Photo by Michael Wojewoda


Bright Lights, Arctic Insights: Nunavut's The Jerry Cans Meld Inuktitut Perspectives and Indie-Roots Sensibilities 

​
The Jerry Cans hail from the Canada’s Arctic reaches, from Nunavut. And they are determined to defy the stereotypes about Native experiences and northern culture. Their new release, Inuusiq (“Life”; Aakuluk Music,US release date: May 5, 2017) taps indie rock, reggae, and country noir to reframe Inuktitut insights and traditional throat singing. Their main inspiration: The life and sounds around them.

“We wanted to reflect the sounds of the north,” says Nancy Mike, singer, songwriter, and founder of The Jerry Cans. “Our neighbors’ dogs, the ravens at the dump, the wind in a blizzard. We wanted to pay homage to the natural sounds of our life. But we also want it to be clear that we listen to Bob Marley and stream pop tracks. We have opinions about popular music. Sometimes, that’s challenging for people to hear.”

Challenges abound in Nunavut. Its harsh bounty has shaped centuries of Inuk culture, but recent decades have ushered in dramatic changes. Some of these changes have connected the community to the greater world to the south. Some have led to isolation, despair, and an epidemic of suicide among Nunavut residents.

The Jerry Cans face these challenges head on, giving voice to struggles and joys of northern life. From odes to taking the day off to hunt or fish, to reimaginings of Dylan tunes (“Ukiuq” sprang from an attempt to create an Inuktitut answer to “North Country Girl”), the band strikes a catchy balance between local and global, old and new. “We try to bring modern sounds to folk forms. When we’re addressing young people and their challenges, we try to make music that balances traditional and modern life. We need this balance to be stay healthy in this crazy world.”

From nimble Celtic fiddle to the raw earthiness of throat singing, from Canadian indie sensibilities to Arctic humor and lifeways, The Jerry Cans add fuel to the fire of Canada’s lively roots-rock and Native music scene.

The Jerry Cans’ approach goes beyond mash up or mixture. It digs deep into the poetic traditions of Inuit people, the way song and story is woven into everyday life.  Inuusiq channels the radio calls hunters send back and forth (“Tusaavit” or “Can you hear me?”), or the songs crafted for and sung to individual children (“Paniarjuk.” based on the song Nancy’s late father created for the couple’s daughter and left on an answering machine message). They never lose sight of the contemporary context, the real life people live today, and the music and ideas that surround them.

This layering is an organic extension of the processes that have shaped Nunavut’s musical worlds. Indigenous language and song encountered the reels and instruments of the Scottish and other whalers who came to Arctic camps in the 19th century. During years-long sojourns, these newcomers brought novel forms and sounds to the north. Fast forward a century or more, and radio brought Hank Williams and other country classics to the remotest towns, the elements that power songs like “Isumagivappinnga (Do You Think of Me?),” a punk-country song of love’s bittersweetness.

Tying it all together is the band’s own intimate experience with these cultural threads. Nancy, born in a large family in a small but culturally vibrant town, grew up speaking Inuktitut and throat singing. (Inuk throatsinging or katajjaq is usually performed by pairs of young women who employ the resonance of each other’s mouths to amplify the throaty, rhythmic sounds.) Andrew grew up in Nunavut most of this life, then went on work as a producer for the CBC. The two fell in love, but to win Nancy’s hand, Andrew had to meet her father’s stringent condition: He had to learn to speak properly, to master Inuktitut.

He did, and began writing songs as a way to perfect his skills. Together, the pair creates the framework for songs, drawing on local issues that have strong resonance. “Arnalukaq,” for example, was written in reaction to the Missing Women inquiry, a national probe into the rash of disappeared Native women across Canada, countering tragedy with affirmation that women are beautiful and worthy of respect.

​

While wrangling with challenging topics, The Jerry Cans’ songs often local audiences from across generations up and dancing, and get young people writing and responding intensely, often writing heartfelt notes and reaching out to the group. “I think the ability to express and understand what’s happening in your world is important. Isolation is a very big contributor to mental health issues like suicide. When we sing about going through tough times in the north, it fights that,” muses Mike. “When young people speak up and take pride and find balance, that can be a powerful weapon.”

