Constant talkers. I’m in a ship’s lounge. Trapped in the lair of a constant talker. She’s loud too. Carrying on a relentless litany. Her life story must be told in both past tense and present. Parenting in a style that repeats the names of her children with every address. Surviving without oxygen as there is nary a chance for her to breathe. Its been two hours and it is constantly accelerating. If she were to have a single drink to “loosen up” I fear her mouth would tear itself loose from her cheeks in a horrible garble of blood and soft tissue. Teeth hitting me in the forehead. I’m going to get her a drink just to get it over with. The people all around are picking up books as a method of self defence. Reading anything they can quickly reach. Matchbooks, coasters, doilies, clothing labels...anything. The woman beside me is taking one for the team right now. Looking down at her mystery novel while the constant talker describes the social situation of herself and her husband. The victim hasn’t looked up once and the talker is trying to skin her alive with an attack from the flank. Oblivious to the fact that the lady is trying to ignore because she knows it is impossible to ignore her. Like Chinese water torture the seemingly tiny problem intensifies through repetition.
I have learned that she is an “artist”. I know quite a lot about her training in visual mediums. I would make the supposition that she is probably not a very good “artist” because most of those are brilliant listeners, observers and interpreters. She is, however, “art” itself. She has created herself as a piece of work. A spectacular exaggeration of annoyance. An impressionist painting of it. As the performance art continues you can almost hallucinate that she is a cubist painting. Shards of her verbiage contorting her face into a towering mask of garbage, eyes, nose, pathos and boredom. She’s about 30. Mother of three children named after past soap stars. The children and husband are silent. Not a word. She is doing the work of hundreds. Speaking all the words that need not be spoken. Saving unwanted language from extinction. She articulates everything. Each instant of her actions is documented by a statement. “I’m just going over here to look out the window oh look at the bird Tapestry honey, have you ever seen a bird like that? stop it or you’ll get a bloody nose do you remember that time in Truro when I drove away from the Tim Hortons window because daddy had a bloody nose, oh my GOOODD I would never late a,look at that man’s computer isn’t it cute I wonder what he’s writing my husband keeps a journal its full of all kinds of drawings and writings that are just amazing, he teaches sculpting sciences at the community college of Bilbong on Trunk and he’s an amazing, Brittany put that down you have been told a thousand times that you can’t always OK just this once but don’t come back to me again with any more talk about this, I think I’ll read this book I’ve been waiting to read for ages, geez its going to take me forever to read this but I’m going to read it now, oh geez this is funny, listen to this honey...”.
Somebody buy this art and stuff it away in the attic where it can best be appreciated.
posted by Craig Northey at 6:25 PM

The sea. Do you have to live beside it? Something to make you feel small and powerless seems to be a necessary part of human existence. I have learned that the prairies or mountains can take the place of the ocean in this regard. My body is comprised mostly of water. I am reminded as my liquid center swings gently from fore to aft on the axis of this ship. My first time on the open Atlantic (if the English Channel doesn’t count) courtesy of this ferry to Newfoundland. Up the back end of Cabot’s conquest on a lumbering metal loaf full of everything created in Cabot’s wake. My liquid self will hopefully not assert its position much more than where its at now. The carbon part of me is in the mountains and prairies too. Currently my liquid self is being put in its place.
Soothing first and scary second. A home by the sea has healing powers until the firsts gargantuan squall brings in a threat to property, life and limb. Get in the ocean at the wrong time or the wrong place and the potential catastrophes are incalculable. Subzero temperature, rag doll on rocks, prey to beasts of the deep, exhaustion, rip tides or a scalping at the hands of a drunken power boater. A day on the open prairie can bring all your molecules into pleasant alignment if the sky is big and friendly. In a five minute period it can choose to smote you with any weapon in its arsenal. Golf ball hail, torrential rain, twister, sandstorm, swarm of locusts, giant drifts of sideways snow. Let us not forget the well noted spiritual energy of the dessert. Peyote buttons lead the naked to miracles of survival and hallucinogenic adventure. Magnificent red towers created by erosion, gentle ochre and tan rolling dunes forever. Awe-inspiring. Deadly. Exposure, dehydration, scorpions, snakes, and buzzards to clean your bones to a bleached white. Mountains: avalanche, rockslide, mudslide, large carnivores, falls down a crevass, over a cliff, wiped off the face and into sky by an icey gust. This life threatening potential is part of the attraction.
Beauty on a massive scale is not possible without an element of danger. Sirens call me to the rocks (see the entry on Niagara Falls for the zen potential of natural power). I used to think one had to live by the sea to get one’s dose but I now realize the arrogance of this notion. Massive expanses of anything will do. This country is so good for that. It has massive expanses of just about anything. Even desserts if you count the Alberta badlands and the Okanagan valley. Most people don’t even know that cacti thrive in parts of this nation. Certainly we are priviledged to have plenty of ice, snow, oceans, great lakes, prairies and huge mountains. Our water & carbon innards can be folded, spindled and manipulated readily. I think I have to puke.

