. And cardboard. Miles of cardboard, according to Edward Westerhuis. “We go to different stores, to the dump behind their stores. The stuff …
From Tomaso Albinoni to Django Reinhardt, by way of Led Zeppelin? It’s all part of guitarist Marc Atkinson’s musical journey. The 48-year-old Atkinson grew up on B.C.’s relatively remote Quadra Island, without YouTube, or even television, but with access to the major music source of the day, vinyl records. “I didn’t know that humble peasants …
We don’t know for certain that anyone ever warned Julius Caesar to watch his back on the Ides of March. We do know that the Greek historian, Plutarch, included a second-hand tale in his biography of Caesar about a seer warning the Roman leader to watch out during the first half of the famous month …
Whitehorse, it seems, has such an insatiable appetite for high-camp horror that the Guild Theatre has added another week to its run of Evil Dead: The Musical. The spring break-themed romp comes with a caution: if you intend to sit in the first few rows, be prepared for laundry afterward. You’ll be in what’s called …
Consider Murphy, whoever he was. When anything goes wrong, people assume it’s somehow his fault. Being a forgiving sort of guy, I try to give ol’ Murph the benefit of the doubt. Still, there are some situations in which I am convinced his famous Law, or one its many corollaries, is at work. Case in …
Three foods top my No Thanks list: schmaltz herring, Marmite and kale. My sole experience with schmaltz herring – basically, raw fish preserved in rancid chicken fat – was anything but a gustatory delight. I also tried Marmite once. I even sampled its malevolent cousin, Vegemite, during a visit Down Under. Ptooey. Fortunately, in this …
A nun, another nun, and a mystery illness all contributed to the development of Lucie Desaulniers as a singer. Growing up in the small Manitoba community of St. Jean Baptiste, not far from the U.S. border, Desaulniers attended a Roman Catholic school attached to a Grey Nuns convent. That’s where she met a “really cool” …
In previous columns in this space, I have offered various suggestions of ways to improve life for those who roam the earth on two legs, especially those of us who do so burdened by creeping senescence. The recent holidays provided an opportunity to put my brain in idle mode, where it often does its best …
“It’s sort of like a straightforward country approach to old-school, ’30s vocal jazz,” she says. “I would say it’s got folk roots, a bit of blues and bluegrass, but jazz is sort of where I draw inspiration from and is probably the top of my influences.” Producer Bob Hamilton of Old Crow Recording Studio selected …
The child’s heart that beats in my aging breast is breaking. They’re shutting down the circus. After 146 years (exactly twice my life span so far), the iconic Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is turning off the lights, packing up the Big Top and sending home the clowns. In May, the roar of …
Ask any randomly-selected group to name mankind’s greatest invention, most will probably say the wheel. Fire doesn’t count; it was discovered, not invented. If you ask about the second most important invention, the answers will range widely: the lever, the pulley, the cotton jenny, moveable type, the internal combustion engine. Someone will inevitably say sliced …
The opposable thumb was not actually a Canadian invention Read More »
Whoooo the heck is Cedric, anyway? We’ll come back to that later. About a year after Beth Hawkes moved to Salt Spring Island with her husband, she saw a small ad in the Gulf Islands Driftwood about a literary competition for unpublished B.C. writers over the age of 50. “I just looked at the ad, …
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States of America. The wealthy and patrician New Yorker, whose New Deal policies helped pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression and laid the foundation for much of its existing social policy, was the guy in charge the year I was born. Roosevelt died …
That new guy next door is definitely one of a kind Read More »
Most people are less intimidated by dogs with floppy ears, and consider white dogs less scary than black ones. That’s just one awareness Angela Neufeld has picked up in the years she has been using dogs as therapeutic assistants in her practice as a registered psychologist. “I’m not by any means suggesting that black dogs …
It was the promise of bannock that first lured Melaina Sheldon into the orbit of Gwaandak Theatre in 2010. The show’s limited budget also allowed Sheldon to use some of the design skills she had developed in a one-year diploma course in fashion design in Vancouver. “I’m a Salvation Army thrift store shopper, for sure, …
Faye Ferguson understands the value of documenting one’s life stories, for both the writer and the eventual reader. Ferguson is a personal historian based in Victoria, B.C. who helps people fashion their life stories into print or digital forms, either as full-length memoirs or as scrapbook-type snippets that highlight specific remembered moments or stages of …
Memphis, Tennessee has been dubbed both the “Home of the Blues” and the “Birthplace of Rock and Roll”. But it’s no slouch in the jazz department, either. In a four-year span from 1934 to 1938, at least half a dozen future jazz luminaries were born there. That mid-’30s crop included trumpeter Booker Little, as well …
The Pivot Theatre Festival – Nakai Theatre’s annual performance showcase – begins a seven-night run this weekend in multiple Whitehorse venues. In addition to smaller-scale offerings such as a theatrical pub walk, an evening of spoken word material and a “speed-friending” event called Stranger Connections, the festival will feature the three major pieces, including: A …
With increased age comes increased wisdom. That’s the theory, anyway. Naturally, those who are still young find this notion ridiculous. How could anyone be wiser than a 16-year-old? During my multiple revolutions around the Sun, I have acquired a prodigious amount of knowledge about sundry matters. Granted, the knowledge that has escaped from my neural …
“If this show is revealing something about me that’s touching people and moving them, then I have to pursue it,” he decided. The burning personal question Heins originally set out to address came from the fact that he was an only child, and grew up wondering what it would be like to have a brother …
Trying to provide professional-calibre orchestral music in a small northern city can be … well, problematic. Just ask Daniel Janke. “The main problem is we don’t have an orchestra. We live in a community where the demographic doesn’t really provide for all the players we need.” Still, skilled performers continue to move to the Yukon, …
With December well underway, I’m finally inured to the barrage of seasonal music that assails us whenever we set foot outdoors. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a total Grinch on the subject. In fact, there is a great canon of Christmas-related music that I actually enjoy. Most of it falls under the rubric of …
It was one of my former writing students who managed to shame me into signing up for NaNoWriMo this year. If you’re not familiar with that acronym, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. The deal is, each participant undertakes to knock off a 50,000-word novel during the month. No big deal. That’s only 1,667 …
Full disclosure: Steve Maddock and I have a few things in common. We’re both PKs (preacher’s kids) who grew up in southern Ontario adding our piping, angelic treble voices to the choirs in our fathers’ churches. Point of departure: I struggled through the guy-hood change of voice as a scholarship student of an Ursuline nun, …
Christmas Eve, 1946. Several actors huddle around their microphones, live-broadcasting a radio station’s seasonal drama, complete with commercial intervals and a touch of Yuletide music. The story they are dramatizing concerns a well-meaning chap from a small town, struggling to save his deceased father’s savings and loan company from bankruptcy. His world is collapsing, because …
The first time I saw the iconic Canadian funnyman, Dave Broadfoot, was during a tour of the musical-comedy revue, Spring Thaw, sometime in the 1960s. Later, I would get to know him much better through his delicious character profiles on CBC’s Royal Canadian Air Farce. Who could forget the hilariously-stunned Big Bobby Clobber, who clearly took …
If you go by way of Laos and the U.S. East Coast, the journey from France to Yukon is anything but a straight line. But a brief reunion of two lifelong friends in Paris two summers ago proves you can get from there to here. “We had a great time together, and I told him …
The great American lyricist Maxwell Anderson summed up the imperatives of this time of year better than anyone else: “Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December / But the days grow short when you reach September.” No, wait. We’ve already slid into November, for Pete’s sake. Definitely time to gather nuts, pack …
Like the Man Said, Those Precious Days are Dwindling Down Read More »
Willie Jones III isn’t shy about crediting his late father, a renowned pianist from Los Angeles, with sparking his interest in jazz. “Even before I started school, he would take me to rehearsal with him and I would watch while he rehearsed. For some reason, I would always sit next to where the drums were, …
Ever since the advent of the internet, pundits of all description have been predicting the demise of print journalism. Traditional newspapers and magazines, once so prolific and influential in Canada and elsewhere, are undergoing seismic change and downsizing in an age of instant access to news, opinions and images from the most remote corners of …
The smugness attack hit a few weeks back, while my wife was visiting an out-of-town friend. Perhaps it was boredom or the way the pre-autumn sun slanted down on a Saturday morning. Perhaps it had spotted a binful of perfect pickling cukes, cheek-by-jowl with lacy fronds of fresh dill the previous evening. Whatever factors were …
If you’re doing a stage show about a highly-admired guitarist, being able to render the music is a big help. Fortunately, Whitehorse musician Nicholas Mah has been playing the music of his dramatic subject, the late Lenny Breau, for decades. Mah was 12 when he first encountered Breau at a guitar society meeting in his …
Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except for stupid February. Apparently, February didn’t get the memo, or just doesn’t care. Every four years (or, to be precise, whenever the year’s number can be evenly divided by four), it even changes its mind about how long it wants to …
Falen Johnson doesn’t know where the expression “salt baby” came from, but it’s a moniker the First Nations actor-turned-playwright acquired at birth. “I don’t remember being called that when I was a kid, but I remember hearing stories that I was called that as a baby, because I was really white-looking. It may have just …
Musical talent is over-rated, and taste is under-rated. At least, that’s how Canadian-born sax player Grant Stewart sees things. “I know many, many, many players who can play anything they hear, and that’s kind of what you’re told is the ideal to shoot for,” he says. “But if you don’t develop the things that you’re …
From Beirut to Buffalo, then Whitehorse. That’s how Clare Preuss sums up the summer of 2016 from her standpoint as an itinerant stage director. The Toronto-based actor, choreographer and director is currently in the Yukon to steer the Guild Theatre’s season-opener, Myth of the Ostrich. Although the Matt Murray comedy was a standout hit at …
If there’s a competitive foot race nearby, or a fun run for charity, Tom Ullyett will almost certainly be there. The 58-year-old deputy minister of Justice has been an avid runner since his teen years, with at least 40 half-marathons under his belt, not to mention too many shorter-distance events to count. In 1991, he …
When Charles Ketchabauw and Lisa Marie DiLiberto rolled into Whitehorse late last month, they weren’t your typical rubber-tire tourists. Sure, they had two small kids and a teardrop trailer in tow, which made their eight-day journey from Toronto what DiLiberto terms “epic and absurd.” But they weren’t here to drink in the sights and sample …
The clever people who invented Pokémon Go obviously did not have my generation in mind when they launched the new smartphone craze that’s taking the world by storm. When you give the name Snorlax to one of your ethereal and elusive characters, an oldtimer might be forgiven for assuming it’s some new bedtime potion to …
They’re on the road again. Bruce Barrett and Judy Forrest, the Whitehorse couple whose van was torched by an arsonist in British Columbia last month, are rebounding from the major setback in their retirement travel plan. Barrett retired last December after 30 years as a heritage sites project officer with Tourism Yukon. Forrest’s last day …
Claire Ness wasn’t even born in 1969, when the most famous rock festival in history took place. It’s possible her then-20ish parents, Roy and Penelope, have regrets about not joining the throngs of music-loving hippies who flocked to Max Yasgur’s dairy farm near Bethel, N.Y., for three days of musical magic known affectionately as Woodstock. …
From her cabin on her parents’ farm near Fort St. John, B.C., Jody Peck can see the broad, meandering Peace River, not far from where her family first settled in 1924. On a recent Friday afternoon, Peck was about to start assembling the merchandise she and her band, Miss Quincy and the Showdown, hope to …
By the time Danny Fernandez was 10, he had visited over two dozen countries during six years spent aboard a floating hospital that provided free surgeries and medical care to some of the world’s poorest people. “I don’t think I realized how cool it was at the time. Looking back, I definitely feel being immersed …
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, we’ll have to make do with 500, since that’s all this space allows. The picture in question shows a young woman sitting under a bright yellow umbrella, playing a harp. The sky is brilliantly blue, with enough frothy white cloud to declare it …
Ping pong might be what prevents Shawn Hall from harpooning Matt Rogers, or keeps Rogers from dismembering his musical partner with an axe. The duo known as The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer discovered the stress-relieving game in London, England during a recent tour. “We went to a night club and there were 75 ping …
When Oliver Jones was a mere 65 years old, he and his wife both felt it was time for him to retire after years of playing piano on concert stages throughout the world. So he did. Briefly. Now, 16 years later, the legendary jazz pianist is about to retire again, insisting his current tour of …
Having a ringside seat at an Aaron Pritchett concert might just get you one of his trademark cowboy hats simply for being there. “When I get excited about having a great show, I tend to throw them out into the crowd to give them a little memento,” the country crooner says. “I’ve been through hundreds …
Scott Wilson doesn’t credit either ’50s TV host Arthur Godfrey or campy falsetto Tiny Tim with the current popularity of the humble ukulele. Instead, the Whitehorse musician thinks it likely stems from a few years back, when Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s hauntingly beautiful medley of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World” became …
In Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century collection of novellas called The Decameron, seven young women and three young men entertain each other with stories for 10 days inside a secluded villa near Florence as they tried to escape the Black Death. More than 650 years later, Toronto playwright and multidisciplinary theatre maker Jordan Tannahill found himself …
Major Funk and the Employment is a big band with a big sound. It has some big changes since bassist Etienne Girard put the group together.
The Foggy Hogtown Boys will make their Yukon debut at this year’s Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival, June 10-12, 2016
When it comes right down to it, perhaps human evolution has all been for naught. My mind started drifting on that particular stream recently, as I watched my neighbour gleefully set up his patio furniture and lovingly polish his brand-new stainless steel barbecue. Several millennia ago, so the story goes, we oozed our way out …
When you think of the Greek philosopher, Plato – if you think of him at all – the expression “party animal” might not come to mind. But Zuppa Theatre Co. would like to change that. The Halifax-based troupe has taken one of Plato’s best-known works, The Symposium, and re-cast it as a modern party – …
Don’t bother asking Damien Atkins whether or not he believes in UFOs. He won’t tell you. What the Toronto-based playwright and actor will do instead is talk about his one-person play, We Are Not Alone, which he’s bringing to Whitehorse next month as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. “When I do interviews about …
A few weeks ago, in a light-hearted piece about bucket lists, I mentioned a trip to England with my father 20 years ago this month. I’m a little hesitant about writing a sequel some readers may find a bit too personal, or even disturbing, but you know what they say about rushing in where angels …
Most writers would be delighted if something they wrote could survive 10 minutes after they shuffle off this mortal coil. But 400 years? To use just a smattering of the literary inventions credited to William Shakespeare, such a “madcap” thought would be “laughable”, something to “arouse” either “excitement” or sheer “amazement”. According to various reckonings …
It was a visit to the Yukon Transportation Museum that got Whitehorse fiddler and music teacher Keitha Clark thinking about an ambitious project for the 25 young Whitehorse musicians known collectively as the Fiddleheads. “I thought this would be a funky place to put on a show. It’s an unusual, kind of unconventional space and …
Anyone contemplating starting a small musical group to perform on a cruise ship would be well-advised to contact Lache Cercel. The Romanian-born fiddler, who now lives in B.C., teaches a course in how to develop a successful repertoire for just such a venture. “This is something I know myself, because from when I was 18 …
When Fawn Fritzen‘s new CD, Pairings, debuts at the Old Fire Hall on Saturday, it won’t be your typical Whitehorse album launch. For one thing, many of those in attendance already have a connection to the project as contributors to Fritzen’s effort to underwrite the album’s cost by using social media to appeal for financial support. …
Enquiring (and even inquiring) minds want to know: what the heck is a hack, anyway? In response to numerous queries on that very subject (none, actually), I’ve been hacking my way through the undergrowth of lexicography trying to decode a term the internet seems to assume all of us understand intuitively. Surprisingly, the dots between …
Hacking Through the Internet Maze in Search of Meaning Read More »
Amongst them, the members of Winter Trio have probably racked up around 120 years of performing. As a distinct musical entity, though, they’re just hitting their stride. The group consists of pianist/composer Daniel Janke, bassist Paul Bergman and drummer Ken Searcy. Searcy moved here about 20 years ago and made his way into the Yukon …
If a musical shindig at the Old Fire Hall this Saturday puts you in mind of a New Orleans street party, Ryan McNally won’t be the least bit disappointed. The event is intended to introduce Yukon audiences to the Whitehorse singer-songwriter’s newest CD, Steppin’ Down South. The bulk of the album consists of nine tunes …
Alex Goodman doesn’t really cross borders so much as straddle them. Although the Toronto-raised guitarist and composer has made his home in New York City for the past three-and-a-half years, he seems to keep one foot planted in the musical soil of his homeland. “I think of Toronto as a very vibrant music scene. The …
The other day, I overheard a couple of guys in a coffee shop talking about their impending retirement. One is about to pack it in at the end of this month, the other hits the magic R-day later this year. Perhaps it was excessive politeness that kept me from offering my thoughts on the subject. …
“You know how kids like to pretend and tell stories? My story was that I was Dinah Washington.” { legendary jazz singer who died in 1963}
Donnell Leahy remembers exactly how he felt when he made his stage debut as a fiddler at the age of four. “Mom and Dad had a band when we were growing up as kids. They played locally at round dances and square dances and weddings and things,” he says. “One night they took me up …
Some have a knack for the Grand Romantic Gesture Then, there are the rest of us, Romantically-challenged, who just can’t get it right.
