I'm Back!

I'm back! After a long, four month break from writing on the blog, I'm back and I'm going to try and write a lot more now! I had to take a break while finishing up my final edition of my newspaper Die Zeitung. Now that I'm done the newspaper for good (or at least for a year or two), I'll be putting a lot more time and effort into the blog, so keep checking in once or twice a week!

A lot has happened in the past four months, a bit too much to try and do a brief summary, so I'll just start with what's happened to me so far in February. On Tuesday I returned from Vancouver to visit my dad. This visit just happened to coincide with the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and it was cool to be able to go into downtown Vancouver to see some of the free events and pavilions. We didn't see any Olympic events, but it was interesting to see how the whole thing was being run and how it effected downtown Vancouver.

It was very unfortunate that on the first day of the Olympics, the day of the Opening Ceremonies, the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died while doing a training run on at the Whistler Sliding Centre. This event seems to have cast a shadow over this year's Olympics, and it was very sad to see an Olympian die so young and before he had a chance to compete. However, the tribute to him during the Opening Ceremonies was very good, and I think that the Vancouver Olympic Committee dealt with this tragic event very well.

On the second day of the Olympics, I went downtown to visit the Canada pavilion and to check out some of the other events available to the public downtown. There was one thing that I noticed right away - the incredibly long line ups! To get anywhere it seemed like you had to get into some sort of line up! I guess that's just what happens when a city hosts the Olympic games though. The pavilions were great though! They were quite interesting and I thought that they represented our country and our provinces very well.

The next day I went into Richmond to see the O-Zone Celebration venue where you can watch live events and go to a skating rink. What I realized that day was that Vancouver should not host the Winter Olympics. It was a very summery 15 degrees outside... in February! Perhaps the Summer Olympics would've been a better choice for Vancouver. The skating rink at the Richmond O-Zone was great however, and later we took the SkyTrain to see the Olympic Flame downtown. The Flame was a huge disappointment. Not only could the public not get within 25 meters of the Flame, but it was also fenced off and the fences were covered with a fabric so that the public couldn't even see the Flame! I've heard that now they removed the fabric and made a viewing area for the public, but still many, many meters away. That just didn't seem like it went well with the whole Olympic spirit!

Another note about the Olympics - YAYYYY!!!!! So we've finally won a gold (now in fact three gold) medal at an Olympics at home! Congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau, the first Canadian to win a gold medal on home soil!!! It really seems like the first gold could not have gone to a nicer guy, he really deserved it.

Tomorrow I'll be heading off to the Olympics once again - this time to see an actual event - after winning the ATCO Celebrating Excellence Contest in which the first prize was a one day trip to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics! I had to write an essay about how I celebrate excellence in school, in swimming and in my community and submit it to ATCO. There are 166 (I think?) youths going from Alberta - a boy and a girl from each political constituency - going to the Olympics and the boy and the girl in my constituency, Edmonton-Strathcona, are in my class! I'm the boy and my friend Jade Robinson will be going as well! We will both be going to the Sweden vs. Belarus hockey game, as well as to Alberta House for lunch, and to a Victory Ceremony at BC Place in the evening.

I will be posting an update after my second visit to Vancouver as well as some pictures from both trips - so check in sometime this weekend!

Stand Up Against Poverty

Today, my school participated in the Stand Up movement, which is an event put together by the organization Make Poverty History. I read the Stand Up Pledge over my school's PA system during the morning announcements and asked everyone to stand up as I read the pledge. Here is the pledge that I read:

STAND UP PLEDGE

We are standing now with millions of people around the world
on this historic day, to show our commitment to the fight against
extreme poverty and inequality. We only have six years left to the
2015 deadline to realize the Millennium Development Goals.

Today, we Stand Up together to say to our leaders:

Act now to achieve and exceed the Millennium Development Goals.

Commit to bold leadership at the G8/G20, to combat extreme poverty,
transform global economic and financial systems, tackle the impact of
climate change on poor countries and eliminate poverty in Canada.

We will continue to Stand Up, not just today but every day, to say:
No more Excuses, End Poverty and Inequality Now!”

