Katrina Kadoski

Description
Katrinia Kadoski lived in Clayoquot Sound for three years, caretaking ‘Cougar Annie’ Jordan’s garden, immersing herself in the folklore surrounding the legendary pioneer, while living off the grid.

In her performance, Kadoski uses dramatic narrative, images, letters and original compositions to celebrate the life of pioneer Ada Annie Jordan, who earned her nickname by shooting dozens of cougars to supplement her income.

On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’, host Peter McCully asked Kadoski about the legend of ‘Cougar Annie’.

“She was five foot two and had hands like a logger,” said Kadoski. “You hear the stories about hunting a cougar in the middle of the night and how it had two toes in the trap and how her son Lawrie was killed, and that the person that killed him ended up getting eaten by a cougar and the buttons of that guy's coat fell out of the belly when she skinned it open. It's these sort of things that you can't really make up that tend to live on for a long time in people's imaginations. I think it's ultimately what this story does to somebody's imagination. I think that's what makes it a bit infectious.”

The California-born Jordan settled in the Clayoquot coastal rainforest in 1915 with her first husband and three young children. A five-acre garden she carved out of the wilderness provided food and income throughout her long life. She gave birth to eight more children in the remote location and rarely left the property until old age and blindness forced her to relocate to Port Alberni, where she died at the age of 97.

Jordan was anything but a typical woman. She trapped more than 70 cougars, homesteaded a rainforest bog, opened a remote post office and outlived four husbands.

Kadoski has been a musician from an early age, and recently released a box set of four albums, three of which were recorded during the pandemic, the single ‘Moonbeams’ is featured during the interview.

If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part - Today in BC

Sooke-based singer-songwriter Katrina Kadoski has never been one to shy away from a new challenge.

In 2007 she moved to an off-the-grid historical homestead 53 kilometres north of Tofino to a place once owned by a settler known as Cougar Annie.

She turned that experience into an opportunity to put her musical talent to work and, over the course of three years, she put together Cougar Annie Tales a musical and theatrical exploration of Annie’s remarkable life.

READ MORE: Cougar Annie comes alive

It was a natural development for Kadoski who has been involved in music and entertainment for as long as she can remember.

“I’ve been singing on stage and in theatre since I was a kid,” Kadoski said.

“And my latest project with Why Aren’t You Famous is just perfect. It sort of fits in with my life.”

WAYF is a project of two of Kadoski’s friends, ellen cherry (lowercase is intentional) and Andrew Grimm, who live in Baltimore and who host the WAYF podcast that has been making waves across the country.

Since the podcast started last year, the pair has travelled all over the U.S. and collaborated with a variety of songwriters to perform a series of concerts.

The songwriters must compose a new original song about a chosen topic for each episode. The hosts, in turn, compose their own song on the same topic and present all the new music as part of their podcast.

RELATED: Podcasts can be seen here

On Friday (Nov. 24) Kadoski will become the latest part of the cherry/Grimm podcast series.

“The topic was perfect for me,” explained Kadoski. “It’s about finding yourself in a new chapter in life and not knowing exactly what to make of it.”

The same concert will feature Kadoski’s trio, the Edgedwellers, made up of Kadoski (vocals, guitar, banjo), Peter Wahl (vocals guitar, bass) and drummer Graham Mackenzie. The Edgedwellers feature stirring harmonies, dynamic arrangements, and compelling storytelling.

Since moving back to Sooke in 2010, Kadoski has been involved in a number of projects and can often be seen hosting the open mic nights at the 17-Mile Pub. - Black Press

Amy Smart
Aug 25, 2012 1:00 AM
You can study history books all you want, but nothing quite brings the past to life like a dramatic performance.

