Good Life Project - Making Music that Bridges Worlds | Elisapie

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

Raised in the small, rugged town of Salluit at the edge of the Arctic Circle, Elisapie fell in love with music at a young age, began singing and composing and eventually found her way to Montreal, where she built a career in the world of music, releasing albums and touring as both a musician and an Ambassador for Inuit culture. Her new multi-award-winning album, The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, is the musical tale of an expatriate Inuk, exploring her northern roots, femininity, love and life. Rolling Stone France called it a delicately violent album that seduces as much as it questions.You can find Elisapie at: Website | Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today, Elisapie, was born in the Arctic Circle and grew up in a small town called Saluit, where the climate is incredibly rugged and beautiful and living in harmony with nature is pretty much a mandate. She loved the town she grew up in, but was kind of always dreaming of the South, speaking a mix of Inuktitut, English, and French. She also fell in love with music at a young age, began singing and composing, and eventually found her way to Montreal, where she began raising a family and building a career in the world of music, releasing albums and touring the world as both a musician and an ambassador for Inuit culture.

Her new multi-award-winning album, The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, it's kind of the musical tale of an ex-patriot Inuk. She sings about the different facets and challenges of being a woman, but also an adopted child, a mother and a lover. And through this exploration of her Northern roots and her femininity, we learn about a person who is proud of her origins and who works for the recognition of her people's historic difficulties. Rolling Stone France called it a delicately violent album that seduces as much as it questions. And NPR said Elisabeth synthesizes stories from her eventful life with hypnotic arrangements that channel 70s rock, indigenous folk music, and the low, moody rumble of barnstormers like Tom Waits. I have to agree with all of this.

In this conversation, we trace and dive into her journey from the very earliest days, telling a deeply moving story of actually her adoption and growing up in a town where she lived just a few blocks away from her birth parents. And her transformation, deep interest in music, journey to Montreal and then around the world, and what she's up to today. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is A Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. You come from a part of the world that I'm so unfamiliar with and I'm fascinated. I want to know more. So I guess you grew up and you were born in a small town. Tell me if I'm pronouncing this right. Salute? Salute. Salute to know more. So I guess you grew up and you were born in a small town.

Tell me if I'm pronouncing this right. Salute? Salute. Salute, yeah. Which is on the map, at least. It seems like it is about as far north in Quebec as you can go before dropping into the water. Yes. Well, it's the Arctic. Not all Quebec is Arctic, right? Because we have Montreal.

And then when we go a little further, we have what we call Le Petit Nord. It's a small north, but it's not the Arctic at all. So, yeah, we often forget that Quebec is this huge province that has, once you're off of Montreal, you go a little bit on the coast, and then the north starts, and then it goes all the way up. So I'm on the tip of northern Quebec in the region called Nunavik. And we cover pretty much all of this, but only, of course, near the water. So the middle part of Quebec is, there's no population. It's a huge, huge, huge place. So we're 14 coastal villages, Inuit villages.

So, and these are all pretty tiny villages. Tiny villages, and you can only travel by airplane. We're about half an hour, 45 minutes each by plane, each village, 14 villages, which are in the Angava and Hudson coast. And I'm on what we call the Hudson Strait, which is the middle, but mainly in the furthermost, northmost village. So to get from village to village can you drive or is it

airplanes to go even from village to village airplanes airplanes yeah and there's clearly

there's no road that just takes you from Montreal straight up through the middle because it's so hard to

you know I mean not long ago we people were able to to to reach us

because it's so far north and we can't really build roads because it's so frozen, right? It's complicated. And it's okay, too. We don't need that. Tell me more about that. I mean, there's a bit of a smile on your face when you say that. Well, I mean, there's little places where you can go where it's still very, in a way, very pure, you know, where it's not overly populated. And I think that's important to preserve, especially for us.

We have no trees. So the view of how we view our lives is very much based on we are so little and not so many, and this humongous land and this environment that's pretty harsh, you know, the Arctic is, you have, not everyone is made to be living there, but, you know, if you think about it, generations and generations and, you know, yeah, thousands of years of, you know, people who lived there. So we're kind of, it's kind of our environment, even though it's very harsh. So how we view the world, how we view life is very, very, very different. So we need the space.

We really need that space. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me culturally, what's the history of the area? And culturally, who settled it? Who's there now? Inuit. Inuit are mainly living there. We have what we call southerners.

