2013 Ko K’e (Fire) Storytelling Festival

Northern Arts and Cultural Centre partnered with CKLB Radio

Being Jim Green’s blog of a recent storytelling adventure.

I shuffled aboard a Northwestern Air Lease plane and left Fort Smith at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, September 13th; a glorious morning in the summertime. Had a right peaceful nap as we droned north over the cotton. When we dropped below the clouds over the bay on the approach to Yellowknife, Great Slave Lake looked cold and dark, whitecaps slopping lazily along the surface.

I’m always amazed how small the big lake looks from the air. Much smaller than it was when my paddling partner Juneva and I took 22 days to paddle from Fort Smith to Yellowknife, navigating the lake through the Simpson Islands.

The gracious Northern Arts and Culture Centre (NACC) executive and artistic director Marie Coderre met me at the airport and whisked me off to Javaroma for coffee and cranberry muffins, my all-time favorite. Good beginnings.

A busy day, Friday. I was on CKLB radio live with the dynamic Director of Radio Deneze Nakehk’o in the morning pumping the Ko K’e Storytelling Festival.  Had breakfast with the “boys” at the old timers table in the Diner. It wasn’t the Miners Mess but it felt some good, especially the part where I held a $21,000.00 gold nugget in the palm of my hand.

Back at CKLB with Deneze at noon pushing my new spoken word album, MAGIC WORDS: travel tales from the ice coast.  The year 1972 seems like a long time ago when our daughter was born in Taloyoak, called Spence Bay in the old days, and I scribbled the notes for MAGIC WORDS on a steno pad. Had lunch with the folks at CKLB – warm fry bread and baked lake trout fresh from the Horn Plateau courtesy of Deneze Nakehk’o’s Dad Jim Antoine.

Made a good contact with Angela Sterritt at CBC and dropped off CD’s for her at the studio.

Met with Northern News Service Entertainment editor, Danielle Sachs, gave her CDs, angling for a review of MAGIC WORDS; she came through in spades:

“From the nostalgic to the hilarious, Green’s stories interweave Inuit legends with his own stories – keeping them separate but side-by-side. Green’s poignant voice effortlessly brings the listener back to a time they may never have seen, and a place they may never have visited…. From the humorous to the stark and realistic, Green brings you into his living room before opening the curtains and taking you out on the land with him…. His descriptions of butchering seals, with the sound of the slide whistle in the background, brings the listener to the camp. We can smell the warm blood in the air, and hear the dog teams begging for their piece of the action.

Listeners will be mesmerized and find themselves listening to Green’s tales again and again.”
Danielle Sachs, Entertainment editor/Northern News Service, Sept. 21, 2013.

William Greenland

William Greenland

William Greenland, long-time Gwichìn CKLB radio broadcaster (guitar and Native American flute) and CKLB radio Dehcho Yati host Lawrence Nayally (drummer) launched the eighth annual NACC storytelling festival by entertaining the crowd in the NACC foyer before Tanya Tagaq’s awesome sold out show on Friday night.