To amplify this power, the band has started the first record label ever in Nunavut, Aakuluk Music. “We had thrown around the idea to start a label to support Inuktitut music. We have four young artists singing in Inuktitut.,” enthuses Morrison. “We’ve often heard as we were pitching our work, that if you want to succeed, you have to sing in English. We don’t accept that. We wanted to create a business entity to support it.”

The mission of bringing Inuk culture, music, and experience to a broader audience dovetails well with a cultural shift in Canada, as the struggles of indigenous communities gain national recognition and elicit reconciliatory action. The Jerry Cans welcome this, and hope to further the conversation. “We are very happy to talk about what’s happening between indigenous and non-indigenous communities,” Morrison says. “There’s a big historical shift that’s underway. We’re trying to insert those politics in an appropriate way. The music can be hard to understand, but it gives an access point to a really brilliant beautiful culture.”


Upcoming CD, Inuusiq (“Life”; Aakuluk Music, will be released on May 5, 2017) 
Visit The Jerry Cans at www.thejerrycans.com/
​

Lost Treasure
 
I’ve looked
for it
in bars
in old worn
books
in dreams
that seem
ridiculous
now
I’ve looked
for it
in jobs
in trips
to foreign
shores
in friends
that never
got it
right
I’ve looked
for it
in hookers
in small
expensive bags
with guaranteed
hangovers
in long walks
to nowhere
I’ve looked
for it
in the face
of my
father
in the timber
boards of
the theatre
in fights with
mad eyed
devils
all screaming
for blood
I’ve looked
for it
in rooftops
in flaming
sunsets
in running
away
I’ve looked
for it
in clouded
mirrors
in stiff door
knobs
in overpriced
tickets to
the ballet
I’ve looked
for it
in footsteps
in teardrops
in turning to
escape
I’ve looked
for it
in gods
in heroes
in passions
I still can’t
understand
I’ve looked
for it
in discipline
in laziness
in years of
complete
solitude
I’ve looked
for it
in poetry
in prose
in other forms
not yet
known
I’ve looked
for it
and looked
for it
all my life
and found it
before she
said
goodbye.


-----------------------
Image - Julio Greff

I Can't Say I'm Ashamed

You like to diagnose me with a new disorder every day
You like to tell me I’m out of my mind, utterly insane,
And maybe so,
Yes, maybe so,
But I can’t say I’m ashamed
I can’t say I’m ashamed to feel this fever
To sweat
To hit and claw
To fight all through the night
Even when you say this isn’t right
I can’t say I’m ashamed
I just can’t.

I know I’m a weirdo
I know some wires are disconnected up there
I know I’m too hot to touch
When it’s only your skin, bare,
Like a teapot screaming on your stove,
Like what lurks beneath your bed, unknown,
I know, I know,
But still, I can’t say I’m ashamed.

I take you into my rainforest
Because the rain is my favorite--
The kind that pours, unforgiving,
The kind that washes away each and every sin
The kind that makes me feel a little more human--
I pull you through tangled vines,
I tell you to let the rain soak you this time,
Let it get down in every one of your secret crevices,
I’m telling you, you’re dying of thirst,
You’ve been in this drought for far too long.
But you hide beneath big swooping leaves
You watch me behind fogged lenses, afraid,
But I am not afraid
I am not afraid
And I am still not ashamed.

You tell me I talk too much
This is a symptom, you say,
This is part of my problem, you say,
But it’s hard to listen to you over my own voice
I drown you out with the howling of the rain,
I let my thunderstorms wash me away,
Still, unashamed.

Is this wrong?
I like to talk to you, to walk with you, to try and make you feel something
Because I’m a screamer
I’ve been skinned alive by life
Each laugh is like lightning
Each cry is the rumble of thunder
And I am not ashamed of this
Why can’t you believe me?