posted by Craig Northey at 6:25 PM

Sorry about the hiccup in transmissions but campgrounds don't have modems. Bugs they have. We've made it to the Atlantic. 12,000kilometres on the odometer so far and its off to Newfoundland in the morning. This is waht I wrote the last time I had a chance. It was a few days back in Quebec. Seen the tides of Fundy and have wound our way up Cape Breton since. Let's go back in time...

Bonfires. Bonfires sound like applause. More people, more fuel. St. Etienne Quebec in a twenty acre field, in a campground, as the sun goes down. The night before Saint Jean Baptiste day. La Fete Nationale de Quebec. The master of the property rides around regally on a well worn red quad ATV pointing new arrivals to their appointed campsites...shirtless, full beer gut, canvas shorts, over tanned, silver hair and moustache over a broad smile. Families file in past the regulars, with their well equipped and firmly entrenched 5th wheel camper trailers, to this open field. Around the field’s perimeter are the few tents. Ours is the slightly bent blue number with the wary tarp stretched overhead between the quintet of bug rich birches. An almost full moon, waiting only for it’s last quarter, is already visible and having some effect on the lighting. In the centre of the the ring is a massive pile of everything that could possibly be burned. It looks like a year’s worth of wood pile rummaging by every farmer in the surrounds has contributed to this ominous heap. Half dismantled picnic tables, garden ties, broad branches, planks, boards, broken siding, planter boxes and hockey sticks. Its at least fifteen feet high and thirty feet in diameter. A potential energy that breeds anticipation. My broken but well intended french has certainly yielded no answers as to the origins of St. Jean Baptiste day save for the fact that it was a religious holiday that has been adopted by Quebec as a “national” celebration. New France was never lost. Time to drink and celebrate family and community. The little long blonde haired boy called St. Jean Baptiste presides over the revelry.

We have spent the day and the night before exploring Quebec City -- before tourist season and without the icy winds and snow. Perfect. Its more than a history lesson. Its a touchstone for all who lack a through line to ground them. Its more french than France. Want to hang out the window of three hundred year old cafe with your glass of wine to the strains of accordion and fiddle but haven’t got a valid passport? There are two places to wander. Space and time. Here you get the added dimension of time in two directions.
Our two eldest are bilingual by nurture not nature. We are part of the “created” Canadian culture. Without this trip we are almost hypocrites. We can describe a reality where their school lives come full circle but unless we connect the ends we are just wasting their time. Math would be so much easier in english. There is no way for us to know whether our intentions will germinate into poetry. We’re taking a 20,000 kilometre chance on this. Can we prove that language is not the issue that separates anyone from anyone else?

Back to the campground. We arrive back to our Coleman and boil and fry some things to shove in our faces as we watch the rabble set up their folding chairs in points on the circle around the wooden mound. The little girls in the family next door are selling beaded necklaces that they’ve made and our kids are curious.