In Cougar Annie Tales, Sooke’s Katrina Kadoski introduces us to one of the province’s most resilient characters by assuming the role herself. Cougar Annie, born Ada Anne Jordan, survived to 96 on an isolated piece of land near Hesquiat Harbour, 50 km north of Tofino. The woman’s tough as nails — outliving four husbands, birthing 11 children and killing more than 70 cougars. But as Kadoski guides the audience along her life path, Jordan’s loneliness, humour and heart of gold make her a truly endearing character.

This is the kind of show that is made for Fringe and will appeal to a wide audience. It's multidisciplinary and well paced. Kadoski tells her story by performing real-life letters between Jordan and others, talking directly to the audience as various characters, as well as song. Her folk ballads intimate some of the more tender emotions of sadness and loss that Jordan herself may not have spoken about directly. And the subject matter is what the musical form is made for, she covers everything from dissatisfying husbands, an unforgiving life in the wild and the heartbreak of losing a child. All the while, projections of historical photos, letters and documents fill out the narrative on screen.

Kadoski is a confident performer who has created a well-polished cultural addition to Vancouver Islands heritage. - Victoria Times Colonist

Some people manage to live a simple life with flair.

In Prince George we can look to Granny Seymour or Six Mile Mary as examples - people who transcend their rustic lifestyle so profoundly, they become household names in their community even though most people can't even tell you their real ones.

For the record (according to British Columbia Heritage), Six Mile Mary was born Mary Boucher and got her nickname based on the hunting and fishing she did in the Six Mile Lake area near Prince George. She lived to be 108 years old.

Also according to British Columbia Heritage, her friend Granny Seymour was born Margaret Bouchey and, in addition to working at her father's Hudson's Bay fort at Prince George, she obtained her food and medicine from the land, living to the age of 114.

On Vancouver Island, there is another such figure, and local audiences get to meet her, in musical spirit at least. On Saturday night, singer, songwriter and actor Katrina Kadoski will introduce Prince George to Cougar Annie, a woman who lived off the land and waters in the Clayoquot Sound area. She passed away in 1985 at the age of 97. Her actual name was Ada Annie Rae-Arthur (Lawson) but she earned her popular moniker for defending her little house, orchard, garden and family from the cougars stalking nearby, or collecting the provincial bounty once offered in the early-mid 20th century.

She was a sharp shot. In 1955 alone she dropped 10 cougars. And when one of her husbands turned abusive, she ran him off with a shotgun aimed his way. He knew she wasn't kidding and he knew she wouldn't miss. He never returned.

People have been returning to her little farm for decades, however, because it is to this day one of the points of interest in Hesquiat Peninsula Provincial Park a little north of Tofino. After her death, a friend purchased the property and began the ongoing preservation work that makes it an oasis of human history on the B.C. coast.

One of the caretakers and tour leaders was Kadoski. She was not from the area, but she found she could never leave it behind once she got Cougar Annie in her sights.

"I heard about her on my first date with this guy I was interested in, and the question came up in a conversation we were having about where he most wanted to go in the world, if he could pick absolutely anywhere. And for a guy who was well travelled, really smart, who could have picked just about anywhere, he said it was Cougar Annie's garden."

Kadoski wasn't content to leave that conversation as rhetorical. In 2007 she moved to Cougar Annie's museum homestead as part of the Boat Basin Foundation's care and maintenance of the unique place. She was there, off and on, for three years.

It is a five-acre spread (the foundation's overall parcel is about 117 acres) with a healthy garden. It is an homage to homesteading on Vancouver Island and the woman who carved this one carefully within the oceanic rainforest starting in 1915. She raised some animals, had a commercial plant nursery, operated a small general store, was the area's post office for awhile, and that still shows thanks to her pioneering skills and the passions of caretakers like Kadoski.

It's about as isolated a place today as it was in Cougar Annie's day. Kadoski was naturally lonely while living on-site on the far-west coast of the island, but like the matriarch herself, she channeled that into creativeness.

"It was me making friends with the muses around there," she said. "I was inspired, it kept me busy, and it was fun to have a project that was coming naturally to me."

