Seeking Native music makers to mentor youth

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Harmonica-playing Mike Stevens was already carving out a place for himself as a bluegrass legend and certainly was a Canadian musician of considerable renown before he ever heard of Sheshatshui or Pikangikum. But now he's spending considerable time trying to figure out how he'll get to play music with the kids of the most troubled reserves in the country.

In November 2000, Stevens was booked on an Armed Forces tour in Goose Bay, going to Alert and then Bosnia. At a couple of concerts he dedicated a song to the young people of Sheshatshui, whom he had heard were having a lot of problems, "just to get the people kind of thinking about it-they need to think about that stuff."

Reporter Ted Ostrowski approached Stevens and offered to take him out to see for himself what was happening in the nearby Native community.

The experience has changed Stevens' life.

Ostrowski drove him to Sheshatsiu, where young people were sniffing gas out in the bush.

"What I saw-I just had no idea. It floored me."

"They were just kids, but I was scared," he said.

He started to play his music and the kids "come out laughing." He said he didn't care if they were laughing at him or with him, he knew they were making a connection.

"When I played for those kids, the ones who were sniffing, and played for them like two feet away from them, I realized that's what music is for. It has to do with spirit. It doesn't even have to do with music.

"When I play, I try to play from a place in my heart that it's like healing, and it's universal. It doesn't see color, and it doesn't see language. I can't even describe to you what it is. But I know what it is . . . and I want those kids to feel that. And I think they did feel that, even if just for a minute.

"Cause if they can feel that, it can be the spark or the catalyst for other things to happen. Like for things to happen in the community even, you know."

He's been back to Labrador.

He gives the kids harmonicas "and then we'll play. And we'll talk about music and all kinds of stuff, and I'll get hugs from those kids."

When Stevens returned from Sheshatshui the first time, he removed all his many awards from the walls and stored them away.

"They are important and I appreciate that I got them, but when I connected with those kids and I played, I don't know, I was just shown a bigger vision of everything. . . . I started to realize where my gifts are going to come from and they're going to come from connecting with these kids and trying to make a spark happen. And that's going to make my music better. That's going to make my soul bigger. It's going to make me a more real person."

A busy itinerary of bluegrass and folk festivals, church and school appearances and private functions between Toronto and Mississippi this year has two tentative trips to Sheshatshui pencilled in.

On May 5, Stevens will appear at Hugh's Room in Toronto at an event styled Benefit Music For At Risk Youth. The benefit is the brainstorm of an emerging support group for Mike Stevens called the ArtsCan Circle.

ArtsCan Circle grew out of an impromptu meeting between Stevens and members of the Toronto arts community in January.

Estelle Klein, former long-time artistic director of the legendary Mariposa Folk Festival, met Stevens at the January inauguration of the ArtsCan Circle, which she launched on his behalf. That was after hearing him on CBC Radio and being impressed with his story.

"I heard this guy and I thought this is an amazing thing that he's doing. You know, I work with a lot of musicians, so I was interested in him as a musician, but more than that, I was interested in how powerful his story was. So I thought, this guy needs more people to work with him, or he could burn out."

ArtsCan Circle took on the challenge of helping the musician turn tentative trips to isolated Native communities into firm dates.

It's music without a message Stevens is taking them. Forty-four-year-old Stevens says he'll have no partof delivering anybody's agenda. He just wants to sing the universal language that says I care about you and we can share this, with no subtext of social programs attached. And absolutely no religious proselytizing.

Those were the conditions Stevens insisted upon when the Christian charity Careforce International paid his way back to Labrador last Christmas. The trip was sanctioned by community leaders, Stevens said.

He's grateful for the help Careforce gave him and his banjo- and violin-playing friend Raymond McLain to take their music to Native communities.

"I've been working as hard as I could to try and start music programs and ways to connect with these kids on my own," said Stevens. "Bought $5,000 worth of harps and took a couple of trips out there and all that, but it was getting to cost so much money that I couldn't afford to do it.

"What [Careforce] let me do, is they let me go and just run amuck and do what I do with my harmonicas and workshops, and go out into the field to find kids and work that way."

He's been to Pikangikum too.

"I'll do kind of dumb things, but only because in my heart I know that it's right. And you know, I'll try and find the kids who are sniffing, and I'll ask people to show me where they are. I'll load up 50 harmonicas into my bag and I'll walk out into the bush in the middle of the night, even when people are saying, 'oh, you're going to get stabbed, you're going to get hurt.' Well, I'll tell you what: that is not the case. They are absolutely kids with nothing to do, and they're just trying to get away."

Now Stevens hopes that ArtsCan Circle will keep the momentum going. Although it didn't start that way, now "it's got a huge Native involvement," he said.

Stevens stresses that it's not about him. He wants more Native musicians to get involved.

"The last thing I want to be perceived as is another white person coming in to save the world. That's totally not the angle I'm on."

He's also wondering whether ArtsCan will be abl to get musical instruments donated to some of the communities.

He has already collected half a transport truck full of instruments and found a trucking company to take them to Labrador.

He and a friend drove to Sheshatshiu and put on workshops at the treatment centre for a week or so. On the last day, Stevens played for free at a folk festival so he would have the opportunity to let local musicians know "the instruments are over there. Now why don't you go and lend a half an hour . . . an hour a week" to share with the kids. He said he delivered the message to anyone who would listen.

Klein said the initial ArtsCan gathering attracted 20 to 30, mostly musicians. Duke Redbird, who works for CITY TV in Toronto, attended and offered his support.

Klein said they talked about how they could help Stevens and a few like-minded performers get to the communities, to play music for free and learn to work with the kids. They all agreed on the importance of an ongoing commitment by "little teams of people, two or three at a time, who could go into a community and that they come back-that these kids are not left high and dry."

She said they also considered how the arts might play a role in creating projects that would lead to some jobs for some of the youth.

"It isn't just about music."

The day before Windspeaker went to press, Stevens was packing for a gig in Pickle Lake, Ont. Feb. 24 to 28. He hoped to visit the Mishkeegogamang reserve at New Oznaburg, although it wasn't an official stop.

He just wants to do what he does well-play harmonica-and share some time with the kids he meets.

For more background on Stevens go to this Web site: www.artscancircle.ca/mikes_story.html. Stevens' itinerary is on his own Web site at www.mikestevensmusic.com.