I am too difficult, you say,
Understanding me is like asking the dead where they’ve gone
It’ll be hard, you say,
It’ll take some time,
And maybe so
Yes, maybe so
But I can’t say I’m ashamed
I can’t say I wanna change
I can’t say this fire will ever be burnt out--
I’ve run through countless thunderstorms
My arms out like wings,
And I let the world drench me as I sing
And even so,
Yes, even so,
The fire is still not doused
And I’ll never be ashamed.

​

                   Sarah Ann Loreth is a self taught fine art and travel photographer from New England, who specializes in conceptual portraiture. In her work she tries to convey a quiet stillness of emotion with a connection to her natural surroundings. She stumbled upon photography while working in the medical field and threw all her energy into teaching herself the craft. Soon, she was quitting her job, selling all her possessions, and setting off to live a life of adventure on the road teaching workshops all over North America. We caught up with Sarah to talk about how and when she first found her muse through a camera's lens, the import of emotions, travel, landscapes, and how "we are all shaped by and connected to our surroundings."


AHC: What first drew you to photography? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create in this way?

Sarah: Since I was a child I've always been interested in creating - be it painting, drawing, or writing, art has always been a therapy for me. One year for Christmas I received a DSLR and my life has never been the same. It just felt right to hold a camera in my hands. I threw all of my creative energy into taking photos and have been for the last 7 years.
​

AHC:  What was the most difficult piece for you to create, shoot, technically and conceptually? Have you ever had to abandon a piece because the elements just weren't coming together in the right way?

Sarah: Shooting and post process has always been the most challenging steps for me. Sometimes I can visualize an idea in my head, but it's a whole set of challenges to shoot the concept in a way that makes for easier and realistic post processing. I have had to put concepts on hold simply until I could figure out the best way to shoot it. 
​

AHC: Are there times when you become blocked creatively? What do you do to rekindle inspiration?

Sarah: Constantly. It's very easy for me to feel burnt out both creatively and emotionally. I've found it's best to give myself some time to rest and recharge before jumping back in.
​

AHC: Do you have any words of advice for young photographers-artists who are rooting around in themselves trying to find their own internal artistic vision, their truth, their niche, their poetry?

Sarah: Try everything. Don't be afraid to fail and perfectionism is one of the biggest killers of creativity. I believe so much in the power of art as a therapy it makes me happy anytime I see someone creating in the way that works best for them.
​

For more visit www.sarahannlorethphotography.com/ 

All images © Sarah Ann Loreth - Provided courtesy of the artist

why i’m crOne as fuck & why it’s nOne Of yOur business, but yOu shOuld be alarmed::start &
finish On this here bOdy
                                                                                                          
                                                                                                           //

the alpha, mother fucker

Dare call me lovely and we’ve got a problem.  You will feel the wrath of nine thousand imps.  They do
lie not dormant; they are not senseless.  They are resting just below the surface, just below that scaly
rash; on call for outbreak, on call to swipe out a fiend like you, a porno flame, a pussy lush, a real prick
beater.  My limbic system be divine, be awake, be on point.  

Crown me crone, I straddle broom, boy, and wolf –I hump into heaven that which should be
purgatory.  

Should you call me pretty, I rebuke you.  I rebuke you in the name of Odin, the king of all runes, the
symbolic carvings etched deeply into fallen teeth.  Odin comes for you in the curves of each word you
mutter, in the crooks of your name as it slides from your veins like an underdeveloped cell, hungry the
size of giants, remembering like fingerprints.   You are not even safe from your own words, dear skank.  

Inside the cave of your mouth, I wait nine days, your tongue a blanket upon which I create spell and
spill.  I spit rotten teeth at you, I let spindles of saliva become you, I encase you.  Do not expect your
cocoon to be deific.  The cocoon I spin shakes cradles and babies; men, rabies, and rapists.  

Look into my eyes, heathen, I am the bitch who will slap you clean of that filthy mind.  I am pretty in
my ugly, I am pretty as a gangrene toe.  