At first, Kadoski just wrote songs of any subject matter that came to mind. But soon, the power of that place asserted itself in her composition.

"The more I told that story (to tourists), the more I felt the impressions come to life that went into the songs," she said. "After a while I'd look at different areas and different times of her life. If I felt particular moments were dramatic, then I concentrated on those. It was so easy to be inspired by those stories, and it sure put my own life in perspective.


"It told me that even when I think things are going bad, they aren't as bad as they could be, comparatively. I don't have to run out with a shotgun to get a cougar off my chicken coop in the middle of the night. It has made me so grateful for all the civil unrest that went on from her generation to mine that gave us the tools to communicate better than ever before.

"We don't always use them, but we have them."

Kadoski eventually realized she had more than a collection of folk songs inspired by Cougar Annie. She had a stylized biography. With her access to the foundation's materials, by talking with Annie's family and people who knew her real-life protagonist, and delving into historical documents, Kadoski added elements of theatre to the package she named Cougar Annie Tales.

"I would estimate it is 40 per cent theatre and 60 per cent music," she said. "There are also some real documents I got access to - letters written to her - so I dramatize them. Some of it is pretty funny, but it informs the show."

She added costumes and props for production effect, the most informative visual element being Kadoski striking her Cougar Annie sharpshooter pose that has become the symbol of the show. The gun isn't real, by the way. The barrel is a modified broom handle.

"I got it from this six-year-old I know, and I was always asking to borrow it for shows, so I eventually just asked if I could have it on full-time loan. He looked so sad when he agreed, but he definitely gets a kick out of how I use it," she said.

She has been performing the show for several years, but it is still being honed, Kadoski said.

"Many people randomly know the story and some have met this woman, and that's a real gem for me, because they come up to me after the show to tell me these stories and I have to sometimes work it into the show."

These human peepholes into the Cougar Annie reality, along with the careful study she has made of the official documents (there is the Margaret Horsfield book Cougar Annie's Garden that won the 2000 BC Book Prize and surpassed 16,000 copies sold at last printing) makes Kadoski a unique authority on the pioneer's life. She has no definitive plans to write her own book about her mentor muse, but doesn't rule it out either, subject to spending more personal time there.

"If I did write about it, I'd want to walk that land and experience that culture and that landscape where the next point of land is Japan, just to put me in that space of consciousness," she said.

But she has other creative projects, too. She was part of a five-piece band called Honeygirl for a while. Now she is forming a trio, and counts four different endeavors she is currently involved with, including one with Prince George's Kathleen Greenfield (now the co-artistic director of Snafu Dance Theatre in Victoria).

In the immediate frame of time, Kadoski will be working through the area in her Cougar Annie garb. She is looking forward to Prince George in particular because she has such fond memories of 2005 when she came through as a member of Allen Dobb's band. It's also home to other musicians she appreciates.

"My favourite songwriter comes from there, so I often think of Prince George. Raghu Lokanathan is the best, we're so lucky to have him. I often noodle around with his song Ramona, I just love that one, but he is an amazing talent for us songwriters to look to."

Cougar Annie Tales will be performed on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at Art Space. Tickets available now at Books And Company. - Prince George Citizen

Kat Kadoski never thought she’d cry any more tears than the day she found out the former love of her life tragically died from a sudden heart attack in 2018, but two years later, those feelings came flooding back at Billings Spit in Sooke.

The Sooke woman remembers being a “big sobbing mess” while looking out into the ocean, wearing a green coat that belonged to her former partner and surfer Neil Weizel.

“I cried so much into that coat to the point where I couldn’t smell him anymore,” said Kadoski. “Grief is an unexpected visitor, and it feels so gross. I needed something to put back into a place that he left empty.”


That’s how After the Shipwreck was born.

The singer-songwriter’s album was released on Dec. 17 with 10 songs written in honour of Weizel. One of the songs, Moonbeams, recreates when Kadoski would wait on the shore looking for Weizel to finish surfing.