Unlike some comedians, Lars Callieou didn’t start as class clown: he wasn’t in class. Callieou & Fortin are on stage at Ride for Dad Comedy,
Steve Maddock owes at least part of his resumé to the bad judgment of another singer. In 1998, the crooner/actor/voice teacher from Burnaby, B.C., got an unexpected call from a cruise ship line, asking him to fill in for its previous male vocalist, who had been fired for having marijuana in his cabin. “I kind …
A couple of weeks ago, my 17-year-old neighbour hailed me from across the street, “Hey, Ken. Happy Hanukkah!” After a moment of stunned surprise, I replied, “And to you!” The thing is, I don’t happen to be Jewish. Neither is my chipper young friend, whose name is Ali. He and his family come from a …
James Danderfer didn’t intend to be a clarinet player. In Grade 6 he selected the drums as his preferred musical vehicle, but the band director overruled him. “He looked at my choice, then he asked to look at my hands, and then he asked to look at my teeth,” the Vancouver musician says. The verdict: …
It took a king, a pope and a former prime minister to make me rethink my scepticism about extrasensory perception. Let me set the scene. August 16, 1977 was a stinking hot Tuesday in southern British Columbia. I was on Highway 3, mid-way between Hope and Princeton, when CBC Radio announced that the King, Elvis …
Sometimes Your Mind Kicks Up Things You Don’t Want to Believe Read More »
They didn’t know the Caribou Hotel in Carcross was haunted when they bought it. “We’re pretty aware of it now, though,”
Your first perception of Duncan Sinclair may be of a reserved, buttoned-down guy – a civil servant, most likely. You wouldn’t be wrong. Sinclair spent decades in the territorial public service, rising through the ranks before retiring in 2002 as top dog of the Yukon Development Corporation. Next time you see him, he has …
Forget the metronome, and don’t even bother trying to play like someone else, no matter how much you admire them. “When I was young, I figured that out real quick, because it was uncomfortable; it didn’t work,” says legendary drummer Louis Hayes. “You’re influenced by all sorts of things, and you can do certain things …
The Code is clear: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Ditto for jury rooms and papal conclaves. Double ditto for hunting trips. But sometimes a story demands to override the Code. There were four guys that September weekend on the Mayo River. Discretion suggests they remain unnamed. The only one with actual moose-hunting experience, …
George Maratos was just three years old when Terry Fox was becoming a household name across Canada and elsewhere. Still, he claims to have a “kind of” memory of the young B.C. runner’s heroic 1980 odyssey known as the Marathon of Hope. “My parents were gripped by it, and I have a feeling that kind …
Call me a skeptic, a cynic, I don’t care. Heck, go the distance and call me a heretic, if you wish. Truth is, I don’t believe in the Zombie Apocalypse. Or the Four Horsemen variety, for that matter. It’s not that I harbour illusions about mankind’s lease on this planet having no expiry date, or …
Evan Chandler spent his first 27 years in Brisbane, Australia, before he started thinking it would be “cool” to see what life is like in another country. But two years ago, when he decided to move to Canada, expanding his musical reach was just one element in the mix. “I chose Vancouver because it’s right …
What’s an English teacher to do once she retires: take a trip through the Northwest Passage? Ruth Armson did that, and wrote about it. Compile an autobiography, perhaps? She did that, too. “I’d been away from home since I was 15, and I thought, ‘What’s a better way of letting my family know what my …
The kaleidoscope of memory is a wondrous thing. A quarter twist, and tiny fragments tumble themselves into a startling pattern of perception. Another twist, another vista of the past, another “aha” about the present, or the future; perhaps an insight into an unknown temporal dimension. And, like the river into which you cannot step twice, …
A word or two about memory, memoirs and waterfowl Read More »
It’s the last Thursday evening in July, and Elyn Jones is sitting beside the parking lot of Universal Studios giving an interview on her cell phone. She and her husband, Jerome McIntyre and their daughter Breda, 12, have spent a scorching afternoon touring the worksite of numerous Hollywood stars, along with three of her nieces …
Nadine Landry describes Louisiana’s Cajun culture as a ‘holy trinity’ of food, music and dancing. “People invite you over to dinner, so there is food, and that’s hugely important in Cajun culture. And it takes so long for the food to get ready, you start playing tunes, and then people start dancing,” she says. “So …
The world of suds has official definitions of what constitutes a craft beer. That doesn’t prevent Marko Marjanovic from offering his own. “For myself, it’s a beer that’s brewed by passionate people who want to create a flavourful beer that’s been hand-crafted, that’s been selected based on the flavours that they want in their beer,” …
Most youngsters try on adult roles from time to time, but few go from role-play to reality as seamlessly as Eric Pateman moved into a career in hospitality. The founder and president of Edible Canada has photos of his 5-year-old self with a waiter’s towel draped over his arm, serving lunch to his grandparents, complete …
There’s a reason people like me should never play the stock market. Some time ago, when I heard that a new arts and entertainment magazine was in the works, the cynic in me said it wouldn’t last six months. These things never do. I could not have been more wrong if I’d bet my backside …
Perhaps your partner is sick of navigating around that massive quilting frame to get to the living room couch. Perhaps you’re tired of moving that big felting project off the kitchen table day after day, so the family can have supper. If so, a month of free studio space in a delightful location, with very …
On her first day as a government arts consultant in 1987, Laurel Parry was ushered to a desk that held a typewriter, a large black ceramic ashtray, and an in-box loaded with letters and materials from Yukon artists. “The job had been vacant for quite awhile and the sport consultant had been pinch-hitting, so I …
An ambitious pan-Northern ensemble of seasoned musicians from all three territories will make its debut in Whitehorse next week as one of the performance highlights of the fifth annual Adäka Cultural Festival. The New North Collective will bring together the songwriting and performing talents of four Yukoners, two residents of the Northwest Territories, and a …
Stephanie Hammond won’t be dancing on the truck leading the annual Pride parade in downtown Whitehorse this weekend, as she has in previous years. Instead, she quips, she’ll be busy co-ordinating “dozens and dozens of floats” that are expected to take part in the third annual version of Yukon’s colourful celebration of diversity. “We have …
Dear Peter – My brain was obviously on hold when I read your email requesting an article for the Men’s Issue. Somehow, I got the impression you wanted a learned treatise on men’s issues. For two weeks, I Googled like a madman and slogged through mountains of books, magazines, and journals, chasing down every nuance …
Describe Adam Greetham as you wish: tinkerer, scientist, adaptor, businessman. “A bit of all of them,” he admits. “I can’t really deny any one of those.” Another handle that easily fits the president of Groundtrax Environmental Services is innovator. Over 23 years doing environmental assessment and remediation, Greetham has developed “some of the best remediation …
Juanita Growing Thunder-Fogarty lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in the tiny community of North San Juan, on the same property her paternal ancestors settled during the California Gold Rush of 1849. But her heart is inextricably linked to the Great Plains territory of her Sioux and Assiniboine forebears, and the beading …
On June 12, the Yukon’s annual bluegrass bash is heading back to Kluane Country, where it all began. After a three-year sojourn in Whitehorse, the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival will celebrate its 12th anniversary next week in what artistic director John Faulkner calls its “ancestral home” of Haines Junction. “It’s feeling good to everybody,” he …
According to Marc Paradis, it’s starting to resemble a mini-music festival. He should know. The Whitehorse drummer has performed at pretty much every major music function since he arrived in the Yukon 35 years ago. “We don’t have an Alsek festival any more, which used to be the highlight of early summer for a lot …
One of Canada’s busiest and most versatile violinists will perform in Whitehorse on May 17 as part of his collaboration with local composer Daniel Janke on an upcoming CD of contemporary string music. In a career spanning more than 20 years, Mark Fewer has been — among other things — a chamber musician, a symphony …
Curious Fact #1: stories about plucky orphan kids make wildly popular musical theatre fare. Witness Oliver!, Anne of Green Gables, and Annie. Curious Fact #2: two out of three musicals about plucky orphans involve adorable, authoritydefying redheads who find love in less-than-conventional families. “I don’t happen to be a tiny, adorable redhead, but I am …
Krista Reid has worked since last June to ensure the memorial exhibition known as Walking With Our Sisters would be “a space to create a personal journey” of awareness and healing. “It’s an opportunity for those who have been in violent situations, or have lost loved ones to violence, to provide a place of honouring, …
Serge Michaud about Special Olympics. “”providing opportunities to individuals who may not get opportunities to compete in sports they love.”
Campbell Ryga has a thing about saxophones. When he’s not playing them, chances are you’ll find him at a workbench repairing one, or conducting clinics to teach others to do it. “Saxophones and clarinets always kind of interested me. I like to take them apart and I have an aptitude for the repairing of those …
Brigitte and Caroline Desjardins-Allatt were well into elementary school before learning about their father’s musical past — and the instruments stashed in the family garage. “Before he met my mother, he used to play a lot of music with his ex,” Brigitte Desjardins explains. “Then she had an accident and died, and I think my …
They have a saying in the Dixie States — or maybe it’s the military: “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember your mission was to drain the swamp.” Unfortunately, I hadn’t heard this truism before launching my career as a DIY homereno star. Winnipeg, 1971. The summer of peace and …
Leela Gilday recognizes how First Nations performers can inspire aboriginal youngsters, who seldom see “indigenous heroes”
Building an orchestra in a city as small as Whitehorse poses a variety of pesky challenges. How do you fill the bassoonist’s chair, for instance? More dauntingly, can you corral enough qualified — and available — players to form a string section that can hold its own against the more forceful brass and woodwinds? Henry …
Last November, Whitehorse entrepreneur Stephen Kwok Wai-Kan was in Vancouver in his part-time role as liaison officer between the Yukon and Chinese governments. When Her Excellency Lui Fei, China’s consul general in that city, asked if he’d be interested in having some Chinese performers come to Whitehorse to help celebrate the Chinese New Year, Kwok …
116th Brier, an event that started in the Klondike Gold Rush and is considered the Yukon’s oldest continuously running event.
