They Are Not "Northern", They Are 360 Degree Lights

Last night we went to a FANTASTIC concert. Nathan Rodgers was in town, doing a fundraiser for the Alainait (music and art) festival that will happen this summer.

Rodgers is a terrific young folk singer. He's a son of Stan and nephew of Garnet, but I would say he has no need to rest on the family laurels - he is an amazing musician in his right. Check out his website: www.nathanrodgers.ca

We had a chance, along with some other local musicians, to jam with him on Friday night. At one point, Nathan revealed that he has studied, and knows some, Tuvan and Mongolian throat singing, and proceeded to throat sing with a couple local Inuit throat singers who were there. It was a transcendent moment. As was the moment last night at the concert when one of those same Inuit singers (Celina Kalluk), got up and sang along when Nathan performed his father's (Stan Rodgers') classic folk ballad, the Northwest Passage, having translated the lyrics into Inuktitut.

We walked home, across town, after the concert. We took a route down the steep hills along Frobisher Bay, along a snowbmobile path a little away from the houses. The northern lights, which are often going at night now and often located in the skies to the south of us, were absolutely spectacular. They lit up the sky in a 360 degree circle, vast undulating waves of skipping and dancing, sparkling light. We stopped, awe struck, in the middle of the darkness, with our heads back and mouths open, hardly able to move it was so incredible. We would slowly rotate around, oohing and aahing as the lights moved like waves over our heads.

Music and light. Spring in Iqaluit is good.