READ MORE: Sooke’s Kadoski is a musical force

Kadoski said most of the songs she wrote about Weizel were never intended to be released, but her friends’ positive encouragement nudged her into a full-blown album. The cover of a condolence card inspires the album’s cover art that her close friend gave to her.

Kadoski worked with Jude Pelley, an award-winning producer from Nova Scotia. Pelley added guitars, mandolin, bass to the final mix, while Baltimore-based musicians Jen and Scott Smith contributed supporting vocals.

The album was initially intended for an April release, followed by a cross-country tour, but the pandemic turned her plans upside down. Now, she’s releasing it at the end of the year as a final goodbye.

This is Kadoski’s third album, after releasing 2016’s acoustic folk Dreamtime and her 1998 debut album Whirlpools. Her music is available online or through a physical copy.


Looking into 2021, she’s looking forward to releasing an EP titled Soulfire, which are additional songs that she’s written since this album. Also, she’s continuing to release music with her eclectic acoustic group, The Edgedwellers.

Kadoski plans to host a live stream concert that will feature music from her new album and performances with her The Edgedwellers bandmates. The live stream takes place at 7 p.m. on Dec. 17

“This album has been Buckley’s cough syrup for my soul,” said Kadoski. “The magic in all of this is the fact that you can take something horrible and turn it into something beautiful. - Black Press

radio interview for Cougar Annie Show - CFIS Radio

The legendary Cougar Annie (see www.boatbasin.org) will be brought to life on Friday, January 29th at the Gabriola Coffeehouse (see event time, place, price) as Katrina Kadoski brings her original songs, stories and pictures of the person and place to us.

As caretaker at Cougar Annie’s Garden, in its spectacular setting of coastal rainforest in Clayoquot Sound, Katrina has in some ways inhabited the persona of Cougar Annie since she arrived there almost 3 years ago. She has connected with the land in a reflective way to Annie, and has a personal experience to what it might have felt like to be a young woman, in a remote place, with all the work, in all kinds of weather. Her show will provide a deeper sense of both the land and the pioneers who lived there.

The stories of Cougar Annie, who survived in the wilderness by her wily ways, having arrived on these forbidding shores almost 100 years ago, have been the subject of a huge repository of folklore. Katrina has drawn upon many sources as she composed her more than 30 songs and narrative about this colourful character and her unconventional life.

Having won a Rotary Music youth vocalist scholarship at age 9, Katrina has since become a skilled guitarist, songwriter, and has studied piano and banjo to accompany many years of vocal training, which include jazz, musical theater and opera. Her voice has been described as powerful, sweet, and unapologetic. Her debut CD of original songs, Whirlpools, was recorded in Calgary, AB and released independently in 1998. She has since performed in Canada, the USA, Ireland, and England.

Katrina is also working toward producing a recording of the songs on CD entitled Pioneer ballads and Cougar Annie’s tales.

Cougar Annie’s Garden is now owned by the charitable organization, Boat Basin Foundation. The Foundation works to maintain the heritage site where Annie eked out an existence for herself and her family, and stewards the surrounding 117 acres of remote west coast forest that has become the site of an educational retreat facility.

As well as drawing from her more than 30 original songs on this topic, Katrina will show a series of slides, both new and old, of the area, accompanied by narrative drawn from her considerable research on the area and Cougar Annie.

For more about Katrina, see her website at katrinakadoski.com, or her myspace page.

Event details: Location: Agi Hall. The evening’s schedule: 6:30 pm: set-up and jam. 7:00 pm: open stage. 9-10pm: feature. Admission is $5.00.

Tags: Agi Hall, Cougar Annie, Gabriola Coffehouse, Katrina Kadoski

Filed in music - Gabriola News - Events- January 2010

I wake up every morning to UVic's campus radio station, which plays folk music in the mornings and offers hot tips on local talent when I'm lucid enough to remember them.

