30 April 2005

In Thunder Bay


[reading my handy all-in-one Homer edition en route]

We're now in Thunder Bay, fairly tired. A beautiful drive today: one climbs into the Canadian Shield very quickly (it happened when Dave was changing tapes, so the camera missed it!), and the change from flat, tree-speckled prairie to embouldered, lake-bearing Shield is very striking. We also passed across the Arctic/Atlantic watershed line on the Trans-Canada (not far past Upsala, if I recall correctly). Some splendid pics for upload, but I'll add them to this post a bit later.

Internet access . . . well, it's working, isn't it? It's easy to forget that there are large chunks of the world, say 99%, for whom the Internet is somehow not as important as toothpaste. These fine folks do not suffer panic attacks when unable to check their email every day; they still know how to use the Yellow Pages; they wonder who the guy is with the bags under his eyes sitting in the lobby of their hotel, his power cable fully extended as he stretches his laptop towards the one known wireless node, clutching his brow as the signal sputters. O sancta simplicitas!

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Added on May Day:
pics as promised


[into the Canadian Shield: note rocks, hills, trees]


[Dave at the watershed line; behind him, things are flowing into the Arctic]


[me at the watershed line; behind me, things are flowing into the Atlantic]

29 April 2005

Farewell to Winnipeg

Pardon the blog's silence these last 48 hours; it's been a hectic, though altogether rewarding, time in this fair city. Here's a pic for the blog's loyal foreign readers:


[Winnipeg, April 27; the white area is snow-covered, eh?]

This was the view from our hotel window two of the last three days; it has also been hailing intermittently. But I dare not show my trepidation, lest I provoke the contempt of these stalwart all-weather Winnipeggers. Entre nous autres, however, the wind is icy.

We just came from the public show here, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. An impressive building, and an impressive venue: a 200 seat auditorium, complete with expert lighting technician, which we managed to fill to about 1/5th full. Not bad!

We also had the pleasure of seeing Annie Forget at the show, the program coordinator at the Dominion Institute; and many fine members of the Fraser Highlanders were on hand. Mjr James Oborne, who is an authentic modern fur-trader and a director of the North-West Company (which still exists and does a flourishing trade throughout the North, just like back in the 18th century), is their officer commanding, and he gave a very interesting introduction to the poem and to the historical period. He was particularly pleased at the references to the Fraser Highlanders and their key contribution to the British effort in the Siege and battle; I've been working to include more of this, and I'm glad to see it paid off: the Frasers are exigent historians, and they approved.


[Mjr. James Oborne introducing the poem with historical commentary]

The show itself could have gone better, from my POV as performer; I stumbled twice, and there was a good deal of (invisible) stitching and improvisation. Also, I need to work on air/lung-management, especially on spontaneously enjambing lines: being reduced to a desperate, brave, unyielding croak is great for death scenes (of which I have at least two, of course), but a couple of times this happened inopportunely, as in

The officers and volunteers : whose glory now shall never die

which doesn't really get the message across, acoustically speaking.


[onstage at the Winnipeg Art Gallery]

We hit the road bright and early tomorrow for Toronto, passing through Wawa on Sunday. I will try and post (we have another, better video in the pipe) but may be at the mercy of Internet-accessibility. Our gas guage has begun working again, though, which is perhaps all too reassuring.

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Added note: I've at last got the Video Clips and Digital Pics archive going on the website: there you can find all the video clips posted to the blog, plus a good number of never-before-seen-photos of both tour and trip.

27 April 2005

Full performance video!


Here it is, a full video of the whole performance at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon (this last Sunday). Click on the following link!



Notes: It's a large file (112 mb) but I hope it will stream. (If not, we will take it down and fix it.) You may wish to increase the size of the .wmv player (it doesn't lose much in quality). Also, the sound could be better; we had a technical glitch on that front.

I just performed at St. John's High School on the North Side of Winnipeg; about 60 students in the audience, and we should have better sound for the footage we got. We are working to upload this show too -- quite soon!

Was interviewed the The Beaver this afternoon; they are doing a profile of me, which will likely appear in the August-September issue.

26 April 2005

Winnipeg reached



We have reached Winnipeg. What a fine city. The streets hum with life; history lurks on every block. It's a mite chilly today, at least for those of us used to the perpetual 20 degrees celsius of Silicon Valley; it was about 3 degrees on the Yellowhead, the great northern branch of the Trans-Canada which links Saskatoon to Winnipeg, or say minus 15 with the wind chill.


