Canculture.com
On Provincial, John K. Samson, the front man of beloved Winnipeg folk-rockers the Weakerthans set out to uncover the forgotten histories and contemporary culture of his home province of Manitoba.
The project was initially conceived as a series of 7″ records based around different Manitoba roads before Samson decided to expand the concept.
“I kind of got it into my head that I’d like a record where I could take people to each song if they had a couple days off and a car,” Samson says. “I could take them to the songs and show them the places and kind of make a musical map of a radius around the place that I live.”
On paper, a Manitoba-themed record may not sound like the most riveting listen, but Samson finds some fascinating stories and his way with words coupled with solid folk-rock makes the songs all the more intriguing. The lyric book begins with an epigraph from Canadian poet Karen Solie: “Everything happens here, then nothing for a long, long time.” In a way, it’s the thesis of the album, and one that doesn’t attempt to dispel the perceived placid nature of the province; rather, it leads to the realization that there are stories everywhere if you’re willing to look for them.
“That just points to the fact that all of the places that I researched and visited for this record, to the naked eye, they’re not bustling places,” Samson says. “There’s not a lot going on, but an incredible amount of story and life have been lived in these places and those stories have a real permanence that exist[s] beyond the exterior of what you see when you go there.”
One such place was the Ninette Sanatorium, Manitoba’s first treatment centre for tuberculosis that operated for most of the 20th century. It appears back-to-back on the album, first as the study subject of a frustrated grad student in the comical and upbeat “When I Write My Master’s Thesis,” and then in the tender “Letters in Icelandic From the Ninette San,” written from the perspective of a patient. The songs are the spiritual centrepiece of the album, and as a physical location, Ninette embodies the marginalized history Samson wants to expose.
“It’s this place where thousands of people lived and died and created this totally unique community that has just been wiped away,” Samson explains. “It’s now an RV park and you’re not even allowed to go and look at the plaques that were lovingly installed by patients and doctors over the years. These places exist everywhere.”
The album also does its part to sing the praises of unsung heroes. “www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle” is written in the form of an online petition by the citizens of Riverton to induct Reggie “The Riverton Rifle” Leach into the Hockey Hall of Fame. A town hero, Leach overcame a difficult childhood to play several successful seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers before his career was cut short by struggles with alcoholism, from which he’s since recovered.
“He never really put together a string of seasons that would, on paper, make him eligible for the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Samson explains. “But I saw a great sense of pride the people of Riverton take in him—there’s an arena and a mural and a street named after him in the town. I wanted to try and figure out a way of honouring Reggie and discussing those things that you can’t find in statistics.”
Those who visit the URL will find an actual petition created by Samson that they can sign should they feel so inclined. It’s gathered over 1,100 signatures since it was posted in 2010, more than half of which have come following the release of Provincial. Samson hopes to gain more signatures as he tours, and plans to submit them to the Hall of Fame at the end of the year.
Talk of hockey naturally works its way to the return of the Winnipeg Jets, something that leaves Samson with mixed feelings.
“I haven’t taken to them yet,” he says. “I believe that the Winnipeg Jets existed until 1996 and the franchise that was the Winnipeg Jets is the Phoenix Coyotes. I’m very much opposed to the idea that these are the Winnipeg Jets. To me, that’s a huge mistake to name them that.”
However, Samson admits he’s happy that high calibre hockey is back in Winnipeg and, much like Leach’s impact in Riverton, he sees its effect on the people of the city.
“Mood accounts for much more than we give it credit,” he says. “I think it’s been a pretty spectacular season for Winnipeggers and you can feel it in the city. Again, it’s one of those intangible things. I personally don’t believe that a hockey team or a sports franchise does anything economically to a city—I think it’s a mistake to think that it does—but it does something to the people of the city.”
Samson and Winnipeg often go together in the same breath, but as specific as his songs get, his music has still managed to find a worldwide audience. He doesn’t fully understand it himself, but he has his suspicions.
“I guess it’s just some great commonality that we’re all from somewhere, that we all live in unique and universal places, that there’s something unique about every place and also universal. I always enjoy writing that distorts a place in a way that you haven’t heard it before and that’s kind of what I aspire to do.”
Provincial aims to show there’s more to Manitoba than meets the eye. Mission accomplished.
John K. Samson plays La Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent) Friday, March 9. $18 advance/$20 at the door.