Katie-Ellen Humphries has one clear goal in mind this week when she makes her second trip to Whitehorse. “Now that I’ve been up there and I know what’s going on, I think this is the year I try to get into the Snowshoe Shufflers,” the Vancouver comedian quips. “I know they’re a tight-knit group, and …
Two distinctly different takes on the theme of family are among the highlights of this year’s Nakai Pivot Festival, which kicks off on Saturday, January 17 . Ralph + Lina is a two-handed “acrobatic comedy” performed by the husband and wife team of Dan Watson and Christina Serra, who first conceived the project while they …
When your first public performance is a solo recital in New York City’s legendary Carnegie Hall, it can be pretty heady stuff. That’s exactly what the Chicago-based classical saxophone player who goes by the single name of Ashu learned when he was 16 years old. “People work their whole lives to be able to play …
Deep-pocketed balletomanes (ballet fans) could spend thousands of dollars flying to Russia to catch the legendary Bolshoi Ballet in action. Or, for a mere fraction of that, they could experience the splash and spectacle of one of the world’s most celebrated dance companies without leaving Whitehorse. On Saturday, January 10, the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) …
Manufacturing, transportation — even writing styles — have all changed since Clement Moore’s famous ditty, A Visit from St. Nicholas, first appeared anonymously in the Troy, N.Y. Sentinel on December 23, 1823. As a public service, What’s Up Yukon is pleased to present a more contemporary version of this oft-told tale: Yo, Nick. Is that …
Why settle for karaoke night in a bar when you can parade your singing talent at the Yukon Arts Centre? “I think people miss singing in their lives, or miss music in their lives,” claims Whitehorse composer and filmmaker Daniel Janke. “It can just slip away if you don’t make the effort to get involved …
Whether you attend December 15 or 16, Keith Todd promises that Music for a Winter’s Eve will be “a magical, festive night of music.” Todd is the musical director for the pre-Christmas presentation by the senior and junior concert bands from F.H. Collins and Porter Creek secondary schools, as well as the All-City Jazz Band. …
Four years after she officially retired, Robyn Ward-Clark still pulls two shifts a week doing what she’s always done: working with people. Following 31 years of “fascinating, but fairly stressful work” in the airline business, she called it quits in 2005. For the next five years, she worked part-time in two local flower shops while …
She later met Tucker at a Whitehorse Folk Music Society coffee house gig. “Ray must have been talking to Scott Wilson, and then we all just came together,” she says. The group’s biggest outing so far was a slot last fall in the Junction Arts and Music (JAM) series in Haines Junction. It was Wilson’s …
Michele Emslie doesn’t even try to disguise her enthusiasm for her job as an arts administrator. “ I love art. I love artists. I love what they give to the world,” she declares. The Yukon Arts Centre’s community programming director is proud to live in a “fairly isolated and remote” place that “can boast a …
Amy O’Rourke’s business was financially successful from the outset — so successful, she folded it in less than a year. She will talk about her experience at Baked Café on November 20. As founder of Cozy Foods, O’Rourke prepared and delivered home-style frozen meals to time-strapped customers in Whitehorse . Cozy Foods founder Amy O’Rourke …
He may be a classically-trained pianist, but Chris Donnelly doesn’t get bent out of shape if his instrument is less than brilliantly tuned. “There’s nothing inherently bad about an untuned piano. It just sounds different. It has its own vibe,” he says. Donnelly is the pianist with the Toronto jazz trio Myriad3. Along with bassist …
The way Greg Hakonson tells it, the Dawson City Arts Society (DCAS) had its beginnings in a chance encounter with his across-the-street neighbor, artist John Steins. “We started chatting, and decided we should build an arts society,” Hakonson says. “He was coming at it from the arts side, and I was coming at it from …
Greg Hakonson – One Man’s Dream Of The Arts As An Economic Engine For Dawson City Read More »
Don’t say you haven’t been warned. From October 28 to November 1, the Guild Hall will be chockablock with fire, brimstone, and all kinds of devilish mayhem. In addition to its annual Haunted House fright-fest, this year the Guild is joining forces with the Varietease burlesque troupe to co-produce a music-and-dance extravaganza that’s too hot …
Milena Parajo-van de Stadt was little more than a toddler when she noticed some buskers playing violin in a park in Oxford, England. She promptly switched her focus from the piano, which her father was teaching her, to the violin. At the age of 15 she changed directions again, to play the viola in a …
Richard Whiteman’s career as an upright bass player began virtually by coincidence. About 10 years ago, as leader of a highly regarded piano trio, he was doing a photo shoot with Juno-winning vocalist, composer, and bassist Brandi Disterheft. “I was holding Brandi’s bass while she was adjusting her hair or something, and I thought, ‘This …
Peggy Duncan wasn’t the oldest member of Team Yukon in the recent Canada 55+ Games in Sherwood Park, Alberta. That distinction went to 90-year-old Irene Mahoney. But Duncan was the only with a son and daughter-in-law also participating in the national seniors’ event. And it wasn’t the first time she’s been to the games with …
One of the more frustrating aspects of getting older is the way time becomes distorted. A simple task like making the day’s first cup of tea can take as long as four hours. Really. Let me explain. You drag your wrinkled carcass out of bed and into your dressing gown, then make your bleary way …
Francis Thompson admits he’s been a “closet hip hop head” for years. “I started writing when I was fairly young, like 13 or 14, but never really did anything, just kept it in my notebook, stashed away in a closet.” He remembers going to parties where friends would sit in a circle, throw on an …
“You shouldn’t write this,” Monique Romeiko cautions with a chuckle, “but we’re 40. All three of us.” Besides herself, Romeiko is referring to Aimée Dawn Robinson and Erin Flynn, her fellow performer/dancers in a creative collaboration called begin you again, which will be unveiled October 4 and 5 at the Old Fire Hall. The Whitehorse …
In 1938, when Anik See’s maternal grandparents wanted to get married, they had to satisfy the authorities in their German homeland that neither side had any Jewish blood for at least three generations back. Her grandmother undertook to compile the necessary documentation. “She hated the reason for having to do it, but she did what …
Exactly five years after releasing her third album, Of Ice and Men, Whitehorse singer Barbara Chamberlin is about to launch a new one titled Boomerang Girl, under the nom de guerre of Queenie and the B’s. Unlike her previous efforts, which were “all over the map” genre-wise, this one hews a straighter line. “It’s all blues kind of stuff. …
There’s a moment near the end of the TEDx talk Andrea Simpson-Fowler gave in Whitehorse last year that explains in a nutshell what her life’s work is all about. “Kids can become extraordinary people with unique skills, while learning how to build, how to share, how to create, how to engage, how to manage and …
Andrea Simpson-Fowler has a Passion for Dance — and for Building Communities Read More »
Imagine a pleasant home filled with convivial souls, good food and drink at hand, and professional musicians to provide the evening’s entertainment. No, it’s not an 18th-century soirée on the estate of a European aristocrat. It’s a modern house concert, the sort that Barrett and Carol Horne frequently host in their hilltop home overlooking the …
Dan Sokolowski doesn’t disguise his fascination with the Dempster Highway area. “There’s something in the air that makes you feel the people that have been before you, or the caribou that have been through there, but you can’t see,” he says.“I think there’s lots of good old ghosts and spectres that are somehow affecting everybody …
Dan Sokolowski Can’t Stay Away from the Dempster Read More »
When Kaska master carver Dennis Shorty talks about his art, the conversation is more likely to focus on his respect for the materials he uses than on his finished products. “When I pick up that piece of wood, that piece of wood came off a tree and it’s still alive. And now it’s laying on the ground and …
Al Cushing sits on a bench in historic King’s Square in Saint John, New Brunswick, reminiscing about his high school grad party on this very spot. It was a blistering day, and the hotel where the event was scheduled had no air conditioning. “We were going to die of heat prostration,” he recounts. “One of my classmates was a son …
When Whitehorse students go back to school on August 25, many of them will be meeting Peggy Hanifan for the first time. Many others will have spent hundreds of hours with her already, but they won’t call her Peggy. To them, she is School Bus Driver. Hanifan has spent 14 years transporting students to and …
When Patti Flather left Vancouver for the Yukon, she had no thoughts of becoming a playwright, let alone co-founder and artistic director of a busy theatre company. “It was not at all part of life,” she says. “My parents were not theatre goers. I had one wonderful teacher in elementary school who did drama with …
For Patti Flather, Gwaandak is about building connections by sharing our stories Read More »
If you’re heading out to Circle D Ranch for a few days of music and food this weekend, you’d be well-advised to bring your own eating and drinking gear, or at least a toonie to “rent” a plate. The three-day outing, now known as the Frog Food Festival – Served with Music, is being billed …
Chris Irving has cooked for Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family of Spain. He’s made sushi and fried chicken for the four “just normal kids” of David and Victoria Beckham. He’s cooked on luxury yachts and in fancy hotels, not to mention the private mansion of master chef Gordon Ramsay. Now he’s coming home …
If it’s April and you’re hoping to hear Barbara Chamberlin perform, forget about it. “April is just a killer month,” she says. “I wouldn’t even try to play out that month. It would just be too hard for me.” So what makes April the cruelest month for the Whitehorse musician, teacher and choir director? Well, for …
If it’s April and you’re hoping to hear Barbara Chamberlin perform, forget about it. “April is just a killer month,” she says. “I wouldn’t even try to play out that month. It would just be too hard for me.” So what makes April the cruelest month for the Whitehorse musician, teacher and choir director? Well, …