Before this is finished, you will call me pretty no more.  From this day forward, I am the queen of the
crones, the carrion baby you never wanted to have –yet, I persist, I exist despite your worst blathering,
your worst prayer and supplication.  Remember Odin galloping on the horizon of your droning.  And
my girl Hel posits several minions.  
                                                                                                         
                                                                                                          //

the omega, fool

Call me hag.  Devoid of age, I am both ageless and ancient.  I am Manāt.  Al'Uzza and Allat can stay
with Hubal all they want, spread legs like spider web silk sheets, open like mouths for honey-covered
loaves, ooze like milky galaxies over the moon.  The grind that calls to me is here –digging my hands
into this soil, planting pits, dissecting root from rat.  Those two young things can stay all night fucking
if they want; after all, young vaginas are the best fish of the sea and every boy wants a slice.  As for me,
I’m slicing my fingers, pressing hard into dirt, extracting mercury.  Sit still and listen.  Watch, do you see
the slivers of skin peeling back, curling into words like blood into a capillary.  It all reads hark.  Not for
angels or divinity, but for festering and depravity.  Can you even fathom that of which I speak, drone?  
You can’t even manage a night of my ugly.  

To maintain the exquisite levels of dreadful, I paint this face from the stain of a plant called poison.  
She be not Bella Donna, but she very well could be Datura.  She is birthed on quarter moon bellies,
swollen into rounds of boils that pop at the yule of first winter’s snow.  What is buried below is equal
to, but not greater than, that which is above.  The foul is not fouler at the head or the toe; as a matter
of fact, it grows best like a beast on the back of a whale of a bear of a ogre of a me.  

Don’t you know I be the spoiled meat you dread to eat.  Ravenous, you knife and fork away, in
throbbing states you mate your mouth with my meat; stretched inside the innards, the guts of a brute
like you, a brute of a lover of a smelly bastard of a shoe too big or small, but firm enough to kick you in
the arse.  

My crone-ness does not play, she comes for sport and trophy.  You will be conquered like the snapping
of fingers, the snap of a neck of a bird who’s just seen opportunity, who’s spotted a fool drooling on
bits of fleshy nipple handfuls, a bird clever enough to confiscate your eye when you’re not looking, off
dreaming on some young pretty girl tissues that have nothing to do with you.    

Ugly duckling fetus spawned from ugly duckling sperm; swim through you –birth me now or I shall
smite you yet again.  Strength of sand systematic strikes matches and branches, crunch down on
filaments, gather blades of sward –the nest I build caters to philistines and violators, houses heavy brick
dicks that spy on too much lady bits.  It suits you just fine.

I am the death you should birth.  What of Persephone and her time inside the earth, patient like an egg,
quiet like a scheming demon.  It is she and I you should fear.  She be my hag sister and I be her lover.  
When we press again each other, we turn into your mother.

Crone be the bone on which I balance, plucked penises from flower stamen, I pendulum writings
sucked from a thousand squid ink pods.  

Write into face, right into fate –the horrid garden burgeons with lockets of your daughter’s hair, golden
and raven alike.  Pierce the iris and bleed out pupils for the coming year, for each year I blossom
grotesque.  I am breasts of ten pairs, nipples of hanging cow udders, nails of yellowed talons.  

​I come from the nine worlds, bitches.  Hard.  Like hammered metal, sword status cutting limbs,
sharpening teeth, penetrating virgins.  Hard like a dozen penises in the hand of a celibate monk.  Hard.  
Like a skull bashing into my heart.  


-----------------------------
​image - Cameron Evans

(NOT) SORRY

The time I wanted to apologize for my vagina, I

               A. laid in bed with right hand cupped
               between my legs. Discharge dripped like a constant
               drizzle of urine. Legs bent at the knee -
               I was on my side making a path for the liquid to flow out. My side, sore
               from clenching muscles. Left hand to my eyes. Muscles clenched from yet
               another bacterial infection from yet another careless boy. I am
               careless, too.

