The Sound of the North: Aural Cues to Canadian Identity

The Canadian North fits precisely into Robert L. Thayer Jr.’s (2012) definition of a bioregion, as a unique place definable by its natural and human environment. In interviews conducted during the winter of 2013-14, Inuit of Arviat, Nunavut, identify the “North” in language consistent with Thayer’s “life-place,” noting their strong affective bonds (Guy, 2009) with the land. Increasingly, however, this land becomes not only their own, but representative of Canada in its assertion of sovereignty over the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Musicians, then, embrace the arctic as a creative space in attempts to answer the question of what it is to be a Canadian composer, joining a long line of European intellectual thought which exoticizes the northern limits of their imaginations. Caroline Traube (2004, 2012) offers that composers represent the musical north through the use of cold, dry sounds: metallic flutes, piercing harmonics from stringed instruments, and the avoidance of “warming” vibrato. In this paper, I contrast the representations of the sound of the north in compositions such as Schafer’s Snowforms and North/White and Jean Coulthard’s Symphonic Images: Visions of North with the concept of the sound of the North from its inhabitants. Despite the vastly different experience of – and limited collaboration between - Inuit and composers of the European art music tradition, the two cultures share many elements of the sonic North: those related to the cold, crisp, and dry celebrated both in European folkore and in Inuit daily life. These elements combine to strengthen the North’s position as a significant symbol of Canadian identity.