The other day Katrina Kadoski and Hugh Fisher came on the radio to sing some songs and promote the projects they are working on.

Katrina's current project stems from her work with the Boat Basin Foundation, where she learned about the life of Cougar Annie, a pioneer woman who lived and worked on remote lands north of Tofino. As the caretaker of Cougar Annie's Garden, Katrina was inspired to write songs about Cougar Annie's life and the landscape out of which the legends surrounding her grew.

Hugh has been working with Katrina to support her songs musically, and is also preparing for his own CD release. They played their first of several shows together last night at the Orange Hall.

Hugh opened the night with a short set of his own material. He played a mix of songs and instrumentals, showcasing his talents on guitar and harmonica. His voice is soft, smokey and very compelling. His song Lost Lovers opened with the lyrics "If I fall asleep I will dream of you; If I dream of you my heart will break". They seem thin to write them out on the screen, but something in their delivery drew me right in. Perhaps Hugh just has a way with hypotheticals: in Lazy Day he sang about doing nothing at all, and moved me with the lyrics "If a girl comes by, I won't look [...] If the earth quakes I won't get shook".

Next was a set of Cougar Annie songs played by Katrina with backup from Hugh and a percussionist. Katrina introduced the story of Cougar Annie. Long before older women were called cougars for a different reason, Cougar Annie got her nickname for allegedly shooting over 80 cougars to protect her family and livestock. A slideshow played behind the musicians showing both historical and contemporary photos of the garden, Annie and her family.

The opening song, Remittance Man, was the highlight of the set. It was followed by several more songs about Willie Rae-Arthur, Annie's first husband who drove her to take her family to the wild in the first place with his persistent opium addiction and alcoholism. The peotry of Annie and Willie's story was brought into focus by Katrina's stunning voice. Although the sound was maybe too beautiful and clean to represent the harshness of pioneer life, Katrina really did give life to the spirit of Cougar Annie through her song.

After a short break the musicians returned for a final set, which was for me even more captivating than the last. With each song we learned another part of Annie's story and watched as her character took shape in front of us. Katrina began a song about rowing to Tofino a cappella, using the face of her banjo and her feet as percussion. As the song moved to discuss the impact of the introduction of moterboats to the area, the song picked up speed as well with the full band jumping in to support the growing energy.

Rainforest George introduced us to three of the George's in Annie life: Her father, her second husband (who shared their age in addition to their name) and her fourth husband, who ended up being driven away by Annie at gun point. The other George's in Annie's life, a son and a duck, haven't found their way into the song, yet.

The use of the photos to compliment the music was most effective for me during Do What You Have To. (Ironically, I noticed from the folder labels that the photos shown during this song were not those intended by the artist). The song told us about Annie's son Tommy, who was her only companion and help for years when children had fled the nest and husbands were dead or gone. Tommy, who suffered an injury which had him in a coma for some time, was compelled to stay on the farm under threat that leaving would see him end up in a mental institution. The words, "If I keep you in the garden, I won't lose another son" were overlaid with images of the beautiful flowers that are currently in the garden, a reminder that in spite of the harshness of pioneer life there was a beauty there that could hold someone for a while.

The set ended appropriately with a tribute to Annie's claim to fame: a wild toe-tapping number that takes us along with Annie as she shoots cougars by the dozens with her .33 and strings 'em up in The Skinning Tree. Katrina wielded her guitar like a loaded gun and even blew smoke off the barrel to finish off the night.