Southerners who, you know, that Salluit became a settlement, became officially known as Salluit Village in 1979. Oh, wow. Very recent. I was newborn. Well, I was two years old. So if you think about it, it's because we are semi-nomads. So we had to follow the seasons, the animals. So we would travel from one summer camp and one winter camp because it was ideal. And, you know, we lived on igloos, right? You know, like snow houses.

And then we had our tents in the summer. So it's kind of, it's very new for us to be, you know, in a place and that's where we live. So, yeah, in the 60s, when federal government decided that children should now be learning, you know, going to school. So that pretty much changed everything. Like parenting became different, you know, because your children learn by watching, by following you hunting. So teachers, federal school teachers had to, you know, be the new guides for these Inuit children. So only in the 60s were we settled into villages. And then the stores, Hudson Bay Company, settled there too, and then the hospital, and then it just got bigger.

And now my village is 1,000, maybe 500. It's a big town. But not long ago, it was a tiny little camp, Inuit camp. When you were a kid growing up there, was it more of that tiny little camp or was it closer to the size it is now? It's closer to the size. Yeah, I'd say it was maybe, I don't know, 700 people, 600.

Quickly, what happened also is that it's people from different places in the region that would gather. And that's where, you know, that's how it got to be a bigger town because people were like, okay, this is where it happens now. There's a store where we can go, you know, buy, I don't know, nothing really. Maybe some flour or tea or it's, that's, so it's, these are very, very new. I mean, it's crazy. My town was still in English in the 60s. No kidding. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, the stories that must be passed down from sort of grandparents and grandparents must be of just like a very, I mean, it sounds like the way, even the way it exists today is still a very harsh environment and very simple. But if literally a generation or two ago, people were living in igloos, it's, that's amazing. It is pretty crazy because the reality is that young kids like my nieces, they're all aware of New York or what goes on here because of internet.

They all have dreams. They all want to be. But yet we have a town that's still very, you know, culturally thriving, very rich, very still oral, you know, tradition. It's important to be able to listen. And also the elders still have a huge, huge, huge, huge place in our lives. So we're very much in kids and elders are, you know, everybody lives together. Yeah. So that's, I think that's where it for me is really, that's what I miss the most is being in contact with the people that we call the wise people, you know? Yeah. Tell me more about the oral tradition. Oral tradition.

Well, I wouldn't even know how to describe that in Inuktitut just because it's just the way it is, you know? We don't know anything else in a way. I think not so long ago, people would tell stories, you know. I mean, as long as we can remember, for instance, elders or hunters used to talk about how the earth is kind of shifting you know it's it's so because they they have this very intelligent view of you know they look at the stars and they were able to find themselves navigate through the land you know when there was a blizzard or whatever they they always knew how how the stars and the sky is made of, that's kind of how we, so just that for me is part of an oral, you know, history, oral tradition. And also people are taught to listen all the time,

to pay attention, not take notes or not, you know, just listen over and over, and then it's just... So, yeah, we were very... We don't freak out easily over things, just because when things have to happen, they will happen, and we have very strong instincts also, I think, just because we're so close to you know we're very connected to the territory it's like we're we're one with the territory with the land so i think that's part of oral history it has to i mean we remember not through exercising or what what um writing and writing and memorizing memorizing it's

just yeah and we don't have tons of things that we have to learn that are unless unnecessary you know what i mean we go with what we need today and now yeah i mean mean, it's such an interesting frame when wisdom is shared, information is shared, experiences are shared orally, and the expectation is not that, well, let me jot it down, let me take notes, let me write this down. Because if the expectation is, well, the only way I'm going to be able to take this in or process it or do anything with it or remember it is I really have to be here in this moment. I wonder how, and I guess that's what you were saying, that there is an elevation of the notion of listening and its importance that kind of has to be there because if that's the primary thing, you've got to be. It seems like it's, that would really reinforce this idea that you've really got to be present with people. You've got to be present. Yeah. I mean,

