cover art: DENNIS LABBE
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MEN OF THE NORTH (are we) is a documentary LP released in 1976. You can stream the record album for free. All the sound & conversations were recorded in the 1970s. Unedited tape from the interviews are the basis for STORY TREES. |
A STUDENT PROJECT, Don Hill & Anne Prevost (later Hill) set out in search of "stories, tall tales, legends, myths and songs" that exemplified life in resource sector towns and settlements throughout northern Ontario. The couple were advised by Germain Lemieux, a professor & director of the folklore centre at Laurentian University.
Decades later, while digitizing the reel-to-reel oral history interviews, Don was surprised by how things were said at the time in northern Ontario. It wasn’t the content of the conversations that first caught his ear; it was the little asides, the nuanced bits of intonation, inflections of speech, as if northern Ontario had a different dialect way back when. As the towns and the province grew in population, he heard a shift in the patter. He also heard something — an emergent literary voice, a kind of wisdom — that wasn’t accounted for by words alone.
Things to keep in mind for the modern listener: The sentiments you hear in the documentary reflect an era that is quite different in tone from our present day. And the opening montage (confusing as it may sound upon first listen) is a tip of the hat to Glenn Gould's remarkable contrapuntal radio masterpiece The Idea of North.
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VIOLA'S VERSION is a soundscape remix of an unedited 1975 interview. You can listen & stream for free . A new chapter will be added every week until the STORY TREES exhibition ends 29 March 2021. |
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VIOLA'S VERSION is a serialized remix of Viola Moody's account of her life with husband Joe, the medical health officer in Chesterfield Inlet, NWT (now Nunavut) in Canada's Arctic.
Following Joe's graduation from the University of Western Ontario's med-school, the couple were broke and anxious for a job. Viola spotted an advertisement in 1946: a call for a general practitioner that looked promising and paid well. The federal government's Department of Indian Affairs needed to quickly find a replacement for its "arctic doctor", who was leaving his post. Dr. Moody got the job. Joe would be the only physician in the entire eastern Arctic (flying bush planes, dog sledding, diagnosing and treating the sick by radio from the small settlement on the western shore of Hudson's Bay).
Dr. Joseph P. Moody would become famous for his medical feats & derring-do (averting a deadly polio epidemic in The North, for one); the New York Times and other media chimed in with praise from around the world. You could be led to think Viola was a bit player in the Arctic healthcare drama — her contributions, her support, her courage, her smarts — all went missing in the reporting...
The interview was recorded in June 1975 at Viola's home at Serpent River, Ontario.
As a caution: please be aware that some of Viola's conversation and other voices you will hear — recorded much later, and in 2021 — could be disturbing as much as it is instructive.
VIOLA'S VERSION is an immersive mix designed for headphone-listening.
Following Joe's graduation from the University of Western Ontario's med-school, the couple were broke and anxious for a job. Viola spotted an advertisement in 1946: a call for a general practitioner that looked promising and paid well. The federal government's Department of Indian Affairs needed to quickly find a replacement for its "arctic doctor", who was leaving his post. Dr. Moody got the job. Joe would be the only physician in the entire eastern Arctic (flying bush planes, dog sledding, diagnosing and treating the sick by radio from the small settlement on the western shore of Hudson's Bay).
Dr. Joseph P. Moody would become famous for his medical feats & derring-do (averting a deadly polio epidemic in The North, for one); the New York Times and other media chimed in with praise from around the world. You could be led to think Viola was a bit player in the Arctic healthcare drama — her contributions, her support, her courage, her smarts — all went missing in the reporting...
The interview was recorded in June 1975 at Viola's home at Serpent River, Ontario.
As a caution: please be aware that some of Viola's conversation and other voices you will hear — recorded much later, and in 2021 — could be disturbing as much as it is instructive.
VIOLA'S VERSION is an immersive mix designed for headphone-listening.
VIDEO: story trees
STORY TREES grew out of oral history recordings made in northern Ontario in the 1970s. Inspired by Glenn Gould's contrapuntal radio documentaries (which have influenced many prominent sound artists), the conversations were first refashioned into Men of the North (are we), an LP album released in 1976.
WATCH a short demonstration video of motion-induced blindness.
To experience the illusion: stare intently at the red dot — exactly where it is placed on the screen. When it fades, keep looking as if it's still there. The other yellow dots will seem to dissolve or disappear entirely (only to reappear when you shift your gaze); regardless, they were always there.
Where did your mind go?
This quirk of visual perception has an acoustic cousin that creates an entirely opposite affect. You may have experienced it while slowly engaging with STORY TREES. From time to time, some voices appear out of the ordinary. And depending how close or far away you are from the computer screen — you'll hear something else — an auditory illusion that's not really there, but sure sounds like it.
Syncopated rhythms, repetition, and musical counterpoint (think of Bach's chamber music ) can create sounds that are perceptually heard, but are entirely imaginary and conjured up by the human brain (for instance, a binaural beat frequency). More about auditory illusions, next week.
To experience the illusion: stare intently at the red dot — exactly where it is placed on the screen. When it fades, keep looking as if it's still there. The other yellow dots will seem to dissolve or disappear entirely (only to reappear when you shift your gaze); regardless, they were always there.
Where did your mind go?
This quirk of visual perception has an acoustic cousin that creates an entirely opposite affect. You may have experienced it while slowly engaging with STORY TREES. From time to time, some voices appear out of the ordinary. And depending how close or far away you are from the computer screen — you'll hear something else — an auditory illusion that's not really there, but sure sounds like it.
Syncopated rhythms, repetition, and musical counterpoint (think of Bach's chamber music ) can create sounds that are perceptually heard, but are entirely imaginary and conjured up by the human brain (for instance, a binaural beat frequency). More about auditory illusions, next week.
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SHORT SILENT VIDEO (2022) induces after image effects... SYNOPSIS: A year in the life of an Edmonton ravine. The city's forest is rooted in the sky. And when the trees clap their hands, a raven watches for shadows that linger... The short video won the Spirit of Alberta Award at the 2022 GOTTA MINUTE FILM FESTIVAL (05 September to the 18th screened on electronic billboards in Calgary & Edmonton). |
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opus 3 (2022)
The demonstration video is an extended mix of Story Trees (after images) with the addition of the ambient chorale soundscape. All the sonic elements you hear in the six minute video are available to blend & play with when you interact with Story Trees (opus 3). |