FIDDLING AROUND
JOHN ARCAND IS A FAMOUS METIS FIDDLER AND FOUNDER OF JOHN ARCAND FIDDLE FEST
So now when Johnny he was between five and six
He asked his dad for a fiddle. He couldn’t find one.
So his uncle, he gave him one. That fiddle it had no head and just two strings.
That’s where he learned to play. And when he was about twelve that was when he went to play in the dances.
He used to play guitar, banjo, and mandolin.
And from there, I told him to keep it up.
And my husband said, “Ah, he’ll never make it.”
And I said, “Watch and see.”
I said, “One of these days, he’ll be up where he wants to go.”
So Vic, he woulda lived now he woulda find out what I was talking about.
Now I’m glad my son today is where he is! — Emma Arcand
John Arcand’s mother Emma wrote that poem about her son before her death in 2006. He indeed made it where he wanted to go: John has become Western Canada’s most decorated fiddle player.
Thanks to his passion for preserving Métis traditions and his work with youth, he’s been awarded the Molson Prize, the Order of Canada, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and numerous others, including a National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Arts and Culture. He’s also made 16 recordings and written more than 400 original tunes.
He even got to play for and meet Queen Elizabeth II at the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Gala in 2005.
He remembers exactly what she said to him: “Jolly good.”
Actor Gordon Tootoosis was standing with John when they met the Queen. As she walked down the receiving line, he whispered in John’s ear: “I bet this was the first time she ever met two Sasquatches!”
John retells the story with a sly grin on his face. At 75, he enjoys a good laugh and telling tales from a storied life.
He and his wife Vicki host people from all over the world at the John Arcand Fiddle Fest at Windy Acres, their acreage south of Saskatoon. Festival-goers camp out in the hay field for four days of fiddling, dancing and cultural workshops every August.
Over the last 20 years, the festival has grown and evolved, alongside the couple’s relationship. They met in 1997 at the Emma Lake Fiddle Camp. John was in the midst of lastminute plans for the first year of his fiddle festival. Three years later, they were married in the same place where they first met.
The first John Arcand Fiddle Fest was in Greencourt, Alberta. When the couple bought Windy Acres, the festival moved there with them. Much of the festival is held in a beautiful open-air building, complete with a permanent dance floor.
Saskatchewan is enjoying a resurgence in fiddle playing.
“That’s been fuelled by people like Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac. The amount of people fiddling through the festival has grown exponentially,” says Vicki.
People can learn fiddle, guitar, jigging and square dancing at 110 workshops during the four-day festival. There’s also a Métis cultural camp, which includes workshops in traditional art forms, like beading and storytelling.
However, the festival’s fiddling contests, held for all ages and ability levels, are waning. Vicki says it’s a sign of fiddling’s evolution. Fiddling contests and dances were once held in small towns across the province, nearly every weekend.
Now, their festival’s contest is one of the only ones left in Western Canada. Old-time dances are almost nonexistent.
“It’s one of those dying arts. In John’s day, when playing the fiddle was a form of entertainment, contests used to be (huge),” Vicki says.
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The couple lives in a house built in the early 1900s, still heated by a wood stove. There’s a huge wood pile behind the house, thanks to John’s legendary chainsaw skills. Much of his youth was spent working on his family’s farm, chopping wood and milking cows. He began working in logging camps at 16. Money saved from that work paid for his first fiddle.
Jean Baptiste “John” Arcand was born near Debden, Sask., in 1942 and is one of 14 of Victor and Emma’s children. He grew up learning to play fiddle and dance. He was performing by age 12.
“Everybody played fiddle in my dad’s house. All the uncles, my grandfather — everybody played,” he recalls.
Fiddling and dancing helped pass the time on long winter nights in the days before television and when the radio only came on once a week.
John is known for the impeccable sense of timing in his music, a necessary skill to guide dancers. It’s something he learned from watching dances as a child.
John and his first wife, Paulette Gaudry, have six children, all of whom are musically inclined. It’s in their blood.
In a tragic workplace accident in 1990, their son John Guy died. His father advocated passionately for improved occupational health and safety rules in the years that followed. Rows of fiddles hang from the walls in a room in the Arcands’ house; John made half of them; the rest he collected over the years. There’s even a rare fiddle made in 1896 by Colin Mezin, a famous French luthier (fiddle maker).
An old bunkhouse doubles as John’s workshop and music studio, where a strong smell of varnish used on the finished fiddles hits the nostrils.
