I’m writing this at 1:30am in a Comfort Inn lobby after swing dancing with dear friends from California to Vancouver under the stars in New Orleans, LA, sharing a drink with my mother over oysters and beignets and wonderful music (a dream of mine since I came here to visit two years ago), and listening to some of the finest musicians there are out there. Feeling pretty high on life at the moment. Tomorrow morning I’m going to be on CKLB for an interview about the I Am Betty Campaign, a fundraising campaign for a much-needed transitional housing project in Yellowknife, NWT that features my song, Lullaby and a remix by Culprit1. And then the Sync-Up conference which is a part of Jazzfest (you can also tune in online if you that’s your cup of tea).

I am going to go to bed now, but here is my mailing list sign up form. I’m currently working on a website re-launch that will consolidate my past blog with this one and my album will be finished soon, so please do sign-up and get in on the fun!

Trading in this:

for this:

for two months, while I head to Vancouver / Victoria to study with Bisia and to do some soul searching.

This has been a dream of mine ever since I took her workshop back in 2008 (so long ago!), and this morning, taking the ferry across the channel, I could feel a part of me opening up that hasn’t spoken in a long time. Maybe not since that first spring in Yellowknife even. More soon!

Skijoring is the only thing that has kept my head on straight this winter.

A beautiful tribute to improvisation, allowing the space to be creative, and to singing your way through life:

UPDATE: Congrats to Travis Mercredi at Outland Sound and to Fred Ngo for guessing what was silly about the photo of Jer and I (below). I’m going to send out a couple more too, because Zach and Mark are awesome and guessed stuff that was way more complicated than I would ever have thought of. Thanks all of you for participating!

Had a chat over skype with Jeremy Bradfield today, a dear friend* and collaborator who also happens to be mixing / co-producing the album. Jeremy and I met at Universite de Montreal, where we quickly identified each other as the two struggling anglophones in a very Quebecois environment. I like to think of our friendship at that time as a romance between nine-year olds. We rode our bicycles to school together, sat on the grass and ate pears from our knapsacks (we’d both always bring two), watch the sun go down and cram for exams in between Monty Python references. Boy was I sad when he moved back to England.

We stayed in touch, and thanks to the wonders of modern transportation and an opportunity in Ukraine, I went to visit him in Newcastle some years later. It was during that visit that we recorded the awesome saxophone solo in Up Like The Dirt (thank you Heather!), and did an electronic version of Yellow Coats, which isn’t on the album but we’ll probably finish it someday just for fun.

We are collaborating from a distance on this project, and it’s amazing how technology makes it possible for us to do so. We use dropbox to share files, then sometimes we will jam over skype to throw ideas back and forth, or listen to the song together taking notes about where we want to see changes made, all the while using the chat box to send links to other songs we are drawing on for inspiration. What a process, I tell ya.

I feel like it’s a bit of a tease to say all this without even a little taste to show what we’ve been working on, but it’s not ready yet, so sorry! Instead, I present to you this photo of us from our first ever recording project we did together, Lullaby, which you can listen to if you join my mailing list. First person to guess what we find funny about this %100 completely unstaged candid action photo of us working on it wins a postcard from Yellowknife’s Old Town by the wonderful Alison Mccreesh!

* I realize I often say people are my dear friends on here. It is because I make a point to collaborate with people who are also dear friends! I highly recommend this way of working.

PS. For those of you in Yellowknife, come have brunch at the Dancing Moose on New Year’s Day between 1 and 3 and say hi!

Nothing says Christmas like brunch and jamming! Singing Jingle Bells with Chris Pyke, one of my most dearest and treasured friends. Yeah yeah, we’re dorks.

I’ve been following Green Dream Media for awhile now, and while she posted this ages ago, it is still one of my favorite accordion videos I’ve found on the web. It is stunning both to look at and to listen to. Enjoy!

Well well well, it has been awhile. The bay has frozen over, and we are now walking across the ice to my little shack. Unfortunately, the last time I bailed out my canoe my iphone fell out of my coat pocket and into the lake, and I have been waiting for nearly a month now for a replacement to come in the mail.

Having an iphone is essential to living off-grid out here, at least if you’re like me and need internet access to work a lot of the time. With the film and the album both ramping up at the same time, not having that link to the world has essentially crashing at friend’s houses so I can still work into the night. It’s a pain in the ass to say the least, but my friends are pretty great and so far they don’t seem to mind having me and Max around.

Another reason I haven’t been home much as of late is that it has gotten quite cold here, and my front door is lacking some serious insulation. One night in early October I had paddled across in high winds, and was having a conversation with a neighbor on the dock before going in to see Max, and we were yelling to each other over the high winds and the creaking of the dock. The houseboat was rocking quite a bit, and she scratched at the door to be let out after hearing us, ripping off half of the foam insulation that was nailed on. I can pile pillows and blankets up against it, but it doesn’t really work all that well. I keep the heat on low even though I’m not staying there too much, and as soon as I jump off the bed it shocks me how the bottom two feet of the cabin are so much chillier than the top. I will fix it soon, but there is no time it seems, and that combined with having to go elsewhere to work has been a serious drain on my time.

Still, things are moving along. Jasmine and I are that much closer to finalizing my album design, and I can’t wait to unveil it for you all. I’m also working with several talented individuals on the album launch, but so far it has been challenging to find the right venue. I’d love to hear from anyone in Yellowknife with connections to NACC or any other creative venue. Ideas are welcome! My only request is that it have a decent-sounding acoustic piano. After that, it’s just a matter of finding a place with the right vibe and seating arrangement.

Anyone going to Folk on Fridays at Mackenzie Lounge this week? Chris and I are playing!

Things have been very busy, and I’m happy to announce that I’m working on two creative projects concurrently. The album, which admittedly has been a work in progress for far too long (but is in its final stages), and North Paws, a DoG-umentary about the relationship between humans and dogs in the North over the past century, to be delivered to the Pet Network in February of 2012.

Filmmaking is new territory for me, and I’m thrilled to be learning about a new form of storytelling and to be working with such a fantastic team. I probably won’t talk about it too much here, so if you would like updates on the film’s progress, please check out our facebook page.

These were taken with my iphone while walking with Little Max this morning. It was just so pretty, I had to post. I keep promising myself that one of these days I’ll get a real camera, and mornings like this remind me I should do it sooner rather than later.