Then it all happens. The circle is completed. My kids walk up to the picnic table where they’ve set up shop and begin to speak. French. Within three minutes they are running with the pack. Off they go with those gangs of kids you see running in campsites as if on a very conspicuous spy mission. A few on bicycles. “Doubling” in that very vintage...possibly rural...way. One pedaling, one on the handlebars, one on the seat. Giggling. Chased by the new puppy who bites sometimes. The surrounding parents follow quickly over to our campsite to say the franglais hellos they’ve been waiting to say for two days. It took the kids to make it easier for us all. We all fold slowly into one big smiling, sickening sweet poster and move toward the front of the circle as the twilight turns to moonlight. One anglo family of great cultural privilege and a community getting together for a big toast.
Something that sounds suspiciously like vintage Santana played by a hack bar band bursts from the 70’s era PA system packed into the mini van on the far side of the field. Sidebar: franco rock does include some horrific clichés and a lot of Kris Kristofferson “Star is Born” type singers but I am enjoying it now. The king of the campsite, still shirtless in the cooler air, pours a shiteload of gas on the far side of the mound and then finishes with a fifteen foot trail of fuel leading away. Someone lights the end of the trail and the line of fire moves quickly toward the pile. Fooom. A third of the pile lights instantly and the clapping and music blend with the rumble and crackle of high flame.
As the evening matures the fire grows to epic proportions. The point of the flame seems to lick at the belly of the moon. Never seen a bonfire like that. If you think your fireplace has a soothing effect ...this is positively mesmerizing. The power of the fire keeps the drinkers in check. I’ve been told only a few have ever dived in. Dancing is everywhere. I’ve never heard the songs but I know they’re striking a sentimental chord. The revelers are singing all the words and this is what I think is making them glassy eyed and tactile. After spending my day with the more tragic stories and evidence of the “seven years war” I feel the suffering could be over soon.
My youngest son’s newest friend announces “le buffet arrive” and pulls on the hem of my shirt. I look over to the far side of the field and notice the folding tables and the barbecues. Tradition says that hot dogs and toast shall be provided for all. A drinker’s nirvana. I wouldn’t have expected the toast but I can see how all these food groups combine in a wonderful way.
As the bonfire begins to suck down to its glowing embers the circle grows tighter for warmth. The community grows tighter. Metaphor for everything. The musical selections grow increasingly more traditional and rootsy as the night edges on. Our kids get tired and finally come back to us. We sit and stare into the smokey liquid orange. As we give into fatigue we decide to walk across the moonlit gray- green grass to the tent. Looking up at the stars I notice strange jet trails across the night sky. Instead of across from horizon to horizon they arc upward into oblivion and cross themselves way up in the stratosphere. I can’t figure them out until I see that one of the trails begins at our bonfire and stretches up in a massive column as far as perspective will allow. Tonight’s good moonlight is giving away their secret. All the bonfires from the surrounding farms and villages are meeting quietly in the sky. An anonymous confederation of afterglow.
Our country is true. It actually works. We think the best parts only exist in our imaginations, intentions, and in brochures. Thinkers and city folk have wrecked it all. This can be laughed off. Hard feelings aren’t hard enough. All the lines connect. Just start a big bonfire.

Now we’re in P.E.I after braving that Confederation Bridge in high winds..at night. Take a look at the specs of that bridge on the internet. Maybe even a picture. Imagine it at night with a 60 kph wind and rain. Terrifying. Mortality must be explored. Value added life. Last night was spent in the town of Sayabec Quebec with our new kin the Jean family. Natalie was part of our family for many months and we actually got to be with her folks in her ancestral home. Yet another raising of the bar as we were welcomed so warmly into another haven. A peak experience of the most organic kind. Hopefully I can constantly write such “feel good” issues of the journal.
posted by Craig Northey at 7:20 PM