I'm a little bit of a hyperactive mind. So I tend to be all over the place because I can't, I have a hard time concentrating on one thing. Unless it's super interesting. Like right now I'm listening to you like fully, you know. But in my, once I'm in the North, there is not a lot that I'm going to not pay attention to. It's weird. As soon as I go home in the North, I'm in the moment. It's like I'm not meant to be in Montreal with overly stimulating things happening because then it's just too much, you know? But when I'm in the north, it has this effect still on me. And luckily, yeah. And I think we forget that humans are, we are very, very smart, you know, but I think we forget that we have, that human being is able to remember many things and learn many things without necessarily freaking out, you know, freaking out about, okay, I must remember, you know freaking out about okay i must remember you know what i mean so i think it's also just being confident you know things will come and you know you always have to think that

your brain and your uh your spirit is so much more um i don't know uh remembers a lot more and is very smart you know it will it will just find its way all the time yeah i remember meditation teacher years ago told me um in response to my question where i would say every time i sit down i get a couple minutes in and all of these ideas start coming into my head and and i'm supposed to just let them go and his and, and, and, and I said, but I'm, you know, I'm sort of this creative person and there are good ideas and what if I lose them? And, and his guidance to me, which to this day is still hard for me to take was if they're truly that meaningful, if there, if there's truly something to be done with them, they'll come back. It may not be when you get up 25 minutes

later, but maybe a day or a week. But if they're really meant to have something done with, they'll come back. That's so true. I so believe in that. I mean, I wasn't always like that. I moved to Montreal when I was 22, very thriving. I left a small town. So I was like, okay, I need to, I need to know everything, you know, about music, about artists. And I'm like, because we don't, we don't even have a word for artist, you know? So I was like, okay, I want to do this thing. I want it, you know, a little bit of a gypsy vibe. And so I thought I had to do it like white people, you know. I had to do, write everything and I wrote a lot of things. But I quickly learned that it's not necessarily going to make me more knowledgeable or more smart, you know? So, and also I met a musician, a singer-songwriter

who I collaborated with and he said, he said, sometimes I just play the guitar and then I will have an idea and I quickly want to record it right away because it's such a good idea. So what he said is that he left, he stopped doing that. And then if it's really meant to be, if it's really something that's so beautiful or so meaningful, it's going to come back tomorrow.

So I started doing that, and that's kind of how I did this album. Are you kidding? So I started doing that and that's kind of how I did this album, you know. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. I kind of decided to have more confidence in my own instincts, you know, musically anyway. So I kind of relate to what you're saying. It's so true. If it's so meant to be, if it's so right, it's just going to come back. And maybe if you don't write it or record it right away, it might be even richer tomorrow or something else.

Yeah. I sort of go in the middle right now between those two streams. I'll jot down just a couple of words as a trigger. But then instead of just like starting to write and write and write, I'll intentionally just set it aside. And I know that if I come back to it maybe a week later, very often I'll realize there's really not that much to it. It's not that special. And the things that I come back to afterwards and there's still something calling me about it. Yeah.

I'm like, okay, so those are the things I'm now going to expand upon. It's actually a great, I think for a lot of people who are really creative, it's a great almost filtering mechanism. Because, I mean, we tend to have ideas, so many ideas all the time. And which ones do I run with? And at least for me, that helps discern which ones are really worth going deeper into. Maybe not even just creative people. Maybe people in general who are, I don't know, let's say in music business or in film business, because everything has to be decided or everything has to be, it has to be now.

And imagine if we did more of this kind of way of doing business, you know, imagine how it would be a lot more meaningful and we would make maybe the right, the better decisions, you know. And I think when we have an idea, it's not because it's a great idea that it's going to be most meaningful i think sometimes ideas come and then you have to let them sit a little bit and then they'll just be more i don't know maybe they'll bring you to the truth eventually maybe it Maybe that's what it's just saying, you know? So don't want to, you don't want to grab it right away. Nah. Yeah.

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You mentioned Inuktitut. Inuktitut. Inuktitut, which I guess is the language. But you also speak French and English. When do those sort of like enter? Is that something that you learned from the earliest days also? Or were those added over time? Yeah, Inuktitut is, I spoke until I was seven. Well, I still speak it. And then in grade three, we were able to either learn French or English in our school. So I was seven when my mother, my adoptive mother, decided that I had to learn French. And I remember being really, really mad. And I

actually, I remember crying like really hard and saying, no, French, I want to go to school in English, you know, because I knew I had a white, anglophone, biological father, you know. So I thought, you know, I had to learn his language in order to one day be able to speak to him. So I remember my mom who, you know, this little lady who didn't speak English or French. And she said, you know, you're going to learn quickly English. So you're going to have three languages. And you'll be my translator, you know. And I'm like, okay.