The shelves are lined with an array of wood carving tools, along with more than 20 rental fiddles. He shows a visitor an almost finished fiddle. It’s incredibly light. The spruce wood is so thin it feels as if it will bend.
He’s made 56 handcrafted fiddles to date. At least 250 hours of work goes into each, as every one of the 76 pieces must be made by hand.
“I figure it’s part of my legacy,” he says. “I don’t know how (much longer) I’ll be making them.”
He enjoys the process and. With his characteristic sense of humour, he says, “Let’s put it this way. You’ve got lots of time to think.”
John’s fiddles are different than the average. Other fiddles may look nicer, but the sound quality doesn’t match up because the fiddles are too heavy, he says.
“I know what to do to get the sound out of them.”
**** Saskatchewan’s Métis fiddling tradition has a unique sound; in other parts of the country, Cape Breton Celtic-inspired music is more prevalent. Here, the Métis style has French Canadian roots and tends to be played in minor keys. The fiddler’s attack on the bow is more rhythmic because they traditionally always played solo.
The tunes were passed down by ear; changes between players evolved the music into the current Métis style.
Keeping time with your feet is a hallmark of Métis fiddling; as John takes up his fiddle to play a tune, his right foot immediately starts tapping out the rhythm. On all of his albums, his toe-tapping is recorded and amplified.
“He doesn’t like drummers. His feet do the work,” smiles Vicki. “Most of John’s original work has a John Arcand feel to it. There’s just that ‘thing’ that makes it sound like a Johnny tune.”
His repertoire is broad. He often writes Ukrainian tunes, along with old-time and French Canadian ones. He played at dances so often in his earlier years that many of his oldtime waltz tunes were inspired by watching the dancers spin and twirl.
Vicki says everything from a road sign to driving past an old settlement inspires his creative process.
“He writes tunes because he becomes influenced by people, places and things. He says they come into his head and they won’t leave until he brings them out.”
Other times, he’d be out cleaning the chicken coop and come in the house, telling Vicki to grab her guitar because he had a new tune.
“The mind is a really crazy thing,” he smiles.
They used to travel the world performing together — Vicki on guitar, John on fiddle.
One of Vicki’s favourite memories is a trip to Dublin, Ireland in 2001 to play for the president. It was part of a cultural exchange with the headquarters for traditional Irish music.
John and Vicki still do school presentations together. Vicki tells students the Métis played the fiddle because it was easy to transport.
“You can make a leather satchel and throw it over your shoulder and go. They were, for the most part, voyageurs and fur traders and trappers — and a piano wouldn’t fit in the canoe!” she laughs.
John spends a week each month during the school year in Île-à-laCrosse, teaching students at Rossignol Elementary and High School. The Saskatchewan Cultural Exchange Society in Regina started the Fiddles in the North program.
Ted Flett, a support worker at the school, says there’s now some advanced and elite players in the school division who were taught by John.
The community was in danger of losing its musical heritage before Fiddles in the North began eight years ago. The original funding is finished, but the school division has picked it up. The community has a Métis dance troupe and players like to jam with John when he’s in town. The school has also taken groups to his Fiddle Fest.
“Our town is no longer in danger of losing the fiddle, which is a big part of our history, our culture, even the vitality of the community,” says Flett.
John’s been given a rare gift, and he’s thankful.
“Just being able to play until you’re 75 is a highlight,” he says.
He’s mostly retired from performing now. Students come to the acreage for lessons and he encourages them to persist and practice. Don’t underestimate music’s benefits, he tells them.
“Sometimes kids don’t realize how important music is compared to hockey or whatever. It creates a great mindset,” he says.
“With a little bit of music knowledge, you can teach your kids or grandkids. It’s that kind of a thing that you can share with other people.”
He thinks fiddling will go on in Saskatchewan, but the sound will evolve and change. It’s a big part of the reason he founded the festival.
“It’s to pass on these traditions to the younger people so they wouldn’t die off,” says Vicki. “He was bound and determined that (these traditions) could not just go. Somebody had to share it.”
To learn more about John Arcand, his life and contributions to Saskatchewan’s cultural history, contact the Gabriel Dumont Institute, which has published a book about John: Master of the Métis Fiddle.
The 2018 21st annual John Arcand Fiddle Fest will be held Aug. 9-12 at Windy Acres. For information, visit www.johnarcandfiddlefest.com.
He writes tunes because he becomes influenced by people, places and things. He says they come into his head and they won’t leave until he brings them out. — Vicki Arcand