It was a crazy night at the Denali Salmon Bake. We still managed to capture one of our pieces though. Here is Pajaro Rojo Santo.
We just returned from the vacation part of our tour–three nights at Wonder Lake in Denali National Park. Like the rest of the tourists who are brought in by big school buses (the only method of travel allowed on the 90 miles of dirt road in the park) Carmen went on a photo binge. While the first day was in the 40s and rainy, it gave way to some wildlife and a last lucky clear day with full views of “The Mountain”.
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The town name Tok is reason enough for musicians to plan a visit; combine that with passionate and caring organizers and it makes for an awesome tour stop.
In Tok we gave a tango class and a house concert at the Off the Road House, a Bed and Breakfast down a series of dirt roads off the Alaska Highway that is owned and operated by an amazing German woman Helga Wagenleiter. Here is Helga with a grey wolf pelt. She acquired it from a trapper family who gave it to her as a gift for teaching their children German! In addition to being a fantastic host and cook, Helga runs a studio at the house for her glass creations and photography.
The party was gloriously catered by Lucia Zaczkowski’s home cooking. She helps to presents regular house concerts in Tok.
Thanks to Helga, Lucia, and Aliza Sherman for coordinating our visit. (And a special thanks to Helga for ironing Andy’s dress shirt…which had previously not seen the sun in 2 weeks.)
We just finished an eight day stay in the Yukon with performances at the Whitehorse Arts in the Park and at the Village Bakery in Haines Junction.
Thanks to Steve Slade and Boyd Campbell who presented and promoted our shows. They are musicians as well as presenters and both have brought music consistently to this area for over 15 years. Steve puts on shows in Whitehorse five days a week during the summer and Boyd hosts a Friday night Salmon Barbeque.
Here is Andy getting a little too excited about the delicious food at the Salmon BBQ.
We did some fantastic hiking in this area and camped out seven nights. Here are some car shots I couldn’t resist taking on the way back to camp from our gig in Haines Junction.
We performed our first gig of the tour today at the Atlin Arts and Music Festival, a multi-disciplinary festival that presents music, dance, art, storytelling, poetry and film in the northern most town in British Columbia. Our venue, Kershaws, was an old hardware store converted into a coffee shop. It had a view out the windows behind the stage of the Swiss Alps looking mountains along Atlin lake.
Our performance included dance demos, original tango compositions and a jam/workshop for musicians.
To get to the festival we had to drive into the Yukon and down into British Columbia on a road that was partially gravel. We are fitting in now with all the Yukon plate cars.
Previous to the festival, we camped four nights in a row–once in Alberta, twice in B.C. and last night in the Yukon. The bugs and rain were suprisingly minimal.
Our best find so far was the Liard River Hot Springs, one of the most amazing that we have ever seen. It is a double fed pool; hot and cold spring water simultaneously feed in from the bottom making for a perfect bath.