Tomorrow I start the Winnipeg shows with a performance at St. John's High School; a writer from The Beaver magazine will be there covering the show, and there are rumours of further media coverage for Thursday and Friday. Tonight Dave and I happily reunited with our paternal grandmother, Mary Lamont, one of the country's great readers. The Lamont branch of our family lives here, and we are preparing to meet more relatives than we knew we had, at dinner on Thursday; tonight we saw, besides our grandmother, two great aunts, one step-second cousin, and the sister of our first-cousin-once-removed-in-law. It was thanks to the Lamont clan that I learned my genealogical terms.

We are once again on the cusp of a major video upload. The proof: we just upgraded the video-rendering computer by 1 gig of RAM. Stay tuned; we're psyched.

25 April 2005

Three Weeks on the Road



Just noticed that we've been on the road for three weeks: we left California on April 4th. Of course, the Tour proper did not begin until April 12th, or two weeks ago tomorrow, but physiologically speaking that's a footnote! We've driven just under 4000km so far.
One certainly loses track of the passage of time; there are no "normal" days, and glancing at the schedule I see there are not likely to be any in the future! A few very stray notes:
  • We continue to roll up rims, and to win nothing.
  • Our schedule is nowhere near as intense as Blue Rodeo's, who played tonight in Saskatoon (just after I mentioned their great live show on this blog; we thought of going but had a lot to do; also, they're playing in Winnipeg later this week!)
  • We are rather afraid of the upcoming drive from Winnipeg to Toronto. Not only is it three 10-hour days, with doubtful Internet-accessibility, but we will have to pass through Wawa, the Bermuda Triangle of the Trans-Canada.
  • We are acquiring books at a reckless rate. Part of this is owing to my dropping off brochures in bookstores prior to the public shows. Since many of these are used book stores, a) a lot of time is wasted in wandering around the stacks, and b) I have to face the fact that I have a problem. (Just picked up three stray histories of New France, for instance: Thomas Costain, The White and the Gold; J. L. Rutledge, Century of Conflict; W. J. Eccles, Canada Under Louis XIV. The first is both jocose and appallingly racist; the second is rather romantic; the third is outstanding & much recommended. Dave also found two ancient Greek textbooks from way back when at a bookstore in rural Alberta; he's making amazing progress.)
  • Today I bought a new pair of black pants, to be featured in future performances. "Pure polyester!" the salesman remarked with great satisfaction.

24 April 2005

Saskatoon show at WDM


[onstage in Saskatoon]

We just got back from the Saskatoon show, which was at the Western Development Museum. It was probably the best show to date.


[facing the audience]

I improvised a good deal, but in a seamless manner (if I do say so myself). In one line there were two extra syllables, but I enjambed straight into the next line so it didn't faze the audience! Nearly a full 700 lines, but only one guy at the back was fidgeting. My goal remains to hold the whole audience, though, so there is room for improvement. We are planning a huge video upload from this show, so watch this space.



[Main Street in Boomtown]

The venue was superb. If you're ever in Saskatoon, you must see it. It's one huge space, an indoor Main Street from 1910 (of a fictional "Boomtown"). As much of it is the result of volunteer labour, one comes away (yet again) with admiration for the civic spirit of Saskatchewan.

We also ran into the great Dan Ring, a semi-legendary figure, who works at the Mendel Gallery. I had stayed at his place on Rhapsodic Tour 2000, when the bike all but died literally as I rolled up his driveway (after a 10 hour ride from Winnipeg). So I was his guest that year for rather longer than he anticipated, drinking Pil in the warm prairie summer sun; I gave my interview to As It Happens sitting on his living room couch. A pleasure to get the chance to introduce Dave to him; the guy is about the most bohemian person ever to walk the face of the earth, with a bottomless store of amazing stories. We had some good Pils tonight too, at a bar where he used to play guitar while chairs were broken over people's backs.



[a Pil]

Prairie tour video


Dave has been working overtime with the video material, and here's a taste: a short (2 min) little montage of us driving from Calgary to Saskatoon.

It features the song
White Rose by Slaid Cleeves, off the tribute album to Fred Eaglesmith.

We're hoping to upload a full performance video before long; possibly the upcoming one at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, today at 7pm (mapped here).

Foreign readers may be mystified by the reference at the end of the clip to Tim Horton's, the strangely potent, certainly ubiquitous national coffee&doughnut-shop icon. No kidding, it's a cult. We have so far rolled up the rim and won nothing eight times.