On a Friday night last month, they performed in Dawson City’s no-frills Pit lounge. The next night, they entertained the black-tie set for two hours at the Commissioner’s Ball, then found a house party and kept playing until 5:30 the next morning. They’ve popped up for spontaneous sessions on street corners, the Superstore parking lot, …
A high-school excursion to a Toronto production of Peter Shaffer’s play, Equus, is what triggered David Skelton’s fascination with theatrical design. “The set and the costumes were just so evocative, so simple, so full of meaning, and just so functional. Scene starts, scene ends, move, move, move, quickly, quickly,” Nakai Theatre’s artistic director recalls. “I …
Florent Vollant’s first exposure to music was in his family’s cabin on a trapline in Labrador. After a successful caribou hunt, the family would celebrate with traditional songs and dances, in the Innu tradition of the makushan, or pow wow. “I was four or five years old the first time I remember the sound of …
First, she says, it allows artists, performers and cultural sector workers “to come together once a year to share inspiration, to share ideas, to learn new skills, to inspire each other.” Alexander is a co-founder and executive producer of the four-year-old festival, which runs this year from Friday, June 27 through Thursday, July 3 at …
If you ask Andrew Connors to explain the appeal of film, the answer is simple and direct. “It transports me,” he says without hesitation. A self-professed “art nerd” who loves to read, Connors sees a strong parallel between the storytelling power of film and that of books. “It transports people into other worlds in that …
Andrew Connors behind the camera or behind a desk Read More »
It’s an art show so big it needs two galleries to display it. With nearly 200 works by 70 young Weekday Warriors, it may be the biggest exhibit by emerging artists ever to hit the Yukon. Throughout the month of June, the Boys & Girls Club of Yukon (BGC) takes over both the Rah Rah …
Yukoners who are feeling crafty and don’t mind working in front of an audience may want to head down to the wharf on the Whitehorse waterfront after work this Friday. That’s where the territory’s first Etsy Craft Party will take place, in conjunction with similar events around the world the same day. Etsy is an …
An Arty Party: Whitehorse’s first Etsy Craft Party will be hosted on the waterfront Read More »
When Morgan MacDonald closes his classroom door a few weeks from now, he’ll hit the road-less-travelled to gauge how far an alternate career path might take him. The 32-year-old math, science, social studies, and health teacher at Del Van Gorder School in Faro is also a burgeoning singer-songwriter, about to embark on his second Canadian …
Tourism officials in Barbados market their island as “Distinctively Charming”. But when Mary Bradshaw was weighing the option of a Barbadian internship against one in Whitehorse, she opted for the distinctive charm of the Yukon. “I figured, ‘Oh, I can live anywhere for six months, and it’s the same time zone as where my family …
Mary Bradshaw sees her curator’s role as a bridge between artists and the public Read More »
Jenny Hamilton didn’t waste much time heeding Horace Greeley’s advice to go West young. She was just 14 days old when she arrived in Whitehorse with her parents from her Prince Edward Island birthplace. A few years later, she attended in pre-school in a Porter Creek building that was not yet known as the Guild …
Jenny Hamilton is usually behind the scenes at the Guild Hall… but not always Read More »
This week, 14 ambitious students from Vanier Catholic Secondary School will be belting out a raft of hit tunes their parents or grandparents probably danced or cuddled to decades ago. Under the direction of English teacher Marcia Lalonde and musical director Kim Hart, they will present two public performances of the “jukebox musical” Leader of the …
Gab in a cab, do time in the hole, or ponder what lies behind schoolyard shootings. These are just some of the options available to audience members as Nakai Theatre presents version six of its Homegrown Theatre Festival next week at the Guild Hall. The lineup of 12 local shows runs the gamut from a …
“How about a Maypole dance?” My Skype connection to Whitehorse was adequate at best, so Peter Jickling’s response seemed reasonable. “What?” “You know, cute kids in their fresh white shirts and smocked dresses, garlands of daisies in the girls’ hair as they dance around the Maypole. Who can resist a cute-kid pic, right?” “What?” Damn, …
Anthony Trombetta’s first act as new artistic director at the Guild Theatre was to throw out the rule book. Instead of a conventional play, the black box theatre in Porter Creek has been playing host this month to standup comics, a hypnotist and even a magician. Strange But True, which runs until Saturday, April 26, …
If Carmen Smith has her way, there will no free lunch for bears or other critters in Whitehorse wheelie-bins. Smith is program co-ordinator for a non-profit society with the imposing moniker of Centre for Human-Wildlife-Human Conflict Solutions. “Try saying that ten times fast,” she jokes. Not surprisingly, the organization prefers to be known as WildWise …
Municipal-scale composting is no small backyard operation The ancient Greeks had a word that helps explain the composting process. Well, actually they had two words: therme, meaning “heat” and philein, meaning “to love”. So while you watch the truck haul away those yucky coffee grounds and carrot peels from your green bin, tip your hat …
Thanks kindly fer returnin’ the $2 I sent you. With the hard times on us, I’m grateful of the free inscripshun. Drew a small map to help find my place when you do yer rounds come Wensday. Jest leave ‘er in the covered bucket at the end of the lane. Must say, yer little paper’s …
Omigosh, I cudn’t hardly beleave my eyes when I seen yer name in the paper. Are you the Darrol Hockey that sold me an icebox back in the last Ice Age? So how’d you get all rich and puffy like a deppity minister in such short odor? Oh. Reckon I’d best interduce myself, in case …
Holey Old Moley, it seems like things ain’t rite in the Youcon skies. I first took note of it a few weeks back when I made my nitely trip at 3 ayem to get close to nachur in the little place out back. Come to think on it, afore next winter comes, I’d best buy …
Just had another read of the touchin’ note you sent about my sister Wilma goin’ down to glory, and figgered I’d best set the record strait a tad, since you never knowed her. Don’t get me wrong. She was a dear sole and I loved her like a sister, ‘coz that’s what she was. But …
I was fixin’ to tell you last week more on the trip I and Wilferd took to Skaggway, but then Merna came by unexpeckted and drug me out to March Lake to look at the swans. What a site that was! With the bare nakid eye I cud’nt make out much more’n patches of white …
You recall how last week I was tellin’ you how I sowed up a mess of bootys fer the poor swans coolin’ there heals down at March Lake? So much fer the best-layed plans. When I ast Merna, the bird lady down the road, if she wud help with the installin’ part, she laffed fit …
It was nice to see the Easter Rabbit treated the Anny Lake area so good last week. From the piles of little round malt balls all over my yard, he had his hole fambly workin’ with him. It must be a high time fer the rabbits like it gets evry few years, if a feller …
With any luck Old Man Winter has took his last gasp, and ain’t jest lurkin’ around the corner fixin’ to blow another cold one up our back sides. Good thing, too. I’m tired of all that fool talk from EnviCan about the “cold wind chill”. Maybe we can have a touch of “hot wind warm” …
Will the mirackles never end? I finely got the electrick. Not that I need it so bad now, with the daylite gettin’ longer. The power company is kinda like the bank. If you don’t need ’em, they’ll be there fer you, but when yer in a pinch they don’t recall yer name. So its offishul, …
Seriously: Does Kevin Murphy really want to see the Yukon Open Table Tennis defending champion to return this year? After all, Murphy, the local club’s vice president and coach, placed second to this Alaskan last year. “Yeah, I want him there,” says Murphy. “Revenge is sweet.” That’s the extent of the trash talk. While this …
Spring is sprung the grass is brown, think I’ll hitch a ride to town. I been ponderin’ of late that I mite take up ritin’ pomes to add some big bucks to my old-timers check. Momma always said I had a way with words. Ackshually, what she said was “thats some mouth you got onto …
My golly, its been a hecktick pace hereabouts of late. The chickin wire and posts I ordered finely came in. Of coarse with the frost still in the ground, theres a few weeks yet till I can get things set up in the fence department. Wud’nt you know, the very next day a batch of …
Take a string quartet: two violins, a viola and a cello. Imagine it whipping up a challenging entrée of Bach. As side dishes, how about some 1930s-era Glazounov romanticism and a bit of contemporary Canadiana? A little Zappa for dessert, perhaps. But first, replace the strings with saxophones. That’s the menu Whitehorse Concerts has in …
Well now, don’t I feel like six kinds of a fool? Turns out them space rocks I rote you about last week are somethin’ else all together. I was all set to mail one off to Texxas and wait fer the do-ray-me to roll in, when Wilferd ast what on earth I had in the …
Theres some things its best a feller not look into too close. You mind how I told you I mite be part of pressident O’Bamma’s clan, owed to the fact that my forebares was Black Irish? Last Sunday I stopped in next door, so’s Wilferd cud show me how his computor can dig up who …
Whats that old line about a thing bein’ a riddle rapped in a mistry inside an enema? There was some such goin’ on out here on the Anny Lake Road, but I think I finely got to the bottom of it. It started on a sunny day back a spell, when I hung a bunch …
If things was bad before, its got even worst in the sleep deppartment this week. The birds is now chirpin’ and burpin’ near non-stop and my eyebulbs can scarce tell nite from noon. Short of stickin’ my head under the piller, there don’t seem to be any ways to get a full nite in the …
I’m a mite bit twisted from gettin’ up far too early to meet the call of nachur. I don’t mean the normal old-fellers call to the Haff-Moon Hotel. Thats my own bizness, as yer gonna learn when you hit my age, Darrol. That don’t keep me from gettin’ back to sleep. What done it was …
So where was I? Oh yes, I was tellin’ you about my and Wilferd’s exsellent advenchurs in Dawsin City. Like I said, soon as we walked into Dimond Tooth Gerts, all manner of hijinks busted out. I think there was a band of some kind, but all I recolleckt fer sure is a bunch of …