So she would love it whenever she had to go i don't know to the hospital meet the doctor i would have to follow her and translate and so yeah she she she she she did good on that decision i love i love the three languages and i think it's they're so different I think French is very romantic you know it's there's something really I don't know maybe just because it's from France you know how French people are a little bit so everything is a little bit oh a little bit more round a little bit more spectacular and you know English speaking are a little bit more, it's a little bit more square and more practical, which is great and I can, you know.

So I feel like I have different feelings that come out through languages, different languages. Yeah. Do you, I was going to ask you if you think in one particular language, but I'm curious whether you sort of of almost like code switch for different reasons. I mean, when you're writing, when you're creating music, when you're just in conversation, when you're just sort of like day to day, are you aware of bouncing between the three different languages as one year default? It's crazy, but I think it's something that I

dreamt of since I'm a kid. I think I was such a daydreamer that even though I didn't really speak well French, I was already, I adapted so quickly and so fast to that language. It's just, I guess it was a form of creativity for me. And maybe some days I feel like maybe I adapted too well, you know, too quickly, too easily, because I'm not French. But I certainly feel a very strong bond to Francophone people. And it's not just their language, it's also the people. I want to know who I'm surrounded, what's their story. So it's just, I mean, I love all humans who I'm, you know, so I want to, yeah, I kind

of fall in love, I guess, with the language, not just the language, but the people also. And English is the same thing. It's also my roots, you know, my biological roots. So I'm, yeah, it's a very, very, very special. I just feel I'm all of that. I kind of, even though I have a very strong, strong culture, you know, innate culture, I've just always been someone easily adapting, you know. So that's still a little bit of a mystery for me because it's like I migrated to a new language, a new culture.

And I'm very well that way. I like it. Yeah. You mentioned that you're adopted. And in fact, one of your songs, Una, really tells this story. And then there's an entire, actually a series, I guess, of three videos that go along with it, which is kind of heartbreaking and beautiful and aching. Would you share sort of the story? Well, my biological mother, the first time I remember her is probably i was very young because i don't really remember anything before maybe four i i really i don't um it's weird but i i that's another

that's another mystery um so but i as long as i can remember, I would see my mother, my biological mother, in the village where I live, probably three streets away from where I lived. And for Inuit, it's not taboo to know, to present your child to the biological mother. But the biological mother is to respect the fact that this child is adopted. So they're not going to, you know, confuse the child by calling her my daughter. They have kind of this distance. Naturally, they have to. So, yeah, I would see my biological mother and be like wow she's so cool you know she would have makeup she was a tv uh reporter uh she would be super like fashionable

nothing like my adoptive parents who were older people who were kind of like in another from another era from you know the older, they didn't have cameras. We were probably the last people who had TV and they would get all these old furnitures that people didn't want. And I don't remember eating with like forks and knives. It was like just very, they just didn't take the modern world like, you know, my biological mother, I guess. So I was always fascinated by her. So it was not a secret that I grew up naturally when I got to be a teenager, I got closer to her and to the family, my grandfather, my sisters. So slowly she would start calling me daughter. And it's when my adoptive mom passed away that she was very much more free to call me daughter, but I can't call her mother

because she's not my mom. I grew up with the different values that are very close to me with my adoptive parents. And it's when I got to have my second child, I realized there's something not right. I was going through my postpartum and I was like, what's going on? I feel this heaviness or this emptiness. And I quickly realized that it had to do with my biological mother, that I didn't really want to see her. She was in Montreal for, I forget for what, and I was supposed to go see her. And I realized I'm kind of ignoring her. I haven't even called her. So I want to go see this therapist

because I wasn't feeling well. And I said, you know, I think I need to go see this therapist because I I was I wasn't feeling well and I said you know I think I need to talk to someone and she said to me what's what's going on why you keep staring over there like where are you right now and I realized without knowing I was thinking of like I have to go see Eva I have to go see Eva and then she's like then she's like why do you have to go see her and I'm like well I have to she's like, why do you have to go see her? And I'm like, well, I have to, she's, you know, she's in town. Well, do you think that she really wants to see you? Like, is it, is that it? And I'm like, I don't even know. Maybe not. And maybe it's this idea I have that I owe her a visit, you know? So it all started from there. And then I realized, oh my God, I have issues with her.