               B. invited that same boy over anyway.

               C. pulled down my underwear, saw that it looked as if my vagina sneezed into them.

               D. could have told him it’s not so wet, it’s sick, as he moved one finger in and out.

               E. said it's just lady issues.

               F. hoped it wouldn’t gross him out.

               G. knew it grossed him out.

               H. still, let myself get off.

​



ROTTEN


A chin rests delicately on the violin; the hand
holds the bow, as if weightless, the strings
hum in rhythm. They make music, listen.

                I feel a tightening in my abdomen,
                the forced strokes of a bow.

                Men are carriers, a midwife says, but only women
                can be tested for HPV. This body is an instrument
                though I am out of tune.

                What to do? You wait for it to pass.
                There is nothing he can do.
                 Waiting, I wonder if the virus looks like a small axe
                 for cutting every chord, every chance
                 to ever be in key again.


The instrument
is made of the tree.
The tree was rotted, chopped through
the middle by a man
whose name
it did not know.

​



LOVE POEM: NECROPHILIA 
(AFTER "LOVE POEM: CENTAUR" BY DONIKA KELLY)


Nothing approaches a body like his. Hard
skin—like the shell of a roach. Eyes without flicker,
hands cold to the touch. My love: I seize each star,
each coyote of the night, moaning through a glow
I hope is enough to preserve your embalmment. I would make
an angel of you, by which I mean a suitor, by which I mean
a rupture—my hands
making shovel of themselves prying you
from the newly packed dirt. I would make the sweetest
of sounds, halo against horns, there, at the point of afterlife. Love,
I pound the earth for you, I pound the earth.

​
​
------------------------------------
Image - Karin & The Camera
www.flickr.com/photos/karinandthecamera/

Next Door Neighbor

The man who moans
Moans because he lives alone.
His moans are not the same
As the couple upstairs.
Say no more.

He moans because he is still alive.
His moans are like sighs.
They communicate isolation. It’s
The human equivalent of an owl’s hoo.
Almost like boo hoo. But not quite.

The guy’s lonely.

When the young men are lonely,
They whistle.
The man who moans can’t whistle,
But he wants company.
He’s lonely.

When we hear moaning, we
Feel discomfort. Humans recognize
Despair. It’s in our genes.
It’s coming and we know it.
It’s basic.

In the meantime, we laugh.
Or whatever. You don’t hear
A lot of moaning from the young.
Nor from the young at heart.
It’s disturbing.

A whistle is a mating call.
The young man wants company.
He expresses appreciation, however
Awkwardly, however rudely. It’s
Base, but it’s sexy.
Women secretly love it.
Dying men don’t whistle.

The dying want company
But not sexual attention.
Sex is the furthest thing
From the mind of the man
Who moans. He’s alone.

The penis no longer works. It
Doesn’t even perform its
Primary function, which
Is pissing. Even that is an ordeal.

Hey, this is real.

The man moans for all that’s gone,
Including his once sharp mind.

The ease of pissing goes first,
Then the brain.
The combination is discouraging.
You can’t piss and you can’t remember where you laid your
glasses.

Some cry.

I never do. I moan.




​
A Charlie Brown Christmas

Could there be anything worse?
Linus plays well but it’s too slow.
The air, thick with smoke, stinks.
Nostalgia is philosophy without hope.

Christmas with cartoon characters
Is like a funeral with mannequins.
Looking back isn’t anything more
Than an admission of guilt.

Mos Def would know what to do.
If you add motherfucker to every hallelujah
The patrons cheer up. We miss the past
Because we’re not good enough, not for yesterday,
Never mind last week.

We’re like high school drop-outs
Returning for graduation, there to
Watch our friends take a giant step.
We’re a nation on the sidelines,
Gentiles at a bar mitzvah.

We haven’t done our homework;
We never study. We’re going through the motions,
Attending class but not arriving prepared.
We left our books in the locker. Sorry.

The losers have been getting prizes.
The experiment is over. Limos
At 6th grade graduation count for nothing.
The hundred dollar bill divided by one thousand
Doesn’t cut it.

Some are convinced we’re on a winning streak,
But we missed the start. Now we’re talking
With our lawyers about a second chance.
But the winner’s already been declared. We lost.

​