By jingo, my heads still swimmin’ from all I seen and done on my trip to Keeno with Wilferd and Danny last week end. Can’t get over how many miles of miles the Youcon has, and I ain’t seen the haff of it. You cud stuff all of PEI in here a dozzen times and …
First I gotta tell you a bit about my Unkle Walt. Well he ain’t reely my unkle. They say he’s my second cozzen once removed, on accounta bein’ once removed from the Legion Hall. Walt put in 22 years as the Mare of Dingwells Pond, ‘coz no body else wud do it. The job don’t …
Well I got home from Dawsin to find a cupple of nice surprises. First was that Merna planted a bunch of flours around my house whilst I was gone. Says she overdone it at the garden store and reckoned I cud use a few. A few hunderd, more like. Now I never been one to …
You ast why the feller I met on the Stewart and Cassyar calls that skirt of his a Futility kilt. Seems it goes back to a time he was workin’ in the garden and put his foot where it had’nt otta be. Way he tells it is, “when yer in a kilt and you meet …
Next time I get a noshun to drive my own self from White Horse to Vicktoria, I want you to give my head a shake, OKay? Now I reelize how that girl felt in the pitcher about the Wizzard of Odds. I’m pretty sure I ain’t in Kanssas any more. It don’t help that I …
How many of you remember sitting in Murd Nicholson’s barber chair when you were three years old and scared of that first haircut? How many of you watched your own children thrill to having a “conversation” with Mr. Clippers who spoke in what sounded like a buzz to everyone else? Unfortunately, Nicholson recently had a …
I done it, Darrol. I found Unkle Walt! Well, to tell it true, he found me. I was down to Genral Delivry, like I been evry day, to see if there was anythink from home. Sure enuff, there was a letter sayin’ Walt called to say sell off all his stuff, ‘coz he ain’t comin’ …
I’m startin’ to think its true what they say about rich folks not bein’ like you and me. Not like me anyways, since I ain’t a hot shot overpayed newspaper edditer and all. It all come out the other nite at dinner, when I told The Widdow about all the money I won off of …
Life has sure been some hecktick this past week. I sware, some days I been stirrin’ my stumps when it ain’t even noon yet. Not that I can tell fer sure, on accounta The Widdow don’t allow any clocks on her island. Way she puts it is, “Theres three things to know if you want …
A few days before flying to Whitehorse, Matt Minglewood will be in Toronto accepting a Maple Blues Award for lifetime achievement as a bluesman. The eclectic Cape Breton singer-songwriter could just as easily be picking up honours for his work in such genres as country, rock, roots, or folk music. “I’ve never been one to …
Dont know that I ever told you Darrol, but theres part of The Widdows island that still belongs to the govamint of Brutish Columbya. Its on the south side, so handy the U.S. boarder you can hear the wind whissle Dixie in the trees. Turns out thats where Bruce the gardiner takes hisself off to …
So much fer the peace and qwiet of livin’ on a private island. Come Monday in the ayem, The Widdow was still in recovry mode from oversellabratin’ at her big bash. All on a sudden theres a big commoshun whilst a barje full of heavy gear pulls up to the dock. Seems she forgot thats …
By jingo Darrol, like the song goes, “was’nt that a party!” I told you last week The Widdow was havin’ a few folks drop by fer a little shindig. Turned out to be more like 40, but whose countin’? There was doctors and arkitects, bankers, stalk brokers, and more old lawyers and judges than even …
Well we finely got some peace and qwiet back on the island. The big toys that was rippin’ up evrythink in site fer the past month went back to the main land at first lite today. There ain’t a blade of grass left, but the yards crammed with garden patches atwixt and atop each another, …
I was tellin’ you last time how a bunch of Constabbulary lads dropped in, with nary so much as a fone call first to see if it was a good time to vissit. Wellsir, Unkle Walts soon to be Missus dont take kindly to bad manors. So it were’nt long till the Mountys was all …
Even at yer age Darrol, I reckon you heard the old sayin’ about be carefull what you wish, unlest you wanta live in interrestin’ times? Well it don’t get a hole lot more interrestin’ than what happened hereabouts this week. Y’see Bruce the gardiner has a bit of a saleboat that him and Emma-Lee likes …
I useta think there was’nt much I never seen at least the once, but boys-a-boys did I come in fer some surprize this week. It started rite at crowpiss Monday mornin’ with the sound of a hellacopter goin’ whap-whap-whap over the bottom end of the island. It come in real low like it was fixin’ …
Oh golly, I got a sad tail to tell you, Darrol. It started a cuppla nites back, when Maisy got into the cups again. Well she was into the glasses ackshually, but I reckon its what was in ’em that done the harm. Bein’ aware as to how she gets with a snort or two …
Theres somethink been eatin’ my brain pan fer the past cuppla weeks I gotta tell you about, Darrol. Its that dang Maisy, the one that stood up fer Eva whilst I propped up Unkle Walt at the weddin’. You mind me sayin’ I dont recall much of the boat ride down here to the U,S, …
Let me tell you one thing, when it comes to gettin’ marryed up, they do things in Loss Vegas like no place else. If yer thinkin’ of a big church decked out with candels and white flours, with a big organ playin’ and such, forget it. I figgered somethink was up when Eva told Walt …
By the time the carry’er pidgins make it up to the Youcon with this, Unkle Walts and Evas nupshuls will allready have came and went. Wisht I cud tell you more, but its two days off yet at this end, and the blushin’ bride is still playin’ coy on some of the finer points, like …
Got yer note, and by golly I thank you kindly fer that. Untill you ast, it did’nt don on me that you was still such a young sprat you mite not know what the OGP is. Thats money the guvamint sends us elderly sorts each-a-nevry month. It stands fer the Old Geezers Penshun. You and …
I must have grew some sea legs whilst we was in Loss Vayguss. The hole way home to Brutish Columbya, I did’nt upchuck in the saltchuck once. In fact the trip was rite some grand all together. Even Maisy was on her best behavyer once Eva give ‘er a talkin’ to about respecktin’ a fellers …
Three nights on a Loss Vayguss park bench left me some glad to see Eva and Unkle Walt back from Hawayii, brown as a pare of hazzle nuts. Seems they was’nt near so keen to see me, bein’ as how I come on ’em from the upwind side as they was gettin’ outta there cab. …
To the Editor, Hookey, you fiendish, fiendly fiend. Like an anarchic CBC host maliciously injecting a noxious ear worm such as Seasons in the Sun into my auditory canal, you have wantonly invaded my gustatory system with the ineluctable memory of MacIntosh Toffee. Have you no regard for the fact that early addiction to this …
Darroll my son, did I ever tell you of the time we dang near done in Santa Claws? It was back in 19 and 45, when I was a runny-nose sprat of nine. With the end of hostilitys Over There, Chrismass looked to be the best in years. Things was goin’ grand on the farm …
McCartha Sandy-Lewis remembers her great-grandmother squatting down every evening before sunset with her frock between her knees, smoking a pipe and looking out toward Mount Irvine Bay. That’s where the slave ship had brought her from her home in Guinea, West Africa, to the Caribbean island of Tobago, where she would spend the rest of …
On a balmy afternoon about a month ago, while loitering on the deck of the beautiful Prince George Public Library, I spotted something I hadn’t seen in years: a grid for playing hopscotch. Not just one, but three. Each in a different colour of chalk and each in a different configuration from the others. I’ve …
He’s a hobbit and an Ewok, Princess Leia and Gandalf — plus about 80 other denizens of deep space and Middle Earth. In a more mundane dimension, he’s a 38-year-old actor from Victoria, B.C. named Charles Ross. For the past dozen years, Ross has travelled through four continents, evoking a multitude of characters from two …
When Anne-Louise Genest confessed to a slight hangover after an evening of gin and tonic, her sister asked, “Didn’t I tell you your grandmother’s rules for drinking?” After hearing such sage advice as “don’t let strange men mix drinks for you” and “gin will ruin your complexion”, Genest immediately knew she wanted to set it …
A winter coat. A small shovel in case of snow. The yellow Aveo is crammed with the essentials for more than a month on the road. A map of Western Canada lies open on the dash. It’s a hot Mother’s Day afternoon when Kim Beggs and Natalie Edelson roll into the North Okanagan town of …
Pam Charmin is a night owl. As organizer of the Yukon Craft Society’s annual Spruce Bog craft sale, she has to be. Charmin joined the society two years after its founding 35 years ago. She inherited the mantle as organizer of the society’s annual sale in 1991, when her predecessor left the Yukon for medical …
With all it’s going through, the world needs a hug. That’s one of the messages underlying this year’s Blue Feather Music Festival, which takes place November 5 and 6 at the Yukon Arts Centre. “We just figured the world needs a big bear hug, and it’s up to us to take care of our planet …
When Harreson Tanner was a youngster in Ottawa reading Jack London tales of the unforgiving North, he never dreamed the San Francisco-born author would one day be a passenger in his motorhome. But that’s what happened recently when Tanner drove to Kelowna with London strapped safely into the seat beside him. Not the real Jack …
Some offers a person simply can’t refuse. When the email inviting me to be part of the What’s Up Yukon team landed, the cadence of Marlon Brando coming down the wire was unmistakable. The pressure was intense. How could I rush such a decision, to emerge from the indolence of semi-retirement back into the pressure …
It was a plaintive little e-mail, familiar in both theme and tone. No, it wasn’t the weekly missive from the executor of some unfortunate Nigerian’s estate, seeking an accomplice to help liberate the dearly-departed’s billions from who-knows-what dire consequence. It was the kind of e-mail that inevitably begins, “Does anyone know where I can get …
For Russell Braun, the accompanist’s role is not to play second fiddle. Figuratively or literally. The Frankfurt-born lyric baritone will share the Yukon Arts Centre stage this Sunday with his favourite accompanist -– and his wife – pianist Carolyn Maule. “We’re both soloists,” Braun stresses. “It’s like a marriage, you know. You don’t become one, …