In total we got approximately 600 people to stand up as I read the pledge, and I put our contribution on the Stand Up Map on the Stand Against Poverty Website.

Celebrate For Change!

Yesterday was my 13th birthday, and I celebrated by having a "Celebrate for Change" birthday. This is where I asked all my friends to bring money instead of presents, I will soon donate that money to Free the Children. "Celebrate for Change" is a fundraising event with Free the Children, and the premise is that there are 50 million children born each year who's births aren't recorded. So official these children are "invisible". Often, these children are forgotten, and they end up in dangerous situations of child labour. For more information about "Celebrate for Change" and about Free the Children, go to the Free the Children website at http://freethechildren.com/.

I tried to invite as many people as possible, so that I could raise as much money as possible. In the end, we raised $550, $50 over my goal!!! It was a great party and everyone had a lot of fun.


Setting up for the party. I put maps up everywhere around the back yard, all the maps were of places where Free the Children worked.


We had lots of fun at the pool part of the party.


Rebecca with cape, guitar, and friends.


We didn't have any candles, but the sparkles worked out just fine.


The group photo at the end. In the end, 21 people came!

This was an amazing experience, and it was so cool to see everyone so into the fundraising part. We also made two big posters that has everyone's name on it that we will send to Free the Children with the money. Thank you so much everyone for coming, it was so fun!

Wawa, North Bay

This evening we made it to North Bay, Ontario. This is our third day driving in Ontario, and all of our driving's been through Northern Ontario. After spending 3 days in pretty much empty Northern Ontario I have already begun to notice how much space we have in Canada. I mean I knew this already, but the drives that I've done before have mostly been between Edmonton and Winnipeg, and even through the prairies there are towns located all the way along the highway. In Northern Ontario it seems like there could be many many kilometers in between towns of only a few hundred people. It's kind of amazing to experience that.

In the past two days we drove between Thunder Bay and Wawa and between Wawa and North Bay. Here are some pictures of those drives...


Right after leaving Thunder Bay we stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial. After driving farther east in northern Ontario it was amazing to think that Terry Fox had run all that way with just one leg.


Near Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park we stopped at the longest suspension bridge in Canada. It's 150 feet longer than the Capilano Suspension bridge, but not as high. There were two suspension bridges there, one longer and one shorter, here's a view of the shorter bridge and of the canyon from the longer bridge.


The next day after leaving Wawa we stopped in Lake Superior Provincial Park to see the Agawa Bay Pictographs. Here's one that was probably made between 150 and 400 years ago.


At the pictographs I jumped in the water to swim around the rock face to see some more pictographs at a cove only accessible by water. Swimming in Lake Superior was amazing, the water was cool and unbelievably clear.


Driving through Sudbury we had to stop at the giant nickel. This nickel is the largest coin in the world!!!

Tomorrow we will be driving to Ottawa and staying there for 2 nights. We are getting a private tour of the Parliament Buildings and Senate, and will be going to the National Art Gallery and the Museum of Civilization.

I will be posting a full photo album documenting our trip to Quebec after we get back to Edmonton.

Stay tuned for more updates about Ottawa!

Yorkton, Winnipeg and Thunder Bay

This evening we arrived in Thunder Bay on the third day of our road trip to Quebec City.

We left Edmonton early in the morning after a late night at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. That day we drove to Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and the next day onto Winnipeg, Manitoba. We stayed in Winnipeg for the full day the next day as we had family there, but then the next day (today) we left to Thunder Bay. What we wanted to do on this road trip was take our time while driving and stop at some of the roadside attractions and "Big Things" that towns have as mascots or attractions. We also tried to take a picture of all the "welcome" signs for towns and provinces that we drove through.

Here are some pictures of our trip so far, but I will be posting a full photo album at the end of our trip.



We stopped at a ghost town in Saskatchewan. It used to be a CN Train station.



In Langenburg we stopped at a huge swing off the highway (you can't see, but it probably about 10 meters high!). It was attached to the ground though, so we couldn't actually swing on it...



We stopped at a small town in Saskatchewan called Elfros that apparently has a big Icelandic history. I knew that Manitoba had Icelandic history, but I had no idea that Saskatchewan did too! Here is an Icelandic monument in the heart of small town Elfros.