And I'm like, oh no, I can't because it's going to start, it's going to have to go all the way to my birth. So that took, I don't know, maybe two, three years to just figure it out. And I was very honest with her when I would be in Salud, when I visited. And then she was so cool. She said to me, well, you know what? Do what you have to do. And when you're ready, we can, you know, do, that's all she said, just do what you have to do. And I thought that was so cool, you know? She didn't say, well, what's going on you know and I think she had she trusted that I was gonna find my way and I did so I wanted to write a song about her but it was so painful you know

but music is amazing that way it makes things so much it's like the edges are not as sharp, you know, it's like, okay, but it's still very, very deep, very painful, you know, but, and then when I did the song, I decided I wanted to do a video clip, and I didn't realize that this video clip was going to have a part one and part three the part three is talking to eva and um again she was like okay what do you want to do i'm like i just want to interview i want to talk about the adoption eva being your biological my biological mom so she was so cool again she didn't ask too many questions she was like okay all right so we met she came the night before I said you should sleep over because we're gonna leave in the morning and we're gonna go see this lady who's gonna do the filming and the director Fred Berube so we just sat her you know

with a nice background it's like she sat there and then there was the camera and I was just near the camera behind and I just just started the interview and I said so what was it like when I was born because I have no idea I don't know those details and I've always had a vision how probably she didn't have to have feelings because it was too painful. She couldn't really love me because she wasn't going to keep me. So I always thought she mustn't really love me, you know? How can you give birth and not love, right? But it's like I saw Eva's heart as like being this cold or her being very, you know, having, not having feelings.

That's kind of how I saw it, but it's not really how it happened. Yeah. I mean, when she starts to actually, and you capture this, you know, and we'll link to the video. I think it's really moving. When she starts to share the story of what really happened, really, I mean, it was heartbreaking for me to hear it. I mean, I can't imagine for you to be in the room and just, was that actually the first time? The first time.

Because I wouldn't have asked her naturally, just her and I, me looking at her. There's no context to be able to just sit down and say, let's talk. Maybe I would be like this because we have a mic in between us that would maybe protect it. So I kind of needed that camera, I guess. That's how I was able to make it a thing between us because she was a broadcaster too, right? So it's a natural place for her and I to be. And I also was a broadcaster. I did, you know, some radio TV back in the day in the North. So it's like, kind of, I knew that

maybe that's how I can make it a thing and make it an art form also. So yeah, I wouldn't have asked her. So I needed that. So yeah, it was live right there. And she said to me, when you were born, I took you in my arms and you were beautiful with your big eyes. And I was a beautiful baby. And then she says, she goes on and says, I loved you and I wanted to keep you. And I was like, what? Okay. So there's a lot of emotions there. And then slowly she started, you know a few more questions, and I learned that she kept me for a few days and that she had me all the time. In my head, it was like, okay, she had me, and then I was put in a separate room where all the newborns are. No, it was she actually kept me. And then when she gave me up and when my parents came to the airport and they were already on, how do you say it? The tarmac.

The tarmac. On the ice, actually, in front of the village. They were already there ready to take me. She wasn't even out of the plane. Because your mom had to fly to a different town yes exactly yeah for the hospital so so she says my arms didn't want to let go you know and i was like wow what a so she this woman has feelings to this woman and she's a very emotional person but it's like she has this very strong side too kind of like me it's it's funny because i'm overly emotional sensitive person but i can be very hard when it's time to you know very practical you know yeah and it sounds like it wasn't made explicit but it sounds like like her mother essentially made the decision for her and told her this is what you have to do. get pregnant or she did um she said you know these people you're my second cousin uh can't have children it would be a way to because traditionally it was a form of helping you

know others because if people couldn't have children they couldn't survive you know back in the day because you needed you needed help and and so it's a form of tradition that's still passed on there's a lot less adoptions but there still is it's a very it's a very special world it's very beautiful too because i'm i have absolutely no doubt that if i wasn't adopted i would not be sitting here in new y York City and doing the life that I do. And that's what she goes on saying, too, is that I would have probably overprotect you and I would want to keep you near me. So she would often joke around when I was a teenager. You should just move back here. You could be here. Because they're from a very traditional, strong family

where the individuality is not so, how do you say, not as common. It's better to be strong and to help you know to be strong and to help each other and that's so beautiful i learned so much from their family my biological family they're very strong-minded and but traditions are very important too to help out and to sacrifice a little bit of yourself for others which i can relate to but i was also brought up to be very free, you know, very, to have a mind of my own because my parents were older, so they were not as, you know, they couldn't really relate to me, I guess. So that's a beautiful gift I got. And I'm very proud to have. Yeah. When does music start to enter your life?