The air crackles with energy as members of the Ynklude Art Troupe rehearse for their next stage outing. Laughter and chatter abound as producer Julie Robinson explains changes in the lineup, adding a few more saxophone solos by Hayley Hulushka as bookends at the show’s beginning and end. There’s just a week left before the …
The wonderful ArtsNet list serve is many things: a notice board, a trading post, a soapbox. I’ve never posted anything on it, but the ArtsNet folder in my email program contains 4659 items at the time of writing. And that’s just the ones I either haven’t opened, or have marked as unread to remind me …
Sometimes I wish I didn’t know how to read. No. That’s not true at all. I am endlessly grateful that I can read, and I wish everyone in the world had that privilege. What I should have said is that I wish I weren’t addicted to books. No. That’s not quite it, either. I wish …
Raoul Bhaneja is his own uncle. Which means he’s also his own stepfather. Not to mention his mother, his sort-of girlfriend, the ghost of his father and even his father’s windy old court advisor. Bhaneja will bring all these characters and several more to the Yukon Arts Centre stage next month with his one-man version …
Yukon skies could be busier than usual next week as extraterrestrial visitors zoom in on the Yukon Arts Centre. The annual Longest Night celebration is taking a playful look at alien life forms through film, story and music. Among the close encounters will be three distinct takes on the theme “we are not alone” by …
Like store shelves bulging with goods and seasonal music bombarding the air, the appearance of the Salvation Army kettle is a sure sign that Christmas is not far off. In Whitehorse, one of the most recognizable faces beside that kettle belongs to Stan Marinoske. “I believe we started with the Sally Ann kettles the first …
A new writer submitted a story the other day. A good story, too: well-written, informative, witty. But something in the first paragraph hit one of my uh-uh buttons. What made the veins on my forehead throb was a single word: Xmas. I really, really do not like Xmas. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing …
Mid-distance dog races are back, with the Road Runner 100. “Mushers and skijorers have been asking for this type of race for years now,”
Every story a journalist writes involves a measure of compromise. The richer the source material, the larger that measure. A case in point is the story about lyric baritone Russell Braun and pianist Carolyn Maule in our November 11 edition. The transcript of our Skype conversation ran to several thousand words. There was room for …
Having her own artwork on display at last year’s Cranberry Fair taught Brenda Stehelin an important lesson. “It’s nerve-wracking,” says the long-time owner of Yukon Gallery, who is accustomed to prodding artists to have confidence in their work and “just get out there”. “I didn’t really get what it meant to actually put your personality …
It was bluegrass, as much as anything, that lured Radim Zenkl to slip through the Iron Curtain and become a political refugee in the United States. “At the beginning I played folk music, but as soon as I heard some country music on the records that were smuggled from the USA, I was really interested …
The first thing that strikes you when you walk into The Neighborhood Pup is a sense of calm, bright spaciousness. But wait a minute. Isn’t this supposed to be a daycare centre? Sure, there are shelves with plastic bins for favourite toys and other accessories – each bin carefully labeled with the attendee’s name. But …
It takes almost three weeks to nail down a time and place to interview Gordie Tentrees and Sarah MacDougall. When the appointed time comes – a late Wednesday afternoon – they are running behind and still haven’t had lunch. Tentrees seems more than a little frazzled, tossing out half-finished thoughts as he munches something decidedly …
Margaret Thatcher. Genocide. Venereal disease. Personal betrayal. These are not the standard fare of romantic comedy. But in the deft hands of Whitehorse playwright Peter Jickling, they become wickedly funny. With Syphilis: A Love Story, Jickling has hit the exact tone for the rom-com genre. As a love story, it comes perilously close to being …
As a theatre designer, Stéphanie Lambert is used to creating things that aren’t meant to last. But not all of them are destined to go up in flames. That’s what will happen this weekend when her four-faced effigy of winter is sacrificed on a ceremonial bonfire at Robert Service Park. Lambert, a 2008 graduate in …
As a member of the WhiskeyDicks, Ryan Enns will be purveying high-energy “Celtic Gypsy Punk Rock” on Friday and Saturday at Foxy’s Cabaret. Come Sunday, he’ll offer a more intimate performance of solo voice and acoustic guitar at Whitehorse United Church. The second half of that concert will feature his own compositions as a singer-songwriter. …
It happened on the dance floor November 1, 1985. “I don’t want to spoil the story of how we met,” Brooke Johnson says of her first encounter with Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “except to say that it involved a borrowed dress and borrowed shoes that were two sizes too big, French-braided hair and toilet paper.” It …
Outdoor enthusiasts with passports can party this weekend in the White Pass-Skagway area at the 3rd annual Backcountry Bash and Ball. “Springtime in this part of the world is really exceptional. This is a chance for the folks in the North to get together and do what they do best, and that’s play together,” says …
Having an instant audience of many millions didn’t really change things much for Shane Koyczan. “I think a lot of people expected that everything was going to be different, but it’s really not,” he says modestly. “I still go out and do what I do. I tour a lot, and that’s kind of it. But …
Beware of shooters in Whitehorse this weekend. It won’t be outlaw gangs roaming the territory’s capital, but camera crews taking part in the Cold Snap filmmaking event. Teams of varying degrees of experience will be attempting to shoot, edit and produce projects that could range from simple 30-second short-shorts to more complex genre pieces of …
From swiss chard to arctic charr, from jelly to jewelry – all this and more is on offer at the Fireweed Community Market at Shipyards Park. The market, which runs from 3-8 pm every Thursday from mid-May to mid-September, first set up shop in its present location in 2005. “In the late ’90s, I visited …
Everyone knows the Yukon is a laid-back, sleepy little place – especially come November, when we gorge ourselves on seal blubber before bedding down with a tiger torch or an oversized husky until spring breaks through the igloo sometime in mid-April. Right? Wrong. Anyone who believes that obviously hasn’t been to the Yukon in February. …
If Bryden Baird had known more about the music business early on, he might have chosen a different career. “I may have considered just doing it for fun and having some other type of job,” he admits. “Fortunately, I’ve been fine, but if you monitor the way the major labels are shrinking year by year, …
Two days after Ju Hyun Seo got married last November, he flew to the Yukon to teach breakdancing for a month at Leaping Feats Creative Danceworks. When artist director Andrea Simpson-Fowler asked if he’d be interested in something longer term, he was quick to accept. “Andrea said, ‘Are you sure you want to move here?’ …
A chance encounter with the Yukon Quest nine years ago changed Gaëtan Pierrard’s life. “I made a first trip in 2002 and saw the Yukon Quest just by accident,” says the 34-year-old native of Belgium. “And that was on my mind when I was back in Europe.” Three years ago, he moved to the Yukon …
When Sue Waddington started a particular rug-hooking project in 1977, she had no idea what lay ahead for her and her husband, Jim. The tapestry was based on a pictorial image – a 1933 painting by A.Y. Jackson of a lake in Killarney Provincial Park, on the north shore of Georgian Bay. Some time later, …
Denny Kobayashi laughs when he recalls one of the best lines he has heard in his career as an umpire. It came from a local coach who approached him during a break between innings. “Blue, can I get thrown out of the game for what I’m thinking?” When Kobayashi told him he couldn’t be, the …
The common thread that links the stories and columns in What’s Up Yukon each week boils down to two words – creativity and commitment. From the outset, this magazine has had a strong focus on arts and entertainment, where creativity is a given. Musicians, dancers, actors, visual artists, writers, photographers, filmmakers, et cetera have always …
An energetic new dance group will make its debut this weekend in an unusual locale. Instead of a formal stage or a black-box theatre, the Tough Love Dance Crew will give its first official performance in a Whitehorse cocktail lounge. “I always felt like entertainment in Whitehorse was lacking a little bit,” explains Tough Love’s …
As a kid, I delivered the Windsor Star to Red Wings goalie Glenn Hall. As a cub reporter, I once photographed Toronto tough guy Eddie Shack. Playing baseball. In 1972, I scored a coup on As It Happens by walking beside Bobby Hull’s convertible and interviewing him en route to picking up his $1-million cheque …
It’s 6:05 on a Sunday morning, and she has a play opening in only six days. So why is Sarah Rodgers sitting in the airport waiting for a flight to Vancouver? Well, so she can spend her day off with Poppy, her 13-month-old adopted daughter from Vietnam. “I feel like a jet-setter,” she quips. Rodgers …
What is it like to hear your own story told in your own words by a total stranger? Several Whitehorse residents will find out next week when Nakai Theatre’s Pivot Festival presents Tanya Marquardt’s work-in-progress called Fragments. The play is a pastiche of interviews Marquardt conducted with 25 local people in different locales over the …
What is the nature of faith, and what is the nature of duty in wartime? Those are two of the profound questions at the heart of Whitehorse playwright Celia McBride’s new work-in-progress, GITA: God in the Army. The play centres on a Canadian soldier, Cpl. June Wright, who witnessed war atrocities while photographing the activities …
Don Ogilvie’s love affair with Gypsy jazz dates back 40 years. Like most budding musicians in 1970, Ogilvie was mostly into rock music at the time, but he also played with a New Orleans-style band. Then he discovered Jean “Django” Reinhardt, the Belgium-born Romani gypsy who pioneered the distinctive sound that became known as “hot” …
Whitehorse rare opportunity to experience Noh Theatre, a form of classical Japanese theatre that dates back almost 700 years.
