The little mining town that could
Canmore celebrates 25 years of music in the mountains
CANMORE FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL
August 3 - 5
Centennial Park, Canmore
In 1978, a singer with a guitar climbed onboard a flat-bed truck parked in a sleepy mining town, and Alberta’s longest-running folk music festival was born.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Canmore Folk Music Festival, and festival organizers are in a reminiscing mood.
"It’s our 25th, so we decided to go out and get some of these people we’ve wanted for a long time," says festival director Ken Rooks. "It’s a bit of a nod to the past and a reflective kind of feel this year."
Rooks says artists like eclectic roots musician Greg Brown, for example, were booked to represent the early days of the festival. Brown has been touring for nearly 30 years. Janis Ian is another artist sought out for her connection to the past, and a return visit by James Keelaghan, who appeared a handful of times in the 1990s, embodies the more recent history of the festival. Other artists at this year’s festival include Fred Eaglesmith, Connie Kaldor and the Waybacks.
For some long-time festival goers, this year’s instalment may harken back to the Canmore of 1978, which would be nearly unrecognizable to most residents today. Its population was about 2,000 – less than a fifth of the current size – and the majority of residents made their living mining the area’s vast seams of coal. Those mines would soon close and throw the whole existence of the town into question (until the 1988 Olympics raised the town’s profile), but current residents can be thankful that the close-knit community also had its own folk and blues club.
"It was one of those kitchen table discussions where (the folk and blues club) was trying to think of something they could do in the summer," says Rooks. "Winnipeg had its folk festival... and there was the Lacombe Arts Festival in Calgary, and the idea, I think, sort of came from there."
Not coincidentally, that was about the same time the Alberta government announced the Heritage Day holiday and offered some grant money to local community groups organizing supporting events. The Canmore Folk and Blues Club got its hands on some of that money, and started booking musicians and artists.
Rooks says the first few years of the festival featured mostly regional musicians including Sid Marty, the Dumptrucks and Robert Hubele.
When Canmore’s Centennial Park was inaugurated in 1982, the festival moved into the park and soon enough money was scraped together to build a stage, which was named after folk legend Stan Rogers, who played the festival in 1982 and was killed in an airplane fire in 1983.
Rooks says the festival has grown in size and stature – it now runs over three days and attracts nearly 15,000 people – but it’s still a community-based festival at heart.
He says he doesn’t think the festival had much influence on other festivals – he credits the larger Edmonton and Winnipeg fests for popularizing the form – but that it has become integral to the town.
"There’s always been a big arts element to our festival," Rooks says. "Ours is a much more family-oriented event."
Although most of the festival’s audience comes from Calgary, Rooks says the festival’s reputation is spreading, and they are seeing visitors from all over the world in attendance.
"People who are going to be in the area and are into music always seem to find us out," he says. |