On to Ontario (I did take pictures of Manitoba, I will post them later)! In Kenora we had to stop at Huskie the Musky. It's huge!!!



Just before Thunder Bay we stopped at Kakabeka Falls. They were amazing, and we took tons of pictures. I will put some more up later.

Tomorrow we will be going to Wawa, Ontario and then onto North Bay. Stay tuned as I will be posting more pictures and my thoughts on our big road trip to Quebec soon!

One More Post... Steven Page and Danny Michel... One More Memorable Moment for the Folk Fest

I think everyone here who stayed for the final main stage performance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival may have just witnessed one of the most amazing moments in folk fest history.

Steven Page, the headliner for Sunday nights performances brought out another Canadian musician, Danny Michel in the middle of his set. He said it was to pay tribute for the musicians that we have lost this year. Danny Michel started playing guitar and they began playing a great rendition of Michael Jackson's Billy Jean. The performance got the whole crowd cheering and singing along.


Danny Michel rockin' on stage to Billy Jean.


Steven Page doing his version of the moonwalk.


All three of them (Danny Michel, Steven Page and the cellist, sorry, I don't know his name...) performing on the main stage during the last performance (well except for Four Strong Winds of course) of the 2009 Edmonton Folk Music Festival.


Steven Page and his cellist.

As for the rest of Steven Page's performance tonight, it has been absolutely amazing! He is playing at the folk fest with a cellist that is touring with him, and between the two of them the music that they produce is awesome! He has been playing some Barenaked Ladies songs, but also some originals as well.

OK, now this is my last post. Stay tuned for more updates, this time about my road trip to Quebec.

So to all the folk festers, I'll see you next year!

Final Post for Folk Fest 2009

I'm afraid that I will have to cut my live blogging short for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival 2009. We have to go home earlier tonight to start packing for our big road trip tomorrow. Me and my mom are starting a road trip to Quebec tomorrow (we will be driving to Yorkton tomorrow). I will be posting more about the road trip as we go along (it will be a 3 week road trip).

But more about the folk fest... Israeli band the Idan Rachiel Project just finished playing their concert on the main stage, and they were amazing. I did have an interview with Idan Rachiel himself, but things just didn't work out. They blended traditional Israeli music with Ethiopian music and many, many other genres. For part of their concert, they brought out someone from the band Arrested Development who performed on the main stage over lunch time. Together they blended even more cultures and genres to sound excellent! I might be posting a whole overview of the folk fest tomorrow, so tune in at least once.

I will be putting most of my interviews and a few reviews in my July/August issue of Die Zeitung. So if you haven't subscribed to my newspaper or bought just that one issue, please do so so that you can get full interviews and more awesome coverage.

And as I said I will be going on a road trip tomorrow, the destination is Quebec City. It will take 3 weeks there and back, but I will try and post updates every few days.

So please keep reading my blog and thank you very much to everyone who tuned into Who's Left and Who's Leaving for their live folk fest coverage.

Here are some pictures that highlighted my folk fest weekend...


Watching and interviewing 13 year old Quinn Bachand, who plays some awesome guitar! Check out my interview with him in the July/August issue of Die Zeitung.


An amazing shot of the downtown Edmonton skyline from the Edmonton folk fest site.


Neko Case playing the main stage with her drummer in the background. She played a great show, and she was way better live then on the CD.


Johnny Flynn, a new favourite of mine. He is absolutely amazing and I need to get his CD, but they're all sold out of the merchandise tent!!!


Iron and Wine playing main stage last night. He was also very good and played some great guitar.

So that's all for this year... I'll see y'all next year!!!

Joel Plaskett Talks About His New CD "3"

Today I got my 3rd interview of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival with Nova Scotia musician Joel Plaskett. He told me a bit about his new CD 3, his inspirations and about traveling. This will be my main interview for the coverage of the folk fest in my July/August issue of Die Zeitung. Here's some highlights of the interview.


His new CD 3 is all about 3s. It includes 3 CDs, and most of the songs titles are a word or phrase repeated 3 times. "It's a traveling record so it's kind of about going away, being alone and returning home. It's a long record because I wanted it to feel like a journey."