It was an incredible evening of storytelling, folklore and song. It just doesn't get any better than a small acoustic show where musicians pour their hearts out for you and invite you into the passion and energy of their work. And how often do you go to shows where the headlining musician personally bakes cookies and serves them with tea to the audience during the break?
- Words about Music - Jacqueline Ronson -Blogspot

The first time I met Katrina, she didn't seem to be the person I had pictured after listening to her album, 'Whirlpools'. She's a petite woman, which belies her strong, confident singing voice. Her singing style is professional (but notl to the point of impersonal) and unapologetic.
I had the privilege of checking out one of Katrina's performances at Steamers. She performed solo for the first few songs, just her and her acoustic guitar. The atmosphere moved from noisy to slightly subdued, and responded well to the intimate show. After a short performance, Katrina brought her band
on to liven things up. They were practiced, together, and seemed to have gotten used to each other's style's enough to be able to improvise a bit and enjoy the performance as much as the audience was. Most, if not all, of her songs drew directly on personal experience - more specifically, her family. She started off the show with a song for her mother, another for her grandmother, and to complete the package, one about herself. Katrina's ability to unabashedly sing about her frustration, pain, happiness, sorrow and admiration was something the listener can feel privileged to hear. Katrina and her band came through with an awesome, energetic show.


When did you begin making music?
I got my first guitar at the age of seven, but didn't really take to it. I wanted then to play the piano more. I sold the guitar in a garage sale around the age of nine. I started writing songs around the age of fourteen, and got my first piano when I was fifteen. I was really into singing - I did musical theater when I was in Fort MacMurray, playing Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and I was in Annie twice.

You have a very well-developed voice. Did you do any musical training, or has it progressed naturally?
I was in quite a few choirs in school and received a lot of my training through musical programs and choir instructors. When I was 16, I took jazz vocal training, along with opera technique training. It made me realize I had to change my outlook on singing.

It seems that your album acts as a progressive storyline as opposed to separate themes for each song. Was that intentional, or did it just fall together that way?
The running theme of the album is whirlpools, which is the idea that there are these invisible accumulations of life all around us. They're hard to notice, until you're enveloped in them.

Which do you think is the more important outlet for your music - a CD or a live performance?
That's a hard choice to make - I like doing both. I think playing coffee shops and little places is good, but it's better to record. That way, if someone likes my music, they can buy it and have it to play whenever they want, as opposed to having to track me down for performances.


You write your own songs, with the exception of a few. Is this the way you like to do things, or in other words, do you feel it's important to create the body of the music yourself?
It's just what I do - I'm a songwriter. It's just this nice present that I got one day and don't want to let go of. Creating music is a natural thing for me, and I feel like I would blow up if I didn't do it. It's like I go outside of myself while I'm writing a song, and it helps me balance my life. If I think up a chord structure, I'll keep it for when I come home angry or frustrated, and then I'll sit down and record something. Sometimes I think that maybe I have something to say that could benefit others, but mostly I just do it to stay balanced.

You seem to draw on personal experiences to write your songs, as many musicians do. How do you feel about being public with these experiences and memories?
Sometimes I'll keep a song to myself for that reason, but most of the time I just think about how we're all here, and everybody knows what it's like to go through all these human things. The ability to communicate is very human. It's nice to know that someone can listen to a song and realize that someone else is there, too. These things happen, like breathing. - Cityview Magazine 2001

