Up the Eastern Shore and all the way to PEI

I'm sitting in a farm house just outside of Summerside, in PEI.  The snow is coming down and I am cozied-up by the window, 'no where to be and all day to get there' (the Bills).  I'm doing a Home Routes house concert tour of Canada's East Coast with stride pianist Grant Simpson.  The tour has been a blast so far.  Grant bought a new-used camera in Halifax upon our arrival, so the trip has been well documented.  We've been packing sandwich fixings with us and going out each day to hike in provincial parks and along the coast.

It was hard to drive fast enough to please the locals as we wound our way north of Halifax.  We had to take turns driving so that we each got to look out the window for a while.  The road was so twisty and narrow that it was tricky to drive and look at all the fantastic views at the same time.  Best to stop and take a walk around.....

The colours were beautiful as we drove along the Eastern Shore in Nova Scotia.  These photos are from a hike we did at Tor Bay, or as Grant liked to call it "Mel" Tor Bay.  Tor Bay was the touch down point for the first telegraph line reaching to mainland North America from Europe.

We played at an place called Seawind Landing in Charlos Cove, NS.  It was on a peninsula, a perfect spot.  The two Burmese Mountain Dogs that lived there, 'Beaufort' and 'Emmy Lou' gave me my dog fix for the week.

After leaving Charlos Cove, we had a drive on the long and winding road up the Eastern Shore to Cape Breton Island.  We took a detour to Canso and got to see some of the old houses that were built when the telegraph station was put in.  The old telegraph office is still standing, though it is in rough shape.  There was a beautiful quote on a plaque from the last telegrapher to work there, talking about how thankful they were for their jobs and how he was pulling the plug, the station was going dark.

It is neat to visit places that I've always heard of and tried to envision.  Cape Breton is the stuff of songs and stories.  We had a really lovely welcome in St.Peter's with a packed house.  We left the next morning in a blizzard with a broken windshield wiper.  We will be heading back to the island when the tour is over so that we can spend some more time soaking it all up.  The folks in St. Peter's are working hard to bring attention to the lack of funding for the St.Peter's canal.  You can check out the video/song they made about it at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TDt8hOGQbA

We've been to Moncton, Charlottetown and Summerside.  Today we head to Shediac Bridge.  We really loved Charlottetown and day dreamed about moving there and eating fish and chips every day.  It felt like the perfect size.  The most glorious thing was staying in an old mansion of a house that has been beautifully restored.  We had our own apartment with decor and furniture from another era.  Lying in bed Friday morning and watching Anne of Green Gables was the icing on the cake.

We're about half way through the tour and are so grateful to all of the hosts who have welcomed us into their homes and been so warm to us.  The audiences have been great and Grant and I are feeling good about the music we're making.

We're looking forward to the next week or so of shows,

yours from the Island of Princes (especially Edward),

Kate

The West Coast Trail, Birthday Cake and Jazz in China

This fall has been jam-packed with fun.  In September, Grant and I hiked the West Coast Trail!  It was challenging and beautiful.  We'd like to do it again right away, now that we know what to expect.  It was a completely different experience from any back-country stuff I've done in the Yukon, totally different climate and terrain.  There was a tonne of mud, ladders, cable cars, ferries, river crossings, old growth trees to climb under and over....  it was a full body experience.  After the hike, we headed to the Yukon for some rehearsals and cake and then..... off to China!

I am just starting to recover from the jet lag.  I spent the past few weeks in China, performing at the Nanjing Jazz and World Music Festival with the Grant Simpson Quintet (Keitha Clark, Rob Bergman, Duncan Sinclair).  We had a total blast.  This was my second time performing a the festival. We spent most of the festival in Nanjing, which is a city of over 7 million people, located in eastern China.  Bands from around the world come to play at the festival.  We were able to hear a few of them when we played at the opening ceremonies.  We all learned a Chinese tune called "Happy Chinese Song" and played it together.

It was a pretty exciting experience to play to packed theatres, see our name on banners and receive flowers at the end of the concerts.  We worked up a few of Grant's originals that he wrote about China, as well as some well known tunes like Blue Bossa and Honey Suckle Rose.  Here is a shot of the band being interviewed for a Chinese TV station, and then me with my flower after one of the shows.

We had some time to wander about Nanjing and check out some of the sights.  Nanjing has an interesting history, it used to be the capital of China.  Nanjing means "southern capital" and Beijing means "northern capital".  The old city wall is still mostly in-tact, and we were able to stroll along part of it one morning.

There are numerous Buddhist temples in Nanjing.  We went to the Jiming Temple and (as far as we could figure) followed the ritual of making a prayer and then throwing a coin into a big metal.... thing.

At the end of the festival, we ended up in a city called Ningbo performing at an outdoor venue.  We wrapped up the trip with 4 days in Shanghai, eating street food, wandering the market near our hotel and visiting the french concession.  On our last night, we went to the Fairmont Hotel and watched a Chinese group play traditional jazz and I sipped on a very pricey cup of Earl Grey tea.  The presentation was lovely.
Here are a few pooches I saw on a back alley stroll, my last morning in Shanghai.

I'm back in Ontario now and just played a show in MacDonald's Corners with Grant Simpson.  We have a few songwriting workshops coming up this week, and then we head to the East Coast for a Home Routes house concert tour.  Be sure to check out the calendar page on my website for our tour dates in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI.

See you down the road!

Kate

Guitars, Paddling and Festivals....

Greetings from Ontario!  I just finished playing some gigs here with Grant Simpson and Keitha Clark.  At Blue Skies Music Festival in Clarendon Ontario I acquired my brand new guitar, custom built by Oskar Graf.  It has been a long-time dream of mine to own one of Oskar's guitar, and it truly still feels a bit unreal.  My friends and I paraded down the gravel road to Oskar's house on a rainy morning to see the new guitar.
 

I was able to participate in a workshop at the festival that featured many of Oskar's guitars.  Anyone at the festival who owned an instrument made by Oskar was invited to show their instrument to the audience and play a tune.  It was the 40th anniversary of Blue Skies, and also the 40th anniversary of Oskar's time as a luthier.

Grant Simpson, Keitha Clark and I performed at Blue Skies together.  We opened the festival on the Friday night.  During our sound check there was thunder and lightening and the whole stage was shut down.  The storm cleared just in time and we were able to perform, right on schedule.  It felt really good to have my Yukon friends at the festival and to share that experience with them.

Just before coming to Ontario I spent 16 days paddling on the Snake River, in the Peel Watershed, Yukon Territory. This was an amazing experience.  Every day was different with mountains changing colour and texture, the river growing from a small creek - barely deep enough to paddle to a full sized river with huge standing waves and rapids.  I'm still processing this trip and have started to write about it.  I was in the Peel Watershed about 8 years ago when I paddled the Bonnet Plume.  It felt really good to be back there and be awe struck once again by the beauty that exists here in Canada.  There is movement afoot to develop the Peel Watershed and access the mineral resources in the area.  As our trip neared it's end, our group contemplated the future of the Snake River.

I'm gearing up now to head back to China for the Nanjing Jazz and World Music Festival with Grant Simpson, Keitha Clark, Rob Bergman and Duncan Sinclair.  After that, Grant and I will play some shows in Ontario and then head to the East Coast for a Home Routes house concert tour.  It should be a fun fall!