In many of the songs there are also phrases that are repeated, like the Berlin wall and good things come... "It's good things come to those who wait, but as the songs came it was good things come to those who run, and good things come to those who roll."

Joel Plaskett also travels a lot, mostly all over Canada, and because Canada is so big, I thought maybe the audiences could be different in different provinces or cities. "Well there's maritimers all over Canada, so they make a lot of the shows feel very much like home."


I will be putting some pictures up later, but now I have an interview with Israeli musician Idan Rachiel. So stay tuned for highlights from that. If you would like the whole interview with Joel Plaskett, subscribe to my newspaper Die Zeitung or buy the July/August issue of Die Zeitung if you haven't done so already.

So stay tuned if you weren't able to make it to the folk fest. But if you are here, I'll see you on the hill!

The Next Generation... (Danny Michel, Joel Plaskett, Sierra Hull, Johnny Flynn)

The morning of the last day of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival brought another great workshop. The workshop was titled "Next Gen" and included Danny Michel, Joel Plaskett, Sierra Hull, and Johnny Flynn).


This was another awesome workshop, especially as it included three of my favourite performers here at the folk fest, Johnny Flynn, Joel Plaskett, and Danny Michel. With this workshop they artists mostly kept to their own songs, and didn't provide the musical "fusion" so much, but they still did a little. And with these musicians, I think it was the perfect amount of "fusion".


Danny Michel was pretty much same old same old, which is fine... his same old same old is pretty good. He started off by playing some songs about not wanting to have to sing and perform at 11:00 AM, and then after that still stuck with the whiny songs :).


Joel Plaskett was really great. He played some songs that I had never even heard of, which was awesome! He played pretty much the whole set slow soft songs, he said it was to wake up. I want to mention that I'd been up since 6:00 AM for the colour raffle, so I had already woken up a long time ago!


Johnny Flynn was excellent, as usual. He started off with what he said was the saddest song he knows. He then went into a song about football. "What do you people here call it?" he asked. "Soccer? That's stupid...". He was absolutely amazing and made me want to buy his CD even more, though unfortunately all this CDs were sold out!


Sierra Hull, a bluegrass musician from the US was surprisingly OK. I'm not a huge fan of bluegrass, but with Sierra Hull played an amazing group. Everyone in her group was extremely talented.

In other news, I interview Joel Plaskett about an hour ago. I will be posting some highlights of the interview on my blog shortly. In about an hour and a half, I will be interviewing Israeli musicians Idan Raichel. So stay tuned throughout the rest of the day for one of my busiest days at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival yet.

For those of you who weren't able to make it to this year's folk fest, stay tuned! If you were able to make it, I'll see you on the hill!

Iron and Wine Provides a Great Show Saturday Night

The third performance of Saturday night at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival was Samuel Beam, better known as his stage name Iron and Wine. Beam provided a great mix of songs including slow, soothing songs, and faster, more upbeat songs. Iron and Wine met my expectations for sure, at least in the performing aspect.



But, I also heard from other media persons at the Edmonton Folk Fest that at Iron and Wine's last performance, he did not let the media in the area in front of the stage to take pictures for the first 3 songs, like he and all the other artists are doing here. Samuel Beam's excuse for this was that the clicking of the cameras bothered him, but I hardly believe he could even hear the cameras from the stage. Also, Iron and Wine did not do interviews with any media people. So, Iron and Wine did meet my expectations for the performing aspect of the night, but not other aspects.



Still, he performed a great show and I'm sure that the whole crowd was pleased with his performance. His voice is absolutely amazing, it can be soft and soothing, yet strong and powerful at the same time. He was all alone on the stage, just him and his guitar, yet his music was so powerful it could be heard all around.



That's my last post for tonight. But please tune in tomorrow for updates and reviews of Sunday workshops, highlights of an interview with Joel Plaskett, and reviews of main stage performances. Tomorrow the main stage performance that I am particularly excited to see is the Idan Raichel Project.

To for those of you who weren't able to make it to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this year, tune in tomorrow for updates. And for everyone, good night!