Ingrid Paulsen
News Group staff

Katrina Kadoski spent many years with musical projects dancing in her head. She's played in Victoria, building off years of training performing in musicals and showcasing her voice, but until a sweet meeting that seemed a long time coming, Kadoski was destined to keep searching for her musical collaborators.
Kadoski met Velle Huscroft before any of the other band members were found to make Honeygirl. She had seen Huscroft sing and play fiddle and listed her as a potential partner to help move her music forward. Kadoski put together a package to try and entice Huscroft with her songs, but before Huscroft even had a chance to read the musical lines, coincidence spurred their friendship forward.
"My friend had literally just handed her the package and she was opening it when I saw her and went up to introduce myself," Kadoski recalls. The serendipitous timing convinced Huscroft and the two became fast friends taking off on a duo tour of Europe a few months later.
Kadoski was born in Fort McMurray Alberta where she won the Rotary Music Festival's Best Alberta vocalist at age nine. She moved to Victoria in 1991. Huscroft grew up in Creston and was fiddle champ there at 12-years-old. The two agreed they were looking for multi-instrumentalists to form their vision, but when they placed an ad it went unanswered. Things might have looked bleak, but proving the adage of right place at right time, they soon found Megan Boddy, Skye Dumond, Shelly Okepnak, each bringing a horde of instruments — guitar, fiddle bass, djembe, kit drums, piano and madolin — and song ideas.
"It doesn't feel like anyone is the sole creative source. We all participate and it is a different dynamic to feed off," explains Boddy who plays keyboards, among other instruments, for the group.
Boddy and Kadoski chat about what Honeygirl has become, noting for each of them by bringing together five women their own musical leanings have expanded.
"I never considered myself a solo singer," says Boddy. "Singing harmonies is all about listening, but singing solo is about your craft as a singer. (Honeygirl) is about being pushed to things you wouldn't normally do," she says.
"Honeygirl has helped you find your voice," says Kadoski, expecting Boddy's giggle in reply.
Boddy says she tended to play more alternative music before joining the band, while Kadoski was heading down the pop singer/songwriter route. But having such a large combination of instruments and backgrounds, Honeygirl found folk was the genre large enough to incorporate them all.
"Working as a group also helps to make you stop focusing on yourself and how you feel," says Boddy.
"Yeah, the whining singer/songwriter doesn't work anymore," adds Kadoski.
Honeygirl will play at Lucky Bar with opening act Jenny Allen (from Calgary) July 22 at 9 p.m. Cover is $5 at the door. For more information call 382 -LUCK
- Victoria News 2003

If a glance at singer-songwriter Katrina Kadoski's album cover reveals a face unmarked by the passage of pain and passion, if in lending your ears to her music you can still hear a trace of the toddler who was found by her mom making up little songs in the crib, if in perusing her lyrics you find childlike references to stars in eyes and afternoon skies, well, if these things lead you to conclude that Katrina has never been bereaved of light, that is a compliment to the fact that this young performer has her head screwed on right. Her gentle, airy music borrows tastes from the buffets of pop, country, and folk, and serves the mix at a coffee shop smack dab in the center of the highway, far away from the dark edges of the back roads she could have ended up on if she'd allowed herself to be spun that way by life's whirlpool.

"I figure positive thinking is better than worrying yourself into some kind of disease", the soft-spoken 22-year-old states with the confidence of someone who's test driven life both ways - being up and being down - and opted for the former as a matter of habit. "That's just the way I've chosen to keep myself happy and comfortable in my life, because I am all the time happy and comfortable as a general thing. There has been a lot of little things along the way, a lot of stuff happened in my mid-teens, that I feel I grew up at 14, and started focusing myself towards what I wanted to do, focusing myself towards the whole music thing."

At first, she doesn't volunteer what these little things were that helped her grow up, but when she reveals them, it turns out her version of little things, like her music, is slightly understated.
"My parents separated when I was twelve, there was a lot of struggling and poverty, and I went to live with my grandparents, and in a camper and in emergency housing. We moved 11 times one year." And just as you mentally concede that that's a tough road, but worse things could happen, she continues.
"There were a few other things. My brother died. My parents were hating each other. Then I had an older sister who was given up for adoption at birth who showed up one day. It was weird because I lost a brother and all of a sudden I had an older sister. It was profound."

Katrina used the turmoil as a lens, as something to help her focus and grow. Her independent CD, "Whirlpools", was released in November, and with the four other musicians who comprise her band, she has visions of touring North America and Europe, playing festivals, and finding distribution for her music. Even a gig in a coffee house where people don't clap or where they talk through her set becomes a positive experience for the singer.
"When I play a gig by myself it's like I'm more there for myself than my audience. If I sing a note well or play a chord beautifully, it's for me and my friends. It's kind of like a golf game, where you're always watching yourself to improve." - Fast Forward Magazine Mary-Lynn McEwen calgary Alberta