Kindhearted pirates, timorous policemen, pretty maidens, star-crossed lovers and a thoroughly modern Major-General. All these are onstage this week at Wood Street School as the Music, Art, Drama, Dance program (MAD) program presents the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, The Pirates of Penzance. When director Mary Sloan and musical director Jeff Nordlund picked the comic operetta …
When the Whitehorse Community Choir presents its annual spring concert this week, it will be in a different venue than usual—the Sacred Heart Cathedral on 4th Avenue. It will also be offering musical fare whose origins trace back as far as 14th century Italy, together with items as modern as the Swingle Singers and the …
So what is it about a style of music, swing music, that goes back almost 80 years that still appeals to modern audiences?
For Fawn Fritzen, the idea was born two years ago, the first time she sang with music maven Grant Simpson. “We chatted a bit during the break and he mentioned that he’d been thinking of doing this Cole Porter show for dinner theatre or something. He was just kind of throwing it out,” Fritzen recalls. …
Judy Ratcliffe had just attended the funeral of a teaching colleague who died of leukemia when she saw a Global TV item about a Vancouver-based organization called Kayak for a Cure. When another teacher she knew died of cancer a few weeks later, she started thinking seriously about staging a Kayak for a Cure event …
They’re doing it One More Time. For the fifth year in a row, two of the Yukon’s most popular – certainly most durable – musical groups are teaming up for a show loaded with nostalgia and upbeat melodies. Hank Karr and Company and The Canucks will get together at the Yukon Arts Centre next week …
One of Whitehorse’s oldest commercial art galleries has changed hands. Art Webster started the North End Gallery at First Avenue and Steele Street 12 years ago. “It was April of 1999 – the last century – when we opened our doors. It was about half the space you see now, and it took about six …
Would-be rockers in Haines Junction and Faro have a chance to perfect their performance chops in the next few weeks, with help from rock trio Speed Control. The group, comprised of lead singer and guitarist Graeme Peters, drummer Spencer Cole and bassist Jody Peters, is offering “rock camps” in the two communities on back-to-back weekends, …
For Andrea Simpson-Fowler, the show title Dancing Through Life sums up the goal of Leaping Feats Creative Danceworks and its partner organizations – to teach lifeskills through dance. “We use it as a metaphor,” explains the studio’s artistic director. “Often we use things that happen at the studio and try to draw parallels for the …
Don’t let the name fool you. True, the Québec-based trio, The Lost Fingers, took its name from the two fingers of legendary gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt that were rendered useless in a fire, leading him to develop a unique and unmistakable playing style. And it’s true that the group’s sound is highly influenced by the …
The next time you tune into Fox News, take a good look at the network’s iconic rotating cube in the lower left corner of your screen. Or while you’re watching a basketball or hockey game on satellite TV, consider those clocks ticking down on games being played in various cities across the U.S. The man …
”Hello, everybody. Welcome to mayhem and madness.” It’s precisely 7 pm and Anton Solomon is just kicking off a rehearsal for the Moving Parts Theatre production of Noises Off, which is scheduled to open 15 days later. “We’ve got two weeks. Lots of time,” Solomon adds encouragingly. For the nine-member cast, this is the most …
Inheriting her grandmother’s hymn-book — stuffed with press clippings, flowers and a nuclear disarmament card from the 1960s — took Veda Hille on a journey she hadn’t anticipated. “It was a real treasure-trove, this book,” said Hille, a Vancouver-based musician. With no traditional church background, Hille started delving into the hymns, especially those by 18th-century …
In graduate school, Stephen Drover “dabbled” with the work of American playwright David Mamet, but he had never directed a full Mamet play. So when the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Katherine McCallum, told him of the Guild’s plans for a professional co-production with Sour Brides Theatre of Mamet’s 1999 play, Boston Marriage, Drover was definitely …
One of Canada’s pre-eminent opera and recital singers will take to the Yukon Arts Centre stage next Tuesday. Lyric soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, accompanied on piano by her Armenian-Canadian composer husband, Serouj Kradjian, will present a varied program that includes a number of folksongs by the Armenian national composer, Gomidas Vartabed. The recital is a collaboration …
Not everyone who enters Nakai Theatre‘s 24-hour playwriting competition is as prolific as Eva van Loon. Some writers manage to eke out nine pages or so. Others produce a respectable 28 or 30. Some miraculously manage 60 pages or more in the time allotted. In 2009, van Loon cranked out a full three-act play, called …
When Betty Beemer needs a health pamphlet written, she turns to Vaughn Fischer, a freelancer whose career is going nowhere. But Vaughn quickly becomes obsessed with turning a simple tract on syphilis into a masterpiece. That’s the basic premise of Peter Jickling’s quirky play, Syphilis: A Love Story, which Ramshackle Theatre will present for a …
Whitehorse-based Gwaandak Theatre will premiere its newest play, Café Daughter, in Dawson City this week. Written by Saskatoon playwright Kenneth T. Williams, it tells the story of a young Cree-Chinese girl, Yvette Wong, at two critical points in her life – at age nine, when her mother tells her never to admit she is part …
Like mushrooms after rain, interesting mini-discussions pop up spontaneously from time to time on the ArtsNet list serve. A recent one that caught my eye concerned the age-old topic of arts reviews/critiques: what are they, what purpose do they serve, what’s the difference, and “Hey, who decides who gets to write them, anyway?” No doubt …
It’s 7: 25 on a Monday evening. Over the past few minutes, 67 members of the Whitehorse Community Choir have arrived at the Whitehorse United Church and taken their places. Microphone in hand, Barbara Chamberlin calls out, “OK, let’s stand up. Let’s have a massage.” The atmosphere is lighthearted as the singers turn in their …
Nakai Theatre’s newest production, The River, promises to shine an unblinking light on Whitehorse by presenting voices that normally go unheard. The “sprawling, episodic” play, co-written by Nakai’s artistic director David Skelton, Yukon artist Joseph Tisiga and Toronto playwright Judith Rudakoff, tells the stories of 12 separate characters in 60 scenes with no conventional narrative …
Young and not-so-young musicians from throughout Whitehorse will perform together in two separate concerts at the Yukon Arts Centre next week. The occasion is the All-City Band Society’s annual pre-Christmas presentation, which this year is going under the title of Music for a Winter Eve. While some of the players are veteran performers, for others …
When you ask Eliza Gilkyson about her early musical influences, the first name she mentions is Joan Baez. So when Baez included two of Gilkyson’s songs on her 2008 album, Day After Tomorrow, it was a special occasion. “That was just stunning,” Gilkyson says from her home in Austin, Tex
