There is more than gold in the hills of Wells BC. The majority of the songs on this compilation were written during the course of two collaborative session taking place between 9:30am and 11am on July 28th and July 29th 2009. These sessions were guided by David Francey and Craig Werth and coincided with the annual Arts Wells Festival. They set up an uninhibited atmosphere of encouragement inspiring songs ranging a wide spectrum of emotion and observation. The names of the sixteen participants in this workshop were drawn in pairs from Craig's magic hat. Each duo was challenged to come back with two verses and a chorus. The songs generated contain the purity and joy of collaborators colliding for the first time. The melodies are intoxicating and the chord progressions each have their own unique flair. The lyrical content draws inspiration from Wells rustic setting as well as from one another. Love, death and rebirth are all explored and presented with universal appeal. There is an extra poignancy to this music because participants Tempest Gale and Mike Webb have since passed away. Their recordings included on this compilation take the listener to Wells during the magical time and place that these songs originated. The rest of the recordings are studio versions recapturing the excitement created in Wells. Most were recorded live off the floor in less than five takes with minimal studio augmentation. This unique document of time, place and cultural ecology has been preserved to exemplify a group of exceptional songs founded upon spontaneous collaboration.

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In May 1982, Fort Smith poet Jim Green and I first experimented combining Jim's writing with my music. Later that summer we performed a benefit concert at the Wildcat Cafe in Yellowknife. The benefit was broadcast live by CBC North radio and became the beginnings of this album. In December 1982, we received a Canada Council Explorations grant to research additional material for Flint & Steel . This album was the result. Much of the original music was composed and recorded in January, February and March 1983 on a Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel in Rufus Graves' garage on Pine Crescent in Fort Smith during a reasonably mild winter when the temperature never dropped below -40. The final vocals were recorded at Richard Harrow's Living Room Recording Studio in Calgary between May 1983 and March 1984. In January 2009, Flint & Steel was digitized and released on cd and in down-loadable format. Included on the album is an extra 13-minute instrumental piece entitled Echoes of the Northland.    

Bing Thom, architect for the NWT Pavilion at Expo 86 in Vancouver, designed an environmental "wall" to allow visitors during their short visit to experience some of the size and grandeur of the North. The 4-storey high chamber used lighting effects, mirrors, and full-sized kayaks and komatiks (sleds), and photographs to simulate the expanse of the tundra as well as the warmth of the people who inhabit this rugged land. Less than four weeks before opening in May of 1986, Thom commissioned me to compose ambient music to complement the space he had designed. The music would play continuously, and needed to say something about the land, the people, and most of all, the cycle of life in the Canadian Arctic. To do this I combined field recordings of "candling ice", running water, ravens, geese and other northern animals, with a steady bass pulse evoking traditional Dene and Inuit drummers. Several times throughout Expo, northern visitors stopped to tell me how the music had made them think of their northern homes - one was a trapper from the MacKenzie Delta region; another a carver from the barrenlands, yet another a from Yellowknife. The inukshuk statue on the cover photo (by Michael Marrapese) was built for the pavilion and given to the City of Vancouver. Today it stands proudly on English Bay - a fine legacy from the NWT's presence at the fair.

In 1984. the city of Yellowknife celebrated it's 50th anniversary with a homecoming celebration.  Former resident and pioneers from the early days were invited to return to reminisce and recount their days when they lived in what has become the capital of the Northwest Territories. I was selected to produce an album of northern music, stories, song and poetry in celebration of the event.  The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre and CBC North opened their archived and allowed me to use historic recordings and photographs from their collections.  Richard Harrow from Calgary brought portable recording equipment to town and we conducted sessions in the now-demolished Miner's Mess at the Yellowknife Inn and in City Council chambers. A number of well known local celebrities - Mayor Mike Ballantyne, MLA Bob MacQuarrie, former commission Stuart Hodgson, Metis fiddler and publisher Tapwe Cretien, singer Ted Wesley, poet Jim Green, along with the dogs of Old Town and many others lent their voices to the production.

The play Hornby was written by Northern playwright Bruce Valpy and premiered in Yellowknife in November, 1984. The playwright spent several months living near the barrens in and around Fort Reliance prior to writing the play and became fascinated by the enigmatic adventurer, Jack Hornby. From all accounts Jack Hornby was an English adventurer ill-equipped to set out with two companions on a trek across the barrenlands.  Unable to find adequate food supplies along the way, the trip starved to death in a cabin along the Thelon River. Much of what is known about their difficulties comes from a journal written by Edgar, the youngest of the group, discovered in the ashes of their wood stove the next spring. Catherine MacQuarrie, the producer of the play, commissioned me to write an original soundscape as part of the play's first production. Hornby was the first northern-written play to be presented at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre (NACC) in Yellowknife. The cast included a well-known member of the NWT Legislative Assembly, Bob MacQuarrie - Catherine's father.

In 1975, I quit my job at the fertilizer plant, sold my house in High River, Alberta and moved my family, 6 cats, and two dogs across the mountains to Aldergrove, BC. A few weeks before, while playing music in Calgary, I'd met Paul Hepher - who wrote the title song on the album - and invited him to join us in BC. Paul accepted, and stayed for several months until the greyness drove him back to sunny Alberta. Five years later, my marriage ended and I spent the next year travelling around Western Canada - writing songs and performing in bars and lounges. In July of 1980 - one week after the 1st Folk on the Rocks Festival at Long Beach in Yellowknife - I drove to Fort Smith to check out the whooping cranes and buffalo, loved it, moved there. I got a job as a reporter / photographer for the local newspaper - the slave River Journal. A few months later (mostly because I couldn't stand the lack of live music in the town) I organized some concerts at the High School. Over the next few years I brought Connie Kaldor, Sneezy Waters, Ferron, Diamond Joe White and Ken Hamm to town. In June '81, I was invited to perform on the Main Stage at Folk on the Rocks and debuted many new original songs. In the spring of 1982, I flew several musical friends, including my old conga player and friend, Gene Seymour - whom I'd convinced to move to Fort Smith the year before), John Alexander (from Yellowknife), Natham Tinkham, and Zeke Mazurek (fiddler with Sneezy Waters and Stringband) to Calgary to record the album. We were joined there by Dave Liske on harmonica, Sue Clayton on vocals, Ron Casat on keybaords, Ken Hamm on dobro and guitar, Dwight Thompson on bass and Jack Hiles on drums. The sessions took place over a week at Richard Harrow's LivingRoom Studios and the album was released June 21, 1983 - the opening day of the 3rd Folk on the Rocks festival. (Update: Oct. 2010 - Zeke Mazurek passed away after battling cancer - he will be missed by many of us.)