And I guess when and how, and then how does it start to become something where it's potentially bigger? Music came into my life because my quickly um i'd say about about 100 years ago 100 years 100 years ago yeah not long ago um christianity you know reached the north anglican churches or Catholic churches were built. And so music as I knew it was from the church, Anglican church. Thank God, because beautiful hymn songs exist, you know. So right away, I was very captivated by music from the church, because that's all we had. And my mother apparently, I guess she must have heard that I have very sensitive to music and melodies.

And so she always made sure that I would sing whenever family would come over. She would put me on the table and she said, okay, she learned a new song. And I would be like, then or i would call the radio station local radio station and dedicate a song that i learned to all the christian people or born again people in the village i mean that's kind of ridiculous but that's how i guess i don't know i guess i was trying to find a way to please in a way, too, like to be, okay, I did this. And then, so it took forever until I realized that I was actually in Montreal when I was, you know, I realized there's something, there's a fire, you know, that is there. But I don't know how to deal with it because I'm very shy. And I don't like to make mistakes.

I have to be, like, right, spot on. I wasn't very wild about my creativity. Or I was more like, are people going to love me? You know what I mean? There's this need to please more than. So it was a weird mix, which made me take my time, I guess, in order to really feel like, okay, do I really feel it? Do I really have it?

Do I really have something to say, you know, or a voice? And so I met this guy, Alain, who was a musician who had heard that I was, I had a demo, little demo. I was like 22. I had just arrived to Montreal. And then he wanted to meet up and we met and he really liked it. And he says, we should write songs. I'm like, oh, really? You want to do that with me? So two years after we had an album, and it was like, it went pretty fast. I mean, we toured Quebec, Canada. And then ever since, I've been singing and actually living off of music, which is still crazy to me. So I don't know when it really became, I guess it never really became.

There wasn't a moment, it was just a. No, because that's not what we do. Like my uncle has a band since the 60s, you know, rock and roll. I even sang with him when I was 15. But that wasn't something, because he has a day job too. Everybody has day jobs, so it's not really. So I guess moving to Montreal definitely made it even more, you know, easier, I guess, for me to find people to and i think surrounding myself i i'm i'm i'm good at that because i don't have all the talents i'm i can be very uh slow you know i i need to take my

time so and i'm very spaced out sometimes so i need need people to help me out. So, yeah. What led you to move to Montreal? I decided I was to go to school, even though I had, like, according to my mom, I didn't have to go anywhere. I had the perfect job. I worked with the kids as the student counselor in my hometown.

So I don't know. I just felt like if I didn't move, I was going to get really old. That's how I felt. I was like, I think I had done so many things way in advance that I felt like, okay, I need to go somewhere where I'm going to explode. I needed to do that. So it was amazing. I decided I was going to go to college, even though I was older, 22, 23. So I went to a creative arts in John Abbott and I did a year and then I was asked to work for a documentary film that was to go to four different Arctic

countries. So we did that over a year, you know. And that film ended up doing incredibly also. After my biological father died. So it was very, those times where I didn't realize it, but it was hard. But I was in the mode of survival, you know. I quickly passed on to, I'm like, okay, no time to mourn, no time to. I can't do that. No one's really going to, I guess I felt like I can't give in to that because no one's really going to understand because I left, you know, I have to pay the price in a way. So it's only after that, I think that's why I kind of hit depression because I had accumulated so many, I mean, how can you not mourn? How can you not, you know, say, I need help, I'm sad, but I had a hard time doing that. Yeah. change of going from town you grew up in which is you know like a thousand or so people in this like very sort of isolated environment 22 years right dropping into Montreal which is this big thriving fast loud city yeah very diverse very very very full of people I I mean, it is a small city in a way, but it's a very diverse,

where there's, it's very modern, it's very outgoing. So yeah, it's like, I wanted it so much. I had to fight for it so much. I had to convince my mother so much that this was a good decision, even though she didn't want me to go and she was getting sick you know slowly um so i guess i made up my mind that if i do go then i should never ask for to have someone to to you know i would call her and she had no idea what it was like so i you know i just i had to listen to her. But she didn't really say, and you, how are you? You know what I mean?