Over the falls in a barrel. I can see the attraction. When you stand at the edge of Niagara falls and pick a spot upstream and follow an imaginary fish fin as it makes its way unsuspectingly to the most spectacular thing that can ever happen to a fish. Everything starts to accelerate right near the end where the river pulls down hard over the edge. The light seems to reach the smooth rock underneath and turns the water glowing deep green. Then it all goes white and the sound becomes more important than the motion for just a second. Our fish is flying and the roar is all consuming. Probably one more second and then the wet white out and then the crushing vertigo. Then the motion has definitely taken over. I think the fish is having a chance to experience enlightenment if it can survive the thousands of pounds of falling water. At the point it launches into the abyss its mind would definitely be free of all reference to things it previously understood. I think it wouldn’t work for daredevils because they’d know what they were in for. Maybe it worked for the fabled seven year old boy who went over wearing only a lifejacket only to be fished out by the “Maid of the Mist” -- unscathed. Perhaps he’s the one to ask. By the looks of the tourist clutter all around such a natural wonder it seems that more people around there should accidentally fall into the mighty Niagara a few hundred feet upstream. Perhaps the surrounding area might then be transformed into the natural zen showcase it deserves to be. Armies of those who now understood its transformative spiritual potential would march on the “Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum” and the Casino -- hopefully with all limbs intact. Gardens of the natural escarpment vegetation interwoven with finely raked gravel patterns would be horticulted (maybe by the nearby horticultural college brigade). Demolition of the hillside blinking lights and trinket pukers would commence. Dewy underbrush would waft its sweet smell instead of the carny broil of popcorn, burnt sugar, deep fryers and exhaust. Simple National Park rules might help for a start. You would only be allowed to approach the falls through the forrest so that your first impression would create the right effect. To be as mesmerized and hypnotized by the falls as it’s original discoverers would be the intention. No coloured spotlights at night. Just stand in the darkness beside it as the moon lights its lethal crest and the roar tells you what potential energy looms so close by. If you want to make the falls work for you right now you’ll have to meditate with some discipline. Its damn hard to completely block out the hot air balloon that says “I Heart NY” and the hideous restaurant towers and Hard Rock Cafes. Lets get rid of the disposable plastic ponchos too. They are close enough to monk attire to mock the situation much too exactly. Let all comers get soaked to the skin. If you see the Buddha on the road then throw him over the falls.

posted by Craig Northey at 5:48 AM

Children don't like to wash. This makes camping better. Sure they love to play in the bath but the washing is not part of the equation. I think we can all learn from this.
posted by Craig Northey at 6:33 AM

Tailgating. A violation of human rights. Offensive behavior at its most lethal. There is one province in Canada where tailgating is perpetrated much more frequently than others. In this place it is pure passive aggressive behavior. “I will kill us both if you don’t figure out that I want to get by you and figure out a way to get out of my way”. They do not flash their headlights to indicate that they want to pass. I’m OK with that. The most exasperating incidents are perpetrated when there are very few options for the tailgated. In this province the tailgaters are tailgated by other tailgaters. They will do it to you even if you are boxed in on all sides by semitrailers. There is nowhere for you to go and the tailgater is talking on a cell phone, three feet off your bumper, in the pouring rain. They have to paint huge chevrons on the road and write “keep two chevrons apart” on giant signs. I’ve driven the great multi car pileup highways of this province with some native drivers and they seem relaxed and talkative while committing these offenses. I’m no turtle when I get out on the road but I’ve found that speed is not the issue. Whatever speed you are going there is someone who feels they must go faster than you. You finally find a way to let them by without catapulting you and your loved ones into that horrible gentle spiral ...avoiding your churning wheels plowing the soft shoulder under. If you keep a steady pace (cruise control is handy for this) minutes later they have slowed down again and have drawn back even. Soon they will be behind you again. The accelerator is but a pleasant resistance for their right foot as they tap it to the music in their heads? You notice these things.
Oh shit...my rant has been interrupted by the Stanley Cup final. I can’t rant while Vlad Konstantinov is hoisting the Stanley Cup. Cool.
Saw many moose, a beaver and a bear today. The Gordie Howe hat trick of Canadian days. If you’re driving along drinking a Tim’s coffee then its a natural hat trick.
Found out why they call it Thunder Bay...again. Drenched, muddied and unbowed. Dried the apparatus out in a Sault Ste Marie parking lot.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:26 PM

Museums of the future. Spent a lot of the afternoon in Lower Fort Garry. Its an important Hudson’s Bay fort that was active from 1835 until (I think) 1887. Since its a national historic site near Selkirk Manitoba. They’ve hired young actors to dress in period costume and pretend they are the different historical figures that peopled the premises back in the day. This is common at a lot of Canadian heritage sites. Everything is restored to ship shape and all the artifacts and appointments of the age are in place. Its a big field trip spot for Winnipeg school kids. Because we’re “home schooling” right now I’ve noticed a few things 1) We beat the school kid rush because we’re on a different clock. 2) School field trips are mainly about jacking around with your friends and attempting to get away with as much as you can due to the difficulty of proper supervision 3) factor #2 makes the actual subject matter of the trips seem more boring than it is 4) the older the kids the more #s 2 and 3 come into play. I loved the place more for the information than the place itself. I was sucking in the fur trade history, romantic terminology and lifestyle details. The kids were screaming to stay by the time I’d become bored shitless. Us parents were staring at them like they were aliens. Then I understood. This was actually fascinating. My childhood experiences were based on school field trips. Here we were as a unit who had pulled into the attraction because we were passing by and it looked like something we’d like to see. The adventure element plays into the whole vibe. Legislated fun can be the worst. Yesterday we just happened upon Louis Riel’s grave in St. Boniface in the same way. The whole idea that we were “all of a sudden” touching the spot where his body was buried made the usual parental history lesson seem way more exciting. I speak in what has been described as a dynamic monotone so this is doubly amazing. Why wouldn’t it be cool for a kid to watch a blacksmith bang away at red hot metal? Honing a knife blade. Why wouldn’t it be cool to hide out in the booze cellar of an old fort or touch the pelt of a bison or a silver fox? These are but sidebars in relation to the fact that the place is full of guns and the evidence of where they were fired. Wicked. Birch bark canoes and teepees too.
If you let it all “happen to them” then the experience washes around, in and through them. They knew we could leave to drive up to Lake Winnipeg to swim at Grand Beach whenever we wanted and they chose to stay longer. As my youngest says...freaky.
I thought of our house in a hundred and thirty years. Could it be used an example of life in the turn of the millennium if restored to its former glory? A preteen girl could stand behind the rope at the door of the “preteen girl’s bedroom” in her “period costume” and spout her script:
“I wear the word Nike on my shirt to signify my allegiance to a clan of children and an ideology of fun and sporting life!. My friends and I must wear this uniform to the grand malls and fast food restaurants of our suburb in order to avoid being cast out of the clan!. This box on my desk is called a c.o.m.p.u.t.e.r. You may have already learned in school that the computer came before the pen and synthetic paper. I use the computer to talk to my friends in secret youth codes along a special information highway known as the microsoft. The microsoft is a dangerous place where information runs wild and we sneak peaks at the pornography that our society will later accept as proper “news broadcasts”! Can you imagine?! Preteens such as myself were not allowed to kill anyone, sample God’s gift of heroin or even have sex! Our music was programmed for us by the secret government of MTV and Clear Channel and it was illegal to be exposed to the demons of variation, irony, or real emotion. The secret government subsidized what we now know as “imitation music“. After the heads of the unspoken government and the leader of the microsoft were all put in the 2021 space jails things got much better. Youth was no longer considered to be the only reality and the story of “aging” was allowed to be told again. “They say our brains grew three sizes that day” [sic] said the great Dr. Seuss who’s teachings brought the whole world around. Museums of the future. I wish I could have just one tripman from the Hudson’s Bay walk out of the past to split his side’s open laughing at the idiots in the fort.
posted by Craig Northey at 6:36 PM

Langenburg. “Home of Kelly Buchberger”. Central Butte “Home of Clarke Wilm”. Eyebrow. Elbow. Estevan. They all have one NHL star to put on the sign coming into town. Small town Saskatchewan’s work ethic and clarity of purpose has consistently resulted in success on the highest level. There is not a joy that a chosen son has made it out like there is for the inner city basketball players of America. The chosen sons are prodiga and they love what made them. They would raise their own children the same way and under the same conditions. The purity of purpose provided by a harsh and vivid environment brings about so many other spiritual possibilities. Blowing through each town without blinking can be a big mistake. The shop signs of each main street, and points of civic pride, are all so image rich. You collect them in your memory cells like valuable trading cards you find your mom never threw away. Out of the shoe box come the cherub faced innocents, the war heroes, the lightning bolts, twisters and diving hawks. All sharing the flatland’s direct connection to the starkly beautiful. You eventually become hypnotized and your metabolism changes to meet the mood but you still feel an outsider somehow too weak to survive. Too many big city thoughts to ever get the real job done. Too much bric a brac in the brain pan. Pointing this out are the farm machines. I have seen thousands of huge tractor things with their spider like metal legs and red, green or yellow primary exteriors. Hauled down the highway by even bigger machines with flashing yellow lights. Sitting with a hundred others in fields by the throughway. Exoskeletons and knobby rubber tires on cousins of the back hoe beasts. Some two stories tall with buffalo backs and glass cages where the head should be. I only “sort of” know what they do. My mate says there should be an interpretive station at the gateway to any prairie highway that explains each implement and how it is used on the farm. Combines, bailers and seeders may as well be Corkscrewers, band saws and seam rippers. They are all tools I don’t know how to use for tasks I don’t ever perform. Like the kid in class who is too afraid to raise his hand for fear of looking stupid I just say, “I think it harvests wheat” when the kids ask what “that one does”. Lately I have just said, “I don’t really know but I’d sure like to drive it down our street”. I bet Kelly Buchberger knows all this stuff.
Note to Floral Saskatchewan. You are the home of Gordie Howe. Get a bigger sign. God knows you deserve the biggest one in the country. It should be painted on your grain elevator with the name of the town.


Technical note: or some reason this program sometimes prints quotation marks as question marks so bear with me when it seems I'm asking too many questions.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:31 AM

Respect your elders. Migration. Moving on to a better environment. Those damn pioneers were hardier than me. We’re in the eleventh overtime of the hockey game in a sketchy hotel room in Regina all trying to dry off after being pummeled by the elements in the Cypress Hills of southern Alberta. Our tent sustained collateral damage and we had a pretty miserable laugh at ourselves. Hands frozen like iceberg mannequins we attempted to dismantle and pack our soggy things but really only achieved a grotesque facsimile of our usual ship shape situation. I can now feel what it must have been like trying to keep your leather pouch of wood shavings and flint rock dry while trying to avoid frostbite and hungry wildlife.
My comments about paleontology can be dialed back a bit after really enjoying my stay in the Dinosaur National Park near the Tyrell Museum Field Station (east of Bassano Alberta). Its a Unesco world heritage site and I impress upon you its spectacular nature by pointing out that my middle guy found two dinosaur bone fragments in the creek behind our campsite. He rose to the ethical challenge and left them there. He sure wanted to keep them. He confirmed it with the conservation officer and we took pictures. Modern day safari. No killin’ and keepin’ the trophy.
I’m seeing the prairies in a different light than I ever have before. Examining every nook and cranny. I always thought I ‘d need the ocean to help me adjust my head to its proper position in the world. Massive mountains and prairie can also make you feel small in just the right way.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:41 AM

Dinosaurs. Mesozoic maneaters are big with the younger set. Drove into the badlands today and spent hours at the Royal Tyrell Museum. I find both the climate and subject matter dry at times. Paleontologists have to lie there with a hanky on their head for hours wisking away millimeters of soil in an attempt to uncover these fragments. Crank up the sun to its maximum damage (Pokemon term) and suck all moisture out of the air and you've got me moving quickly past that folding table on career day. They try to cover up the tedium with terms like "dinosaur hunters" and by using pun laced humour in "hip","interactive" games. I remember what it was like to go to museums as a kid. I know the biggest thrill was sometimes the cafeteria. I mark time by how they fascinate me now. Still the stale institutional smell and information overkill remain. Despite all this I think the day was a huge success and the place really proves such otherworldly creatures existed. I'm a bigger fan of the ice age than the dinosaur age. When I was a kid I worried that it would come again and I would be struggling to survive and simultaneously consumed by boredom. I later lived this condition as an assembly line worker. I should have embraced the idea what with being such a big hockey fan and made a silk purse of a sow's ear. Loved the dinosaurs as a kid but mainly imagined myself being batted around like a catnip ball and then seethed from nave to chaps with the deft stroke of a massive talon or tooth.
Went east to see the "hoodoos" as well. Tiny versions of the towers of monument valley. Strange pillars and knobs of colourfully striped, eroded earth against a stay-puffed marshmallow sky. It was the first time I've ever stopped to take a photo of just the sky. A Rembrandt reality. My middle guy rightly pointed out that he thought those skies were only in the paintings. Too fanciful to exist. He also pointed out that it was a great shame that there was no city in Saskatchewan called Renis. Why Regina and no Renis?
posted by Craig Northey at 11:35 PM

At my sisters in Calgary after a great bonding experience with Doug Elliott's sister's family in Edmonton. Ruth is probably responsible for giving the Odds their first radio foothold. She pummeled the radio stations with continuous requests when our first single came out and it led to our first local #1... on our first single...in Edmonton. When we first came to town it was in a blizzard and those who actually made the trek through the wall of sideways snow became "the blizzard people". Those diehards have shown up to most all Odds things since 1991. I send my eternal thanks to those hardy prairie folk. One or two of them were there last night in a small crowd where I knew everyone's first name. Nice. Since its a thank-you card instead of a journal entry I'll throw in some more for Andrew White and Michael at the Sidetrack. Andrew was the Odds last tour manager and has continued on to help out in any way he can. The floor of his apartment has looked up countless times at the snoring boozy carcasses of some of Canada's finest musicians. I took my kids to the Donut Mill just south of Red Deer on Hwy#2. If they are going to feel what its like to walk in Dad's footsteps then they have to do it with the same level of poor nutrition. I'm trying to figure out a way for them to get less sleep as well. Pat Steward will be happy to note that my youngest selected the "rainbow dipped". Many a time he has commented that he, "knew a little boy who would pick that one for sure". It is not an adult donut. It is definitely for someone who feels immortal.
posted by Craig Northey at 5:15 PM

Played for family & friends at the Sidetrack tonight. Everyone else was invited but they didn't get much notice. Had a good time trotting out some closet material from Odds days and trying new angles on some new stuff. Also played some of my quieter "songs in waiting". All in all it was my longest solo set and pretty enjoyable. It felt physically good to sing for a long time. The kids went to West Edmonton Mall to ride waterslides and rollercoasters then showed up at the gig. I loved playing for them. Unconditional audience. Oh...I've been told this is important...songs I played...can't remember the order. I may have played more but this is what I recall:

Take A Hit Off This
Old Mistakes
Giddy Up
Out Come Stars
Fingerprints
Someone Who's Cool
Sons & Daughters
Always Breaking Heart
Beautiful Pain
Satisfied
Write It In Lightining
Famous Grave
Something Good
Suppertime
posted by Craig Northey at 11:51 PM

Bears. From the Ritz Carlton in Phoenix one day to fearing for your life in a tent in the Rockies 5 days later. I’ve seen more big game on this particular run than any other time. Perhaps its because I’m with children. This makes spotting wildlife the prime objective of hinterland travel. By night three we checked into a provincial campground near Banff. The words that would haunt me for the next 12 hours were, “...there was a grizzly seen cruisin’ through. You have young children with you?”. Nothing like that to stick in the back of a city boy’s craw. I was sawing logs at 4 am when my beloved bolted up with a, “what was that”? The tarp we’d strung up over the tent to deflect some of the rain was rippling and snapping in the wind but the groaning sound was what piqued my attention. Her next words were, “where’s the hatchet?”. Over the next hour or two I imagined each scenario of defense and every news headline that would result from my failed attempt. How would I protect these people with a friggin’ hatchet? “Family mauled by grizzly suffering slight flesh wound by single hatchet blow”. Bear warnings are the most obtuse and confusing edicts in the camping guidebook. Run , don’t run. Make noise, back away slowly. Look big, be submissive. Fight back, play dead. Punch it in the nose. Grizzlies act differently than Black Bears. OK...I give up. This leads to ultimate confusion if faced with an actual “situation”. “Oh don’t worry. The bears here don’t care about you” to “I don’t know what it is but all the locals have noticed how aggressive and bold the animals are becoming. Why just yesterday I saw a cougar coming out of the town park with a fresh kill”. I guess it goes with the territory. See the beauty...smell the fear. The Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper has got to be the most beautiful stretch of road in the world. Bears everywhere. Much more to write but its all borrowed time.
posted by Craig Northey at 6:42 PM