There's no frame of reference. No, no. So I've learned to just be like, you know, I have no feelings in a way. You know what I mean? It's crazy. I still have a tendency sometimes to forget to take the time and be like, okay, so this is my reality. This is what I'm going through and I could share it with you. But I'm good at talking about it.

But to really do it is still not always natural. But I'm learning through my kids because I share a lot. Sometimes I talk too much, but at least they're, just maybe just because I'm afraid they're going to go through the same thing, you know. I want them to know that they can lean on people or they can lean on us and they can make mistakes and it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared

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You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. How connected are they to Southerly and sort of like everything that you grew up around versus being sort of more metropolitan, almost city kids.

They're definitely city kids. They're definitely southern kids, you know. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I think if you really want to take in a culture, I think you have to live in that environment. You have to live with that different beat, that different rhythm, that different humor with a different view of time. I mean, we don't have a notion of, OK, I'll come and see you later. We can say later, but we won't tell you what time. We won't tell you like we're not even near the afternoon. So we might just say, I'll come over for supper.

So that's easy, you know. But if you decide not to show up, it's okay too. So I think as much as their, you know, conscience of their mother being from this place or being related to my family, or when we go, they feel home little cabin so we can just go shut off from, you know, everything. Even though it's not, even if it's not for a long time, it's still, it's important, you know, I have three kids. So it's really about time I slow down a little bit and go build a cabin. Also just the idea of having the opportunity to be able to sort of like, not just move between these two physical places, but move between these two states of existence, states of being.

Because the way that you described it, it's almost like your nervous system down-regulates when you go to a different place. And I feel like as parents, when you have kids, especially growing up in a city environment, to have them be able to know this other state, this other way of being on the planet and with each other and with other people. So powerful. It's very powerful and they love it.

Like my boy, my Tayara, he was five or nearly five last time we went. That's a year ago. And he was just, it's like a gypsy boy. He would just go from one place to another. There's not really a notion of like time, you know, like it's more, it's chill. We do what, and it's also, it's smaller and there's a lot of contact with people, older people, constantly, constantly. People taking you like the people take, you know, knowing they're my kids, they're like, oh, they'll be like, it's like going to Africa in a way where people have no distant, you know, everybody's so loving and they're going to do big kisses. And then they'll be like, can I take him?

And they're like, sure. So they're like, oh, okay, we're going to hang out with Traj because it's Elisabeth's kid and we're like happy she's here and he's so cute. So we're going to just, you know, go walk around with him. And he's super, okay, cool. So that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool for a kid. Yeah, for sure. Definitely not how it works in New York City.

No, not in Montreal either. It's almost like you're stepping back in time, but embracing some of the beautiful elements that we seem to have left behind. Apparently, it's very overwhelming when no, how do you say? It's so easy after a week being with the Inuit family, for instance, you're easily like you're adopted because they share very quickly. They open up very quickly. There is no limit. There is no code that is like, okay, that's like a stranger. So maybe we should give it time.

No test that you have to pass or barriers. No, nothing, nothing. As soon as they see you're open to them, they love it. And then they're like, okay, he's cool. He's my brother now or he's my uncle now. He's like, you know, very easy, easy. It opens up right away. It's pretty amazing.

When you listen to your music, you know, it's interesting because it feels like I don't know the music that you grew up around and the music that was traditionally you grew up around. But there's something, it feels like this fascinating blend of there's modern, there's a strong folk element to it. I guess I'm just curious, where do you draw from? Because you seem to live sort of perpetually with a feed in a number of different worlds, just as a person. Yeah. And as a creative person, as a musician, as a songwriter, as a performer, it seems like you draw from so many different places to create this really distinct sound. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely Neil Young. There's definitely Bob Dylan, because that's when I started, I guess, dreaming, like dreaming

of other places. There's Buffy St. Marie, there's Leonard Cohen, who I spent many, many, many, many nights with, you know, of course, in spirit. So I learned to go to places where I'm allowed to dream, where I'm allowed to be sensual, where I'm allowed to be in lust, where I'm allowed to do all these things that are maybe not as natural for us Inuit to be, to openly say, oh, I'm in love, I want to, you know, or to want to, I don't know, to play around with other humans, other people. So it's just, I guess I just gather whatever I find touches me. And I think for this album, it was going back to the roots, to my uncle's music in the 60s, 70s, when these kids were the first to experience

the new way of life, you know, when it was transitioning from very traditional Inuit life to the modern, you know, in the 60s. They got to be hippies too, right? So I'm very fascinated by that time so I've always been that's why I kind of always never really did anything traditional because I was so fascinated by this my uncle's music my my aunts who were you know I would see pictures of them in the 60s, 70s. I'm like, wow, these kids look like any other kids in the world, but they're innate. So, yeah, something. And I tried to understand what was behind that.

How were they going through? How were they living this transition, it must have been easy, you know, so I guess my music is very based on, and also I think re-identifying Inuit or Indigenous people right now, it's really important, decolonization is definitely something we're talking about, so I think when you want to do that, when you do that, you kind of have to make music that is with a lot of force, with a lot of guts and a lot of, I don't know, kind of have to get mad, but not making it violent to be violent but just and also using the nature nature is is violent you know the nature is strong and fierce so why not take those elements and try to put them into music but also i can't i think also we are very vulnerable as human beings so it's important for me to be able to show that too,

because I want people to be able to go to their vulnerable side, but also to their very strong side. So I kind of play around with that because that's where I felt, you know, I felt very vulnerable, but yet so alive and so strong more than ever. The name of the newest album is The Ballad of the Runaway Girl. And at first I'm thinking, well, obviously, the runaway girl must be you. But there's actually a longer history. The Ballad of the Runaway Girl is actually a song my uncle wrote in the late 60s, I'd say.

And it's a song that I've always liked, but it wasn't as well known as his other songs. But I've always been captivated the way it was written, the way it was so different. And I've always wondered, who was that girl? He didn't really want to tell me what was behind the song. I love that, that he didn't really want to tell me. I'm like, ah, there's a mystery somewhere. So now when I was pretty much done with the album, I felt like that song is, it keeps coming back. And I realized that's the title of the album too so it's kind of like paying tribute to my uncles and to my aunts and to those people before me

yeah but it's also me it's in a way it's yeah do you feel like um do you feel like the runaway girl has found home? The runaway girl, I can never really say. Because where is home, you know? For me, I'm still trying to... It's funny because at the end of my depression with my second child, I have also a baby that arrived a year and a half ago among all this craziness. And it's amazing because he's so cool. He's so easygoing.

I was like, we had just bought a little house. And that's when I felt, I realized I was going through depression because I didn't know how to deal with that. It's like it's supposed to be the most beautiful time where we found a home and I'm with this beautiful person and we chill. Everyone's cool. And it's like all of a sudden I felt like now I can let go is that what it means so I was trying to understand why I I'm going through it's like being on the verge of like being really afraid it's like I didn't know how to take the idea of having a home it's crazy it's I mean it's that's how I realized that okay there's something

there so yeah I have a home but that's where a home is where my my loved ones are it could be anywhere we could be anywhere I guess but I think the north will always be the home to my heart, you know, because that's where I, like you said, it's where everything stops and it's like the brain and it gets a huge massage. And then I just feel, I just let go of everything, everything. I just like, so it's healing. It's a very special place because not just it's the land also but also the way people live you know it's you feel free but it's not just like that it's hard to because there's a lot of you know people are suffering, Indigenous people all over who were oppressed are going through hard times. There's a lot of suicide, there's not a lot of resources also.

So it's not necessarily easy, but there's something beautiful in the way people are they're just very strong able to survive many things and they still laugh like they're the most funniest people in the world i mean it's it's crazy we we we laugh a lot it's really important so home is, in the north, but home is me too, you know? I think that's really important to know. Yeah, hopefully my kids will say home is where mama is. I love that. So as we sit here in this container of the Good Life Project, it feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well.

So if I offer up this phrase, to live a good life, what comes up? Oh, to live a good life. Oh. To live a good life. I guess it's just sharing with other people, to have contact with humans. I think there's something so strong in human sharing, you know, to live a good life. It's to be kind to yourself, I think. It's the hardest thing, I realize. It's so hard.

Many people I know still can't even say they love themselves because they think that you know they have to be perfect or we think that we have to be this in order to but i think we have to be a lot kinder to ourselves and to accept that we're nowhere near perfect you know that we don't want to be perfect just just look at the nature, how it's kind of wild and kind of beautiful and really ugly at times. So I think that's kind of, let's try to imitate the nature a little bit. Maybe that's what I would say. Then it's a lot more